new comments

I am trying out the new commenting feature that Blogger provides. It should be available with this post. I'll try it out here for a bit.

comments

I'm thinking about switching from Haloscan commenting to the Blogger commenting features. As Blinger pointed out the other day, the Haloscan comment volume is limited. Another reason for switching is because, even though I have gotten a few comments, all of which I value, I don't get that many. Maybe now is the time to do it.

TOEIC Bridge class

Yesterday was my day for the Basic Skills class. I think I've blogged about it before, but I don't remember when. Anyway it is a series of ten classes that students can take. There are three subjects that they can choose from, English, Math, and Japanese. My class started off with ten students. We are down to three. Two of them will take the TOEIC Bridge, or the TOEIC test the next time it comes around, which will be at the beginning of July.

Yesterday we worked on the reading section of the practice test. After it was over I asked the students what they would like to focus on, they said that they need more of the listening section.

We'll do more, but I don't think test preparation is a replacement for language skills development, so I have to think of something that will serve both purposes.

Aljazeera.Net - Japan's secret epidemic

Aljazeera.Net - Japan's secret epidemic is about people who shut themselves off from the rest of the world. Something to think about in light of my previous post.

"Teach your kids well in your native tongue"

Daily Yomiuri On-Line suggests that parents stick to communicating with their kids in their native languages.

Communicate with your kids and make sure their language education opportunities are quality efforts.

The midway point

We are at midway point, and I had to give the my first-year class a wake up call this morning. We did a writing assignment, and products were pretty abysmal. Students in my classes tend to write lists of sentences rather than paragraphs. I have showed them paragraphs before, and they have even had another assignment with paragraphs. I think some of them forgot. There are also students who haven't worked out subject verb agreement, or how to work with other students and their teacher to check and make sure their work is as good as they can make it.

I told them that university is different from high school. I have a responsibility to them, their parents, the community in general, and to the university to make sure that students that leave my class at the end of the year can do English better than when they came in April. I have shown them how powerful a tool English, but if there are some people who wish to pass up the opportunity, I told them that they are free to make that choice, but come July, I have to make a mark on a sheet with my name on it that says that they get university credit for English. I will not pass people who have not met the mark.

Makes me want to scream sometimes. I can see how valuable language ability is to the society, and how that could translate into money in their pockets. A very few will take make the best of the opportunity. Maybe that's why it is such a great opportunity.

clean up

It is way hot and humid. It was clean up day in our neighborhood today. The neighborhood group went around cleaning up garbage. I went with a group cleaning up big stuff, tires, appliances that people have dumped. Lots of shtuff around that people decide they can get rid of easy because it's the country. The problem is that, even though it is the country, it is our home. Great group.