4/11 and 4/18 Zemi

Interests

James

• Student interaction in communicative activities
•  Balance between knowledge and skills

Veronica

• Interested in classroom discourse: what kind of teacher talk can promote communicative learning activity?

Hiyori

• The atmosphere of the classroom. Japanese students tend to be quiet in the class but this is not conducive to learning English.
• Interested in the balance between communicative activities and activities focusing on language.

Momo

• She read the report on modules. She is interested in module learning. What is the most effective activity for students? She wants to research various activities. She wants to find features of activities and make a typology.
  • Discuss the goals of module learning
  • Create a typology of different activities that can be used to accomplish these goals.
  • Trial the activities.

Nao-chan

• Second language acquisition and English education in elementary school. Students who start English before 12 get higher scores on listening tests but there is no advantage on grammar tests.
• He thinks in elementary school we should teach pronunciation and listening to music.
  • Background literature and teaching pronunciation to Young Learners.
  • How do other countries teach pronunciation? (?)
  • Analyzing pronunciation instruction in We Can! or Let’s try!
  • Make a proposal for improving pronunciation instruction.

Chi-chan

• Interactive learning; which factors influence students to conduct interactive learning. Monkasho wants students to act interactively and autonomously.
• Hypothesis: Teachers can conduct deep learning and student-centered writing. Promoting interactive learning among students and among students and teachers is difficult.
• Interactive = talkative
• Questions can help students think deeply as well as teachers’ interaction with the activity.
• An example of thinking deeply is logical thinking.
• Teachers need to give students steps for thinking by themselves.
• Deep thinking: Thinking about solving societal problems, thinking about the reasons behind issues.
• Find definitions for deep thinking/ interactive learning.
• One more topic: When do English language students change their goal? When do students realize they have to get better? When do students give up? What is the trigger?
  • Interview research.
    • How old were you when you first started studying English?
    • Tell me about Junior High School English.
      • What were the classes like?
      • What were the teachers like?
      • What was your attitude toward English?
      • Did you have any goals concerning learning English? If so, what were they?
• Korean Drama

Seika

• What kind stress do non-Japanese people experience in Japan.
• Non-Japanese people working in convenience stores.
• Works in an Izakaya and Korean people often come.
• What is the most stressful aspect of living in Japan.
  • Korean: no spicy food.
• Prejudice
  • against non-Japanese
• Language
• What should Japanese people do?

Big dates

• May 10: Mizusawa HS
• May 28 – June 2: Thai teachers
• June 1: Fuzoku JHS Open School Research Conference
• June 3 – June 11
• 7/8 – Saitama
• 7/21 – 22: Iwate
• Aug – Sep: Saitama
• September: Saitama Grad School
• end of Aug to Oct: Iwate

Birthdays

• Chichan: 4/8
• Inaba: 4/18
• Seika: July 26
• Veronica: August 18
• Nao-chan: November 2
• James: November 29
• Hiyori: December 26
• Momo: March 9