Ted:A comparison of Akita and Iwate High School Entrance Examinations
Ted gave a progress report on his comparative research. One interesting finding is that the Akita high school entrance exam has more free response questions than Iwate.
Question: Why did you choose Akita prefecture?
Answer: They are famous for having a high academic ability?
Question: Iwate has a speaking test 10 years ago and stopped it. Will this be part of your analysis?
Answer: As of right now, no.
Eiki: A Sociolinguistic Study on Airports’ Guideboards in UK and Japan
Eiki will investigate why Haneda is multilingual but Heathrow is only in English. He thinks that the reason is likely because the majority of people going to England speak English, the English have pride in their language, the majority of people going to Japan do not speak Japanese, and Japanese do not have pride as much pride in Japanese.
Question: (From Superman)
Question: Why did you decide to limit your analysis between Heathrow and Japan when you had also been to Spain?
Answer: There was more information about Heathrow ability.
Question: How will you look at these signs from a sociolinguistic perspective?
Answer: I am going to look at the meaning of the signs from a historical and cultural perspective.
Question: How will you investigate the veracity of your hypotheses?
Answer: By reading books about the history and culture of the countries.
Emo: A Study about Using English Pictures Books with Elementary School Children
She said that she has always been interested in stories and her parents used to read stories to her. She discussed five reasons for using picture books. Then she will research how Eric Carle’s work can used with young children’s learning English.
Question: What age learners can picture books be used with?
Question: Are you designing a lesson plan or actually doing a lesson?
Question: What is the difference between a picture book class and a kokugo class?
Ao-chan: A Study about Education for International Understanding in English Classes in Japan
She argues that we JHS english is being encouraged to do international understanding education but few understand the concept. So she will try to reveal the concept. She analyzed the International Understanding themes in Sunshine, New Horizon, and New Crown.
Question: What are you going to do with the results?
Answer: I will make a suggestion about how the themes are being portrayed.
Question: What is the difference between internationalization and globalization?
Answer: I think globalization is included in internationalization because globalization refers to the economy while internationalization refers to humans and human migration.
Comment: You should think of the relationship between internationalization and English.
Comment: Your categories should show what the textbook actually does rather than what you think it should do.
Superman: Chants in Elementary School
First, he talked about the changes in elementary school English education and says that there are a shortage of interesting activities to encourage language learning. He introduces chants as such a means. His research questions are “How do elementary school teachers do chants?” and “What should teachers do to motivate children by chants?”
Question: Please demonstrate your chants because I cannot understand with just a description.
Question: Please explain your methodology in more detail.
Bruno: The effective ways of using songs with English language learners
He is interested in music because of his experience at Fuzoku JHS and his class with Tim Murphey. He did a lesson using songs at the Iwate School of Nursing. He summarized the results of the class for us.
Question: Why do you think using music is effective
Answer: Bruno gives three reasons
Question: Please explain your result that students don’t listen to foreign music but they like it.
Answer: It means that they listen to foreign music a little because they are exposed to it so much.