I Met Hans Eek

Nov. 14
During my writing class, I had an inspiration that I should teach my students how to be a more autonomous learner. After the mid-term test, I will teach them strategies and make them more autonomous.

Nov. 12
Attended the church committee meeting.

Nov. 11
It was a big day. I met Hans Eek, a Swedish architect who won a prize in the Aich World Expo, and worked as an interpreter for him in the International Science Forum in Akita Prefectural University. He talked about houses without heating. By building houses that are well-insulated, we can reduce the consumption of oil. I was really impressed.

Halloween Activity and Poster Project

Poster project
Oct.31
In the writing class, I used an activity that includes the cultural information about Halloween. I posted a piece of paper on the wall outside of the classroom. On that paper, I wrote questions like, “When is Halloween?” Each of the students from each group went out of the classroom to look at, memorize, and come back. This was a good warm up activity.

Nov. 1
In the integrated skills class, students worked on a poster presentation project. It was two weeks ago that I handed out essays that was collected from Time magazine and National Geographic magazine. (This means they are authentic English and a bit difficult for the students.) Today was the second day since each group started discussing about writing a poster. Fastest groups started writing on a big piece of paper, but most groups were still doing discussion. I thought they could finish writing a poster within one class hour. But all of them were still discussing the idea of what to write about. The lesson I learned from this experience is that it takes a lot of time for students to finish their work.