Archive for the 'Teaching' Category

Marking,

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Marking! Marking!

markingmarkingmarking…

感動

I popped into work today to get my lessons ready for next week and found a little present on my desk. The girls of 3:4 had given me a goodbye present; a T-shirt covered in personal messages, “thank you”s and even a couple of offers of marriage (!) I was quite touched. What a lovely class.

Sayonara! Sayonara! Sayonara!

Wednesday I had my last classes with 3:4 and 3:2 and so naturally took some pictures of which you can see below. (下の写真をクリックしたらもっと大きく見えるよ!)

BubbleShare: Share photos - Delicious Christmas Recipes.

In the evening I met up with Chris Cotter in Umeda. Chris was over in Kansai on business and so we spent a very pleasant evening chatting and imbibing and covering various topics from bookish (The Best American Short Stories), to nerdish (the five best scenes from Doctor Who). And Chris told me that I look especially Irish when I’ve just come out of the Gents. So that was nice.

Finally, here’s a link to a twenty minute animation called The Story of Stuff. It’s very good, but to save me the bother of explaining it to you, here’s a synopsis from the web-page.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

A Couple of Amusing Things

Here I am sitting at home on a Friday night prepping prepping prepping. This is my life. The other day a couple of the students in my very most favoritest class were asking me the meaning of various English expressions current in Japanese pop songs. They would write them down and then hold them up to me with a questioning look. Finally, one girl held up a piece of paper saying “Have you fun day” or something garbled like that. Finally I realised she wasn’t asking about a song lyric but asking me if I’d done anything fun lately. And do you know… I couldn’t think of a damn thing. (Sigh)

Here’s a couple of things that made me smile today though.

First a fine collection of chat-up lines for geeks: I don’t have a library card, but do you mind if I check you out? I reckon I’d have a hard time translating those into Japanese though…

And I don’t know about you but I have long pondered on this question: if a world class champion race-walker was suddenly in immediate life-threatening danger (say from a bunch of crazed sword wielding samurai for example) would he continue walking quickly to escape or would he run like the clappers? The answer my friends is merely a click away: LINK

3年3組へ~

間違った!今日の授業は最後じゃない!まだ12月12日に授業があるんだって・・・ その時クリスマスの曲とゲームを楽しみに!

マイケル

(下の写真をクリックしたらもっと大きく見える)

I took this picture of my 3rd year writing class today while under the impression it was our final lesson… said my goodbyes etc.. only to learn we have one more lesson after the tests. A little bit embarrassing but never mind. They are a nice class.

Myanmar needs us

Burma Sunflower

Tuesday is generally the challenging day of the week; i.e. the day on which I teach my most immature and socially backward students. Recently, the class which used to be worst has improved a lot and a class which used to be fine has gotten pretty bad. But today they surprised me by switching back to their original roles and so my last class today got gold medals for sheer-pain-in-the-arseness. To be plain: today was a tiring day and I feel the need for a beer. However, I get home and I get this message from avaaz:

Dear Avaaz members in Asia,

Leaders at the East Asia Summit this Wednesday have the power to change Myanmar’s course - let’s send them a flood of messages from all around Asia, calling for real action now:

Send Your Message
Between them, our governments hold most of the leverage over the military dictatorship in Myanmar. Now Asian leaders are coming together at the East Asia Summit in Singapore this Wednesday 21st November.

We have less than 36 hours to act. This expanded meeting at the end of the ASEAN summit is vital. After one-on-one briefings from United Nations envoy Ibrahim Gambari, Asia’s key leaders will decide what — if anything — they will do to help progress in Myanmar/Burma. Let’s send a wave of messages from around Asia: these leaders need to offer practical support to the UN effort, and take real steps to press the Myanmar junta into freeing the prisoners and entering into real dialogue. Click below to send your own message to Asian leaders right now – you can personalise the wording, or just fill out your details and hit send (then tell your friends!):

http://www.avaaz.org/en/myanmar_needs_asia/1.php

Allowed to meet with the regime and her own party colleagues for the first time in years, democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi says she’s ready to engage in dialogue if it is time-bound and meaningful. But despite the hope, thousands are still in jail after September’s protests, with monk leader U Gambiri and labour activist Su Su Nway among the latest to be imprisoned.

The Myanmar junta has tried such tricks before – pretending to engage in talks while the world’s eyes are on them, then backing out later. Just this week, it has pressed Singapore to stop the UN’s Gambari from addressing the East Asia Summit directly.

China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand are joining Myanmar’s ASEAN neighbours at the East Asia Summit. Coordinated Asian pressure could decide whether dialogue in Myanmar will be genuine, or just another con-trick. These leaders between them hold huge influence over the military and its supporters, through a web of military, financial, diplomatic, energy and economic relationships. Until Myanmar is on a better road, “business as usual” cannot continue with this regime. So let’s ask our Asian leaders to pledge action for a real transition this Wednesday. Remember, we only have 36 hours - so click here to send your own message, then send the link to friends and family and ask them to do the same:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/myanmar_needs_asia/1.php

Avaaz members have already targeted key Myanmar allies like China and Singapore. Singapore has refused to rule out UN sanctions, and key junta allies have found their Singaporean bank accounts under pressure. China may be starting to move, albeit too slowly thus far. Much more is needed.

Driven off the streets for now, the people of Myanmar/Burma depend on us to make their voices heard. We must not let them down.

With hope and determination,

Paul, Ricken, Graziela, Iain, Galit, Pascal and the whole Avaaz team

And after reading that I think about Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest since God knows when and still giving out the good word with unflagging good grace and those monks baring their heads to military truncheons for the sake of what they believe and an entire nation carrying an enormous weight of oppression, and I think: my life’s a breeze really eh? The least I can do is click on that link and spend (literally) one minute filling out my details to send my own message… LINK

What Teachers Make

Just a little something to challenge myself with. And you might like it too. Who knows?

Poem by Taylor Mali.

Oim ‘ere to kill your monsta!

Things that have happened lately that I have neglected to blog about… Hmmm. Let’s see… It got colder…

Seriously, I’ve watched “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” 13 times with my students (a palpable hit!) and have only 3 viewings to go…

Amusingly, I was chased down the street by a policeman last Tuesday morning (yes - CHASED!) and questioned as to the ownership of my bicycle AGAIN (that’s about 12 times since September). They like to claim it’s simply because I have “the wrong type of lock” but I think the fact I am white and have a big nose has something to do with it too. I think they think “Oh Jimminy! It’s a foreigner! He’s bound to be up to no good!” and then come galloping along in their excitement only to be met by my scowling face asking them “What’s your name and the name of your police station?” as I whip out my notebook and take down their details. Table-turning see. Role-reversal. Yeah. (Doesn’t work though).

Foolishly, I woke up late for my job at the clinic this Saturday (AGAIN!), jumped in a taxi and mailed K___-san to say I would be late. She then immediately replied, pointing out it was a national holiday and I had the day off anyway. So that felt a bit silly.

Nepotistically, I’ve put a link up in the blog-roll to Chris Cotter’s “Heads Up English!” - an English teaching resource site that looks pretty snappy.

Sadly, Luka’s bar Pagode is closing down on Saturday and you can read about that and about the final live music performance this Friday (Nov. 9th) and about a possible Pagode resurrection up in the mountains up on the sister-blog at Deep Kyoto.

Regrettably, tonight I managed to wind-up one of my (adult) students by being just plain rude. Thing is, I’m not naturally the most patient person (bad trait in a teacher I know) and he is one of my more mind-bogglingly obtuse students. He has a habit of sinking into his own little world, and staring at the page or the ceiling whilst muttering to himself in Japanese and holding up the class for twenty to thirty minutes at a time. After ten minutes of him doing this while his partner tried to get him to respond with endless unanswered questions I decided to intervene and spur him on a bit. Which was the right thing to do. But I was less than diplomatic in doing so. And I have to be dimplomatic. Because he is a customer. And for better or for worse, for the time being, that’s my job. Sigh. Oh well, I shall just try to be nicer next time and hope he forgives me…

And finally… to explain tonight’s title. There’s an amusing post by Neil Gaiman up on his website today on a press junket for the new Beowulf movie. He makes brief mention of two of the stars of the movie; Angelina Jolie (turns out - she’s a human being!) and Ray Winstone, who, quite delightfully, is very much Ray Winstone. And I’m not going to give you a link to that you lazy gits - just type in “Neil” on google and be totally awe-struck by the fact that he is the most popular Neil in the entire google-verse.

And there I was not blogging for the last couple of weeks because I thought I had nothing to blog about.

OK Girls - Now You Are Famous…

There’s no particular reason for this picture really. Just my students wanted their picture taken and then after I took it and said “Do you want to be on my blog?” - they said yes to that too. As you can see these are friendly students. My favorite kind.

Here’s another video of 番屋 doing what they do.

Today…

Today was a pleasant and sleepy day. The sky was a deep and sleepy cloudless blue. My students were sleepy but friendly. I got one test (sleepily) written and out of the way, and only have one left to go. And my Peanuts DVD (”It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!”) is arriving tomorrow morning; a rare treat for the first years after the tests are over. I couldn’t think of a better way to teach them about Halloween traditions than that fine Halloween tradition - watching Peanuts! Well, hopefully it will keep them awake anyway…

Friend and artist Yui Katoh has a blog up. It’s been up for a little while now but I completely forgot to blog it. I have been remiss and now I make amends. Go to her blog, take a look at her pictures and then encourage her (with comments) to post some more because they are MARVELOUS: Yui Katoh.

Rik Abel has started podcasting and swears he will make a regular habit of it. Do we believe him? Who can tell? Here’s what he has to say:

Although I love techno music I have never tried my hand at creating my own mixes, and realistically, I probably never will. Luckily, I have lots of talented DJ type friends who can do that kind of thing for me. So this is the first in a fairly regular series of podcasts where I will be piggybacking on the talent of these friends in order to bask in their reflected glory, and hopefully expose them to a wider audience. Because they really are very good, all of them. As I’m sure you will agree once you check out their mixes…

Read more, and more importantly, listen, here: Rik Abel.

There is a list of up-and-coming events in Kyoto that may be of interest to someone up here: Up-and-coming.

And then there is this, which if you haven’t seen it is… well, it’s got bunnies in it. What more can you possibly need to know? Bravia Bunnies.

I’m sleepy. Goodnight!