Friday 8 June 2012

Japanese Folk Tale : Buying Mittens

Hi!  This is a teaching material of reading English that I made by myself in our class.


https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/2012.06.06%20%20Buying%20Mittens.docx?w=63689533


When I made this, I quoted a famous Japanese folk tale, "Buying Mittens" (手袋を買いに)

It's my great preasure if you try to read, and comment your review for me!


Sunday 20 May 2012

Impressive Article about Japanese Baseball Player


Hello!

In the other day, I encountered one impressive article about baseball on the Internet.
Today, I’d like to write about that.


First, do you know him?






If you like baseball and a fan of Softbank Hawks, you absolutely know him.

His name is Munenori Kawasaki, one of the most famous and the best baseball player Japan has produced. He really follows Ichiro, you know, and in this spring, he entered the same baseball team in America, “Seattle Mariners.”

But many Japanese baseball fans didn’t think that he could play with Ichiro, honestly included me, because the situation was too strict for him to play in a major league. It’s true that he is a great baseball player in Japan, but there are too many other great players in America.

 Here, I’ll quote the article. It is a comment by one big fan of Mariners. It’s very very long, so if you don’t have enough time to read in English, I recommend you to see here. I also write about this in Japanese so you can see translation here.     http://pyaian07.blogspot.co.uk/







It’s not often that a player goes from unknown to “I’ll take any contact” to Spring Training to not really being anything more than he was advertised offensively to hero and fan favourite but Munenori Kawasaki has done just that.

A relationship that started out as “Okay, let’s give it a go because you’re basically giving it away” has gone to “Dude, we love you. We really, really love you. ”

And it’s not like Kawasaki is anything special as a baseball player. Through 15 games and 32 plate appearances, he is hitting .214/.313./.214,.221 wOBA, 38 wRC+, .000 ISO and -0.3 fWAR.

Kawasaki is the 25th man on this roster. He’s the backup to a SS hitting .147 and yet nobody would question that he is the backup because Brendan Ryan is still a great defensive shortst op and Kawasaki is not a great hitter.

Yet, her I sit thinking about Mariners baseball and here I sit mostly thinking about Munenori Kawasaki because he’s the kind of player that I think every team would be lucky to have.

What started as an unknown and as nothing more than a Japanese name that most of us had never heard of before has turned into an opportunity to relish the moments we have watching a player for the Mariners that is like a projection of ourselves, the fans, if we had the chance to play for the Mariners.

We heard about him like that; he’s a gritty guy, a moodmaker, he’s fast, he has great range on defense, not a fantastic arm though, and he can steal bases. He wouldn’t cost a lot and the Mariners are the only team he wants to go.

Indeed, he is a “moodmaker” and that mood is Goooood.

As his playing in Spring Training, we are reminded of this player and that the light-hitting shortstop that trains with and loves Ichiro is now in Seattle.

Through slapping singles in Spring Training to his sparse but memorable appearances throughout the season, the love of Kawasaki has grown from ”We don’t know what you are but if you play good defense you can have a spot, I guess” to “Holy sit, you’re the best. Your value to a team and to Earth cannot be quantified with mere numbers. There ia no sabermetric stat for adorable-ness.

As children, we see Henry Rowengartner go from regular kid to major leaguepitcher and it made us laugh, smile, and think “WOW! WHAT WOULD THAT BE LIKE IT WOULD BE SO COOL, DUDE!”

And now as an adult I see Kawasaki and I get those same feelings.

He reminds me of childhood.

He reminds me of innocence.

He reminds me of what it was like to love baseball simply because you loved baseball.

Because it was about spending time with your friends and that’s all he wants todo: spend time with his friends.

That's why Kawasaki was willing to come to Seattle (and only Seattle) because he wanted to be with his friend. He wanted to play baseball. He wants to get better and he wants to win, but more than anything he wants to have fun and just be with his friends.

During an era where baseball has become more of a numbers game than anything else, Kawasaki reminds us what it was like to simply enjoy the moments we have and the moments that we can share together. That's why I appreciate him, that's why I really like this guy.


Thanks for that Munenori. We like you too!







That's all to quote.

How did you feel by reading this?

I think that we can learn a lot of something important from this article.




Today's post is all.   See you next...


Friday 18 May 2012

My Teaching Experiences

Hello!
Today, I'd like to wite about my teaching experiences in junior high school.

Since I began to study in England,
I go to local school and help teaching in Japanese classes in every Thursday.
There are only girls who are 12~15 years old.
Teaching Japanese there is far more difficult than I had thought.

For example, I was confused when students asked me that
"What is the difference between 『は』 and 『わ』? They are same sounds."
For me, it is difficult to find out what students say in English.
In addition, I also have to answer thier questions like that.
This is quite natiral for students and teachers, but really difficult for me.
Because of my lack of teaching skills,
some of students ignored me last Thrusday...  I was really disappointed then...

But yesterday, I could teach Japanese better than last Thursday
and I could also communicate well with my students.
I knew that it is a gratifying thing for teachers to see students studying actively.

Today's blog is all.     See you next...

Wednesday 16 May 2012

Presentation about Oscar Wilde

This is my first post in this blog!
I'll try hard to continue to write blogs.
And I hope my friends see my blog in thier free time.

Anyway, yesterday, we HTT had to give a prsentation about famous authers in the Penny's class.
We had only about one hour to prepare fot it...
so we were really upset, but we managed to talk about famous authors successfully.

I was in charge of telling about Oscar Wilde.
He was Irish writer and poet, and one of the most popular playwrights in the early 1890s.
He had great talents of writing, but the scandal of homosexual love had broken.
He was cast in prison and after that he led a sad life in the latter part of his life...
It is said that his best work is "Lord Arthur savile's Crime and Other Stories," but I don't know it.
I think "The Happy Prince and Other Stories" is more popular among Japanese people.
If you're interseted in my telling, please see my presentation from here.↓
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46164614/Oscar%20Wilde.pptx

I'm always surprised by my classmates because they can speak ad-lib well.
I have a big problem with improvisation because I'm too shy to speak well, so I really envy them.
But I think that skills of speaking is also a important part of teaching,
so I'd like to be great speaker like them!

Today's blog is all.      See you next...