English language school in the heart of the Japanese Alps, and English language learners sharing their experiences online. Teachers post regular items about teaching, learning tools, events in the school, their day to day experiences living & working in a foreign country. Students post on whatever takes their fancy - book reports, festivals in home towns, postcards from business trips etc. A little Brit of England in the guts of Japan!
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This is a story of Jean, a prisoner lady, who was caught by Japanese army in World War II. She and other prisoner ladies and children are forced to march for long long distance in hard environment of Malaya. They were starved and Many ladies and some children dead of disease like malaria. However Jean endured and lead the group to live. At last War was over and she lived in piece and became rich in her home country England, but she went back to Malaya...
Because she wanted to see if Joe Harman was all right. Australia was his
home country.
2 What did Jean learn from the nurse in Kuantan?
She learned from her about Joe. He was well and sent to Singapole.
3 Jean began to think that she would like to live in Alice Springs. Why?
Because Alice was Joe's home town and comfortable to live.
4 Jean had a big disappointment in Midhurst. What was it?
There was a dull place to live.
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This is first time for me to read Sue Grafton’s detective story. I like her story, because it was unpredictable and exciting. I couldn’t find the real culprit until the end of the story.What’s interesting is that she is going to write Kinsey Millhone series with one for each letter of the alphabet. “A” is for Alibi was published in 1982, “B” is for Burglar in 1985, “C” is for Corpse in 1986 and so on. In 2009, this year, she have published “U” is for Undertow. Definitely, she’ll write remaining five stories, “V” to “Z” in the future.
Why don’t you click here to know her and her stories?
Writing 26
I’ve read this story when I was a child. Now that I almost don’t remember the story, I enjoyed it. I found the story has not only adventures, battles but also love, romance, unfaithfulness and so on. When I was a child, maybe I couldn’t understand all of the stories.
I like adventure like this. For example, ‘The load of the ring’, I became to want to see the movie. I think the final battle between Arthur and Mordred would be very exciting if I watch it on a movie. I also want to see exciting scene which Morgana changed her figure to dragon. I searched the movie on the web site and I found some. I want to watch it some day.
Posted for Masao K.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v5gRuOpOEo29JyEVcCiMLfENwTocBG129x-mnOTYWq3gb7roZypLdBOXCE9YqThM6alMcw7mClqfgvK5K-Fbd2GpGqZpwJ3LFAxv3ZWLnAZUzQIZCtAnNz7NszBjmjrlYXfsYtd5bnAEXXlcAvBzQ=s0-d)
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Many mysterious things happended through this story, but at the end, these are all clear and you can understand everything.
The four children had mysterious experience in “Unquiet Grave ” story, too. I think they have a sense of recalling dead people from their sleep. I prefer this story to “Unquiet Grave ” because the four children cooperated each other to understand Glen's message.
Unquiet Grave
I think many sad stories like this are sleeping under the ground in every graveyard, and many people who had dead wanted to say their wishes. Franki happened to hear the voice because she found a half of coin. Althogh many horrible things happened to her and her friends, Frankie did right thing. Thanks for her, a sad couple could gain their happiness.
Many mysterious things happened in this story, but at the end, these are all clear except one thing. It's the meaning of the picture, a wolf with a small boy, which was carved in the stone above the doors. If you underatand or know this meaning, please let me know.
Posted for Tomoko
Q6 is interesting question.
If I will make the Japanese film about 'Last of mohicans'.
I think make the "YAKUZA story".
Those compositions similar very well,because small organization implicated in unified struggle of large organization. And, scrambling for the woman is also the same.Location is Tokyo in postwar Japan.Music is Ryuichi Sakamoto. His sound is the tension, and is magnificent.
Japanese actors is as follows.
Hawk-eye is "Etsushi Toyokawa",His masterpiece is "New Battles Without Honor and Humanity".He is typical of the serious character at Japan,and performed the powerful man by "21th Century Boy"
Magua is very important character,because he has relationship with all happening. So difficult.
I think choose to" Tatuya Fujiwara".His masterpiece is "BATTLE ROYALE".
Chingachgook is "Bunta Sugawara", He performs in a quietly refined way.
Cora is"Koyuki",She is beautiful and strong feeling.
About Uncas and Alice,I will choose the popular young actors at that time.
And,Tamenund is"Hisaya Morishige".But he recently dead.
What do you think this direction?
Hiroto
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Writing #29: Describe an animal or a beautiful area that is in danger in your country. What is the problem? Is there a way of saving it?![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tBeQUCIP1t_yg-BVRnQpIdmC0xsIAzniSRuuPoW58NDHH6_jRZAphrHdesoDOF-qc5kohPshZNDfs8Z1GIdRjwEDLQ3tPo8SOFPq0vrXXUv5O46ihtMjF4TtxEPp2j7PFtQ9QJhmMSuSD3XAADDZVz=s0-d)
Matilda is a little girl at the age of 5 who has an extraordinary intelligence and an amazing ability.
(There is a hint of her ability on the image of cover, can you find?)
The point I was interested in weren't only her amazing ability ,but also her character.
In fact, her situation isn't good.
Her parents aren't interested in her, they don't give her any books ,her school's principal is almost enemy among the students and she(principle) hates her.
Regardless of such a situation, she is very sensible and kind to her friend and her homeroom teacher too.
This is my opinion,I think such kind of ability doesn't effect on her mind good influent.
For example she may use it for making a trouble...
In this story she just used it for helping her classmate and her homeroom teacher from their enemy principle.
(Although Matilda used the ability once to her parents who were doing bad business for preparation of the battle toward the principle..)
Anyway,her amazing ability is great and exciting, but I don't know it's necessary on this story.
Because at first, I imagined Matilda would fight to the principle using only her courage and intelligence
and I thought it would be good experience for her in her life.
I think her nice character gave me a stronger impression than her amazing ability.
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Pathways involved with language. Photo: Sydney Morning Herald
IT'S an excellent party trick: un, two, trois, four, cinq, six, sept … counting while switching languages. It has also been the subject of plenty of serious research in the past decade - how the bilingual brain stores multiple languages, and retrieves the information without confusing cross-talk.
Hundreds of hi-tech scanning experiments have located brain activity associated with language use. For example, bilinguals use larger and different areas of the brain when switching between languages, and different areas of the brain are activated depending on the age a second language is acquired.
Exactly how two or more languages are wired in the brain is not yet fully understood. But current brain research can answer many questions about the role of bilingualism in education - particularly for Australia's indigenous communities, which are among our most linguistically diverse.
Laura-Ann Petitto is a senior scientist in language, bilingualism and childhood development at the University of Toronto.
She directed a study that showed monolingual and bilingual people had similar brain activity in the classic language regions of the brain - the left Broca's area and the left prefrontal cortex (PFC) - when speaking in one language.
However, when bilinguals switched rapidly between two languages, brain activity increased in both the left and right Broca's area and the right PFC. "Bilinguals appear to engage more of the neural landscape available for language processing than monolinguals, which is a very good thing," says Professor Petitto.
It is good because the brain has an amazing ability to restructure itself according to experience and learning.
"One of the major benefits of learning a second language is the straight brain power, the cognitive power, that arises," says Sydney University's Brain & Mind Research Institute director, Ian Hickie. "You end up with better overall brain function as a consequence of the challenge of learning an additional language in those early preschool to primary school years."
Not only does brain power increase in bilinguals, but those who learn a second language at a younger age are more likely to have more advanced grey matter than those who learn later.
"Childhood is most suited to acquiring language, because there is an open system for learning in the brain," says Professor Hickie.
"When you are young, the brain is forming millions of new connections every minute of every day. How you organise information cognitively is quite different to later periods of development."
While earlier is better for language learning, can it detract from learning other things?
Key experiments in which people were required to learn an invented language revealed those who were bilingual mastered twice the number of words than the single language participants.
"All of the scientific evidence points to a bilingual advantage, rather then disadvantage," says Professor Matthew Finkbeiner, neurocognitive psychologist at the Institute for Human Cognition and Brain Sciences at Macquarie University. ''Learning a second language does not confuse children. This is an extremely unfortunate, albeit widely held, belief."
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