８・６

ご無沙汰しております。
本当にお久しぶりの投稿となります。
今回は日本語だけで。。。宜しくです。

夏休みまっただ中。後一ヶ月。授業の準備に向かう毎日。
今日は８月６日。
６９年前の今日、広島に原爆が投下された。
戦争を知らない私はただただ、もう６９年もたったのね。。まだ６９年なのね。。
日本のその後の復興は計り知れない速度で進んだ。と、だいぶ「人ごと」。
でも、この記事に感銘を受けました。読んでみてください。

http://www.huffingtonpost.jp/2014/08/06/chugoku-shimbun_n_5653384.html

【原爆の日】113人の社員を失った中国新聞のテレビ欄に胸が熱くなる

私も使命感をもって生きよう。
たった三日後に。。。１１３人の親しき仲間が、同僚が、亡くなったというのに。
使命感により、それによる責任感により　投下後たった３日で新聞を発行した。
彼らは　広島の人々の安否のため、混乱を解くため、平和のために立ち上がった。
彼らは亡くなった方々のためにも生きた。

もし、この地域で災害・被害があったとしたら、
私は教師として未来の若者を選びとり、教育を選ぶであろうか。

選び取る者になりたいと思う。

では、ここで、教師とは何なのか、何を重きとすべきなのか。。。
その答えは成績ではなく、学問でも無いはずだ。
「子供達・若者」は漠然としすぎている。「育成」も違う。

「生きる」と言う事なのではないでしょうか。
それは、教養、応用力、会話力、質問力。。。。。感性、道徳
「生きる」　とは、「成長し続ける」「学び続ける」「正義をもとめる」「愛し続ける」ことなのではないでしょうか。では、教師はその「生きる」ことを意識的に「選び」続けていくことの出来る「未来人」を育成し続ける事が使命なのではないでしょうか。
［未来人：人生に必要なツールを自らみいだす（探し・蓄える）力を養い、自己形成ができ、自画像の認識があり、他者と自分との立ち居値の理解がある人］

この世のほとんどが　「死んでいる」といっても過言ではない今日このごろ、
「命」に目を向け、"death"から"life"を選びとるニーズがありますよね
ただ「生きながらえる」のではなく
「生きる」んです。

だから、なおの事、私は「生き続ける」ことを選びとり
使命感をもって　未来人とむきあっていきたい


平和に感謝

Explaining Japanese...

We are now officially back to school.
It's funny after nine years of teaching, I still find myself antsy on the first day of school.
I can never get use to the first day of school.
But, I am fully excited to develop and endure new relationships with my current students.

So, to make my life much easier, to get better attention, and to make class time fun,
I decided to utilize as many you tube videos in class.
There are TONS of videos that we can all use in our classes.

I'm starting with this one.

Title:
"Explanation of all the Japanese Alphabets"
By: edufirejapanese

He seems like a young student but He does know what he is talking about. I'm sure he's a Japanese language learner himself and he does a great job explaining the nuts and bolts of the Japanese writing/language system.

One thing that bothers me is his description of Katakana characters.
He believes Katakana characters have become more widely use in the recent generation.
Katakana characters have been in use since Heian period by buddhist monks. It was utilized thoroughly for Telegraphs and business correspondences through Meiji and parts of Showa period.
They are still in use now to transcribe foreign language words and to label animals, plants, scientific terminology and onomatopoeias. (Katakana characters maybe less in use now than earlier generation..)We do all need to stress to our students that Katakana characters are still a necessity in learning Japanese especially if they are interested in living in Japan.

I'm sure we can pause the video and clarify that point!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katakana
Katakana was developed in the early Heian Period (AD 794 to 1185) by Buddhist monks from parts of man'yōgana characters as a form of shorthand. For example, ka カ comes from the left side of ka 加 "increase". The adjacent table shows the origins of each katakana: the red markings of the original Chinese character eventually became each corresponding symbol.^[9]


I'll be introducing more videos that I'm using in class! 

Katakana Project #1

In my last eight plus years of teaching Japanese, I think...teaching Hiragana and Katakana is my biggest challenge. I've tried using pictures, songs, having students write them out 50 times each, I have tried a lot of things..... lol At my previous school where half the the students were accustomed to Japanese, it was much easier but now at "A" high school where there are only 3 Japanese students ( I don't even know if they speak the language) on campus and much of the neighborhood consist of Latino heritage, it has become quite THE challenge. The students do not see the need to learn the writing system :(

Obviously some students do have personal incentives in learning Japanese as being able to read and understand manga and anime in the native language. Some students like to live and work in Japan..so, for the 5% of my student population, the writing system is a MUST. The other 10-20% are focused on achieving good grades. These students WILL turn in their assignments, study for their tests, and memorize the writing system.. because they know, THEY HAVE TO to get an "A." But for the rest of the 75-80% apparently, the writing system is not important at all; nor their grades, or their achievement in school.

My question is, how do you entice my 80% to learn Hiragana and Katakana?
I have designed a few projects where students HAVE To study the characters in details.
I call this, "osmosis effect." With this effect, I'm hoping to provide enough exposure to these characters, so in turn, whether they like or not, the characters will be engrained in their minds.
(as long as the students place their best effort in completing their assignment..that is)

So let's examine Katakana Project #1
Title: Katakana Photo Challenge

Ss: Japanese 1 (elementary level Japanese)  Age: secondary to adult 

Location: any where 

Materials: people, camera (smart phone), computer, flash drive, window's office "power point,"

goal: learn Katakana and to have fun
objective: students in groups of 4-5 will create a digital katakana picture book!

students must creatively think and designs way to physically form each individual katakana characters
(simply said, students must line-up/bend/sit... and formulate themselves into Katakana shapes)

Each character must have an original background or a feature that represents the respective word.
For example: ハ two students lay straight on a grass lawn at an angle forming the shape of the character holding hamburgers in their hands (pictures of hamburgers is also acceptable).
These pictures must be taken from up above for the viewers to be able to identify the character from a distance (second floor/balcony... please make sure to not place yourself in harms way. do not do anything that is unsafe)

Once all pictures are taken, students must submit their photos as an album.
It can be in a form of a CD or a power point.
If you have a large enough email account, you may accept these pictures as a file.
It is never a good idea to accept flash drives.

So... that's one of my idea! I hope you can try this in your class!

If you have any questions... send me an email! 

Summer of planning...

So, as you already know, I am a Japanese teacher at "A" high school. Though I love being apart of my beloved students' lives, I do enjoy my two months break of "ME" time.
So, I decided to re-structure my curriculum this summer (which turned out to be an enormous project..)!
I teach 6 different sections within 5 periods (Japanese 1, 2, 2H, 3, 3H, and 4). Which means... I'm planning for combined humungo classes and 6 preps (technically). I have finished writing the syllabus for Japanese 1... and it turned out to be 9 pages including the course plan for first semester.
It is so scary to precisely plan for the year....being that high school schedule fluctuates monthly.. perhaps weekly depending on school-wide needs.
So, I decided to set my detailed planning to JUST the first semester and keep the second semester to a brief (I'll kill myself if not).

But what is crazy is I have at least two more syllabus to write... at most 5 (it really depends on what I'm going to do with the combination classes).
So, now, I'm determined to finish the syllabus for Japanese 2 & 2H by the end of this week.

To do list:
Finish 2/2H syllabus
Do 3/3H syllabus
Do 4 syllabus (AP prep)
Handouts for all classes
Power point presentations for all classes
Power point video recordings to present in class
Record dialogues especially for Japanese 1 and 2

WHAT???!! I still have this much todo within this coming month?
It feels like an impossible ordeal but I guess I just have to do the best of my ability.

Now, if you are wondering what happened to my previous curriculum, this is the story:
I taught Japanese at a different high school for about 6 1/2-7 years. I had created a curriculum and tweaked it throughout the year. After my 7th year, I began questioning my choice of profession and decided to leave the field of education. At that point, I figured I will never return as a educator so... I discard of everything (bad decision). After a year of wondering the states in search of my next ambition in life, I ended up walking a full circle back to education. What's different this time is my renewed appreciation for the job and my renewed love for child (adolescent) development. Well, I also didn't have any curriculum to through the year.. lol (which teacher teaches without a plan? ME!)
Well, at the end of the first year at "A" high school, I realized the NO PLAN worked for my advantage. I was able to see the ability of my students and it actually allowed more genuine time spent with my students. I was also told that our school was preparing for IB language programs and wanted to add Japanese AP to the list of classes so, whoohoo.. I needed to prepare a different curriculum anyways.  As I said, my NO PLAN worked for my advantage but now, I'm paying the price in not re-creating the wheel.. but actually creating a NEW WHEEL!

It's funny to find myself going back to books I used during my credential programs to find activity ideas...lol  It's always GOOD to start anew!

I'll post ideas I come across and videos I create for your review.

Cory Monteith's death....

I am deeply saddened by the death of a Glee Cast, Cory Monteith #corymonteith
I did not consider him my hero nor emulated him as my role model but I was inspired time-and-time again by his diligent work as a Glee cast.
His devotion and commitment towards Lea Michele also gave me enormous hope.
This wonderful man, who knew.. had been fighting the ugliest demon: addiction and substance abuse.
It breaks my heart to know that millions of people in this world are losing their lives to toxic substances each and every day. These substances are created and distributed by the hands of another human being creating unbelievable amount of financial wealth for them but also creating double the amount of poverty for people around the globe. These substances enslave and never let go.

I have also lost a friend in March of 2005 to heroin.
Cory's death awaken's the sadness that I felt years ago and am deeply saddened for his family, friends, and his beloved girlfriend Lea Michele. May Cory rest in peace.

Current Schedule.....

Following is the current tutoring schedule:
If you are interested in tutoring, the highlighted slots are my current openings.
I will gladly tutor after hours and weekends depending on your schedule.

Please be advised, current tutoring is held in South Bay, if you are requesting tutoring in surrounding areas, hours will vary depending on distance.

Contact: sachie.horita23@gmail.com 

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
8:00 – 9:00am
4:00 – 5:00pm	X (J)	X (R)	X(M)	X(J)	X(M)
5:30 – 6:30pm	X (M)	X (M)		X(J)
7:00 – 8:00pm				X(M)
8:30 – 9:30pm

An afternoon of counseling...

Communication is the key to a healthy relationship.
This statement reigns true in any and or all forms of relationships.

Though women are known to be creatures with keen sense of intuition, there are ambiguities that we are still unable to read. Puzzling facial expressions, awkward silence, distance, smirk, glare... none of these really make any sense to any one of us. We can't understand what a high school student is thinking in the middle of a class time, we never know what our significant other is really thinking, we really can't solve the mystery of how to motivate and entice an underachieving student.

The unknown puzzles me. It can bring the best or the worst out of me.

I hate having to be the one to initiate conversation.

Well, my dear tutee is having puzzling times in her English and Social Studies class.
Her grades are plummeting and has lost interest and or desire to succeed academically.
(I wonder if she has lost confidence in her academic potential.)

Her teacher is seemingly wonderful and puts in every effort to help assist her students.
She does the same for her. But my tutee may feel her teacher is a tad-bit overbearing.

So the teacher, her mother, and I met up today to discuss her performance.
(Yes, I do accompany parents to parent-teacher conferences to further assist students or to serve as liaison/translator between the teacher and parents)

It was a fruitful conversation. Communication always clarifies and opens doors to newness.

So, I better learn from this situation and sit down and speak to my troubling students, my significant other, my family members, and friends... to clarify my unresolved mysteries and to open the doors of newness.

Avoidance apparently never brings any goodness.