sendaiben

Goodbye blogspot

2010-10-22T17:47:00.000+09:00

After many years together, I am leaving blogspot. I have set up house with WordPress at sendaiben.org, and we hope to be very happy together. Please come and see us!

Student self-introductions

2010-10-05T23:21:00.000+09:00

I've been teaching in Japan for more than ten years now, so I have become very sensitive towards my students' feelings. I try not to put them on the spot or under pressure to speak spontaneously, at least until they have had a chance to get used to me and the class. However, last month I had the chance to visit leading universities in Korea and Hong Kong, and see what they were doing in English

Tohoku ETJ Expo

2010-10-04T11:08:00.001+09:00

The Tohoku ETJ Expo was held yesterday in Sendai. We had just under 100 people come out to see 19 workshops and presentations. It was great to see and talk to everyone, and thanks are due to the team that put it together: committee members of Sendai ETJ and Sendai JALT chapters. This was just the first of the ETJ Expos, so if you have the chance to see one in your area please check it out: http

Amazon Kindle 3

2010-10-01T22:40:00.002+09:00

About two years ago, I couldn't understand how people would want to read e-books. I had actually made it through a couple on my computer, but it was slow and annoying. My eyes hurt from the screen, my neck hurt from the angle I was holding my head at to read the screen, and my fingers hurt from scrolling down. Give me a nice paperback any day. Then last year I got an iPhone, and more

I love Japan

2010-09-18T13:02:00.002+09:00

So far during my ten years in Japan I have tended to focus on things that annoy me about my life here. Some of them are universal, and some more specific to Japan or Sendai. I'm sure everyone has their own list. However, recently I have found myself appreciating my life here. I really do feel at home, and enjoy almost everything I do. Keeping that in mind makes the small annoying things much

Google translate

2010-09-01T10:50:00.002+09:00

This video explains how Google translate works. Something for all the corpus linguists out there?

Conference season

2010-09-01T02:03:00.000+09:00

I just received the following list of conferences from a JALT newsletter: PAC 2010 / Korea Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (KOTESOL) October 16-17, 2010 Seoul, South Koreahttp://www.kotesol.org/ English Teaching Association of the Republic of China (ETA-ROC) November 12-14, 2010 Taipei, Taiwanhttp://www.eta.org.tw/en/index.html Thailand TESOL (ThaiTESOL)January 21-22

Japanese in the English classroom

2010-08-29T17:50:00.001+09:00

I am going to be doing a presentation at the ETJ Tohoku Expo with Steve Williams about using Japanese in the English classroom (use of L1 in L2 classes). This seems to be a topic where the research (and publications) seem to be completely out of whack with actual practice. Many ALTs and eikaiwa teachers have restrictions on how much Japanese they are allowed to use in the classroom, and there

Twitter

2010-08-25T00:04:00.000+09:00

I have finally bitten the bullet and activated my Twitter account (I bagged the name last year but hadn't started using it). I am not convinced it is going to be anything but a waste of time, but I will give it a shot ;) I am @sendaiben by the way.

Hiroshima

2010-08-22T20:15:00.001+09:00

I just spent a week in Hiroshima on a one-week residential course for my MA. I am doing the distance Birmingham MA TEFL, and the course is an optional part of it. Aside from the actual content of the sessions, I was struck by how much I got out of spending time with the tutors and the other students. Being able to bounce ideas off people, both in and outside of class, was invigorating. It

What is more important, the teacher or the system?

2010-03-21T09:33:00.001+09:00

I have spent the last six years helping to set up, run, and teach at a small private language school. Most of my energy has been spent on trying to find the right materials, the right activities, and the right curriculum to best help my students. However, recently there have been a lot of articles and news stories about how the most important factor in whether children learn is not the

Japanese learning tools online

2010-03-18T10:19:00.001+09:00

Learning Japanese can be frustrating, mainly because the writing system makes it difficult to read for language acquisition. Here are my top five online learning resources. A few minutes of these every day will really help. 1. smart.fm Very slick site with reading, listening, example sentences, and some typing. It's basically an online SRS (spaced repetition system) that someone else has made

Google instant translation of paper text

2010-02-18T12:36:00.003+09:00

This is just a prototype now, but I reckon we'll see fully functional apps for iphone and android within the year. Amazing stuff. Google Translate Blog Basically you take a photo of some text with your mobile phone, then it gets uploaded to the web and translated almost instantly. Good for menus, signs, instructions, etc.

2010

2010-02-17T16:59:00.006+09:00

How do you say this year? Is it two thousand and ten or twenty ten? I was asked by a student, and given that I had been thinking about this topic, gave them more of an answer than they were probably looking for. Personally I prefer twenty ten, because: 1. It's shorter and easier to say. 2. It is more consistent (like nineteen seventy). Both are currently valid, and there are

Cambridge YLE Exams

2009-09-14T00:29:00.000+09:00

Just got back from a day of training towards becoming a Cambridge Young Learners of English interview examiner. Surprisingly, it was both interesting and fun. I met some good people, learned a lot, and got quite excited about the exams and the Council of Europe Framework of Reference for foreign languages. Jim George (Luna International) is in charge of running the YLE tests in Japan. He

The Grammar Lab, by Kenna Bourke (OUP)

2009-09-10T13:01:00.001+09:00

The Grammar Lab, by Kenna Bourke, published by Oxford University Press, is a grammar practice book aimed at children aged 9-12, with interesting content and exercises, appealing characters, and stunning illustrations and presentation. It consists of three books written completely in English, covering basic grammar points: how to use nouns, verbs, prepositions, etc. I have been using this series

Variable fees: a crazy idea?

2009-09-09T18:51:00.007+09:00

I had a wild thought last night as I headed home last night at 23:30 and thought I would throw it out there for consideration... Has anyone tried/thought about charging variable fees based on how 'good' students are? (I'm thinking about kids here). For example, you would have a standard monthly fee of, say, 8000 yen. If a student participates actively in class, does all homework, and gets into

Materials development

2009-08-21T10:20:00.002+09:00

This is a new area for me, but I have four projects I am starting up to develop teaching materials, all of them addressing needs my students have that I haven't been able to meet by buying commercially available publications. I've been lucky enough to find partners to work with for some of them, and I think that will help a lot.However, I don't have any experience of creating or publishing. Any

Summer camp

2009-08-19T19:55:00.000+09:00

We did our first day summer camp with our students last year. We joined a camp run by another school, and went off to a nearby island with them to play on the beach, have a barbecue, and do lots of small English games.We learned a lot from the experience, not least that it is not particularly difficult to organise 'English' events. I liked a lot of what they did (putting students in mixed-age

Kanji Kentei, the best Japanese test?

2009-08-18T12:00:00.004+09:00

The 漢字検定 (kanji kentei), or Japanese Character Proficiency Test, is in my opinion one of the best tests for non-native residents of Japan who want to improve their whole language skills.Given that the test is designed for native speakers, and focuses on reading and writing Japanese characters, what basis could I have for making that statement?I am not just being controversial for the sake of it,

Pratham Books (low cost readers from India)

2009-08-15T14:00:00.003+09:00

I recently ordered the full range of English language readers from Pratham Books in India to review them for our school. They are an NPO that focuses on literacy in India, and aim to provide low-cost, attractive materials for children. Benefits include very cheap books and the knowledge that by purchasing their materials you are supporting their charitable activities.Pratham Books currently

SRA Reading Labs

2009-08-13T19:35:00.007+09:00

I recently had the opportunity to try out an SRA Reading Lab for a couple of weeks (thank you, David from McGraw-Hill in Tokyo) and was very impressed with the material.We tried Reading Lab 1a (there are three levels, as well as a developmental level below level one) with elementary, junior high school, senior high school, and adult students.The kit consists of a teacher's manual, a student

Forcing students to learn

2009-08-12T11:48:00.000+09:00

I often hear teachers say 'I can't force the students to learn, all I can do is help them on their way', and in many ways I agree with this sentiment.However, as a learner of Japanese and, as of April this year, the piano, I disagree. I want my teachers to 'force' me, to establish expectations of what I should be doing between classes, and check to see that I am actually doing it.If no-one is

Top Five Free Ways to Learn Japanese Online

2009-08-11T09:28:00.006+09:00

I know a lot of people who despite living in Japan, just don't get the exposure to comprehensible input that they would need in order to really make significant progress.This is a list of five free ways you can get started on increasing your input, and the best thing is that you don't even have to be in Japan to use them.1. rikai.com (or rikaichan plugin for Firefox)Rikai is a website or app that

Free language courses from FSI

2009-08-10T11:18:00.004+09:00

The US Foreign Services Institute has a whole bunch of language courses on their website. From Amharic to Yoruba (no Japanese unfortunately, but they do have Thai and Mandarin) you can find coursebooks and audio downloads. The courses are a bit dated, but they seem thoroughly put together and you can't beat the price.Thanks to inZania for the tip, and for a cool iPhone flashcard app that I am