A postcard from...The Selfish Giant

Dear Cornish Giant,

The spring's here at last. The Hail stopped and the North Wind is quiet. There is a wonderful perfume. The trees are happy because the children are back. The birds are singing happily in the sky. The flowers are coming out of the ground and the children are laughing.

Let's play in my garden!

Mr. Selfish Giant

By Miyu & Aoi

Cambridge speaking tests in Japan - an insight into staying safe

JP026 training Tokyo

JP026's solution to the Covid-19 risks has been to deploy these screens between speaking examiners (SEs) & candidates both, as well as SEs wearing masks & being 2m away from candidates. Each candidate has their own copy of materials, delivered by the interlocutor.

JP029 training Tokyo

JP029's solution to the Covid-19 situation has been to really keep distanced, again wear masks, and give candidates laminated materials which are disinfected after each use.




JP004's response to Covid-19 concerns has been clear screens, clear face masks as well as 2m distancing, separate materials for each candidate beneath clear mats, & disinfectance of these after each pair of candidates.

JP004 in Gunma

I think you will agree, Cambridge English Assessment Centres in Japan are taking the delivery & assessment of speaking tests in this country very seriously, and managing to do so very crediditably & safely.

Caveat - if you do not feel safe, please do not travel/sit your exam. Another exam will be available to you eventually, wherever you are. Your safety is our primary concern. Stay Safe.

An interview with Jonathan Swift

If I were able to talk to ghosts and ask them questions, I would like to see Jonathan Swift.

Sayuri: Hello, Mr Swift. May I ask you some questions?

J.S: Yes, of course! I've been waiting for this moment for a long time.

S: Thank you! So how did you have those unique ideas for Gulliver's travels?

J.S: I saw many politicians and religious leaders. They were all eccentric really. They were good models of the stories.

S: Right, and are you a Small-Endian or a Big-Endian?
J.S: Well, I am a Big-Endian and a High-Heels, actually. It is practical to break the larger end of an egg. It's easier to eat from a big hole! And High-Heels are more fashionable, don't you think, girls?
S: Well, it's been a big campaign not to wear high-heels nowadays…
J.S: Is that so!

S: Yes… Well, tell me the truth, Mr Swift, can you neigh?

J.S: Ha ha, yes, of course! I can talk to horses, yes!

S: Wow! I thought so! Wonderful! Thank you so much for your time. Your books are very popular here in Japan. Everybody knows Gulliver.
J.S: It's my pleasure to talk to you. Keep reading!

What do you need - YLE chefs' recipes

A follow up exercise, to a follow up game, to a textbook activity!

Difficult to conceptualise countable/uncountable items in a classroom without going to the office fridge on a raid...and most young learners, certainly here in Japan, do not linger very long in their kitchens & can barely cook instant noodles.

Orchard Toys' Crazy Chefs works to fill that concept gap very nicely, as players take turns to fill their recipe...asking "What do you need?" or "What do you want?" and replying with "I need/want a..." or "I need some ...." if they've turned over a card on their list. Wrong card = "I don't need a ...." or "I don't need any ....."

Now I know this seems obvious, but how often can you get an activity to occupy & excite five players at once and keep the language learning drilling away? We even managed to include a player Zooming in to the class :)

Support for this writing task with unfamiliar vocabulary (spelling - we asked each other during the game) on Quizlet = autonomous work possible and another game on the end of that (Match).

Virtual Matsumoto Bon Bon - Can Do!

The Zoomed-in Team

Thank you everyone who made the effort to join us for an early, socially distanced but joined up Bon Bon!

We are very excited with the video that Emmy has edited together, which we hope will be shown on local TV on Aug 1st (when the festival should have been held). We will be sharing a lot more of our photos & videos then.

Well done Eleanor & her friends leading the charge outside in our car park. They know the dance and did a really genki job with no crowd!

Outdoor distanced Team

Indoor connecting Team

Participating via Zoom, and with a lagging video stream (sorry, we've not done a virtual festival before!) and learning as they went were former Matsumoto natives living in Singapore and Tokyo; ex-teachers joining us from Tokyo with family, Auckland in New Zealand & Cairo in Egypt - we miss you guys! - and even another language school owner & her daughter from Tokyo. Super moves!

Trying to co-ordinate these two groups, who couldn't see each other, our staff in the downstairs classroom + Matsumoto Castle :)
doing our best to demonstrate the dance & keep everything going.

We also had for extra bonus videos arrive from old friends who did Bon Bon once, somewhat inebriated, in 1995. Still got the moves in Cornwall, Brighton & Southport in England, and in North Carolina, USA.

Great that we could all do this and get our super red Bon Bon t-shirts sweaty again. Wish we could have done this 'for real', but in a way this brought us all closer.

Thank you again Luna's truly International family - across five continents you are inspiring! See you here August 7th, 2021.

So you think you can't party? "Zoom in" for a unique Matsumoto Bon Bon with Luna Sat 18th, 6pm JST

世界中のルナファミリーと踊りでつながろう企画！！

毎年恒例の松本ぼんぼんが、今年は コロナウイルスの影響で中止となり、残念な気持ちでいっぱいです。
ですが今年は、信濃毎日新聞が「松本ぼんぼん」を踊る動画を募集、ルナ連としてリモートで松本ぼんぼん企画に参加することにしました♪　（三密を避ける為、Zoomを使います。）

ご一緒に参加してくださる方を募集します。
現役生徒さんはもちろん、元ルナ生、世界中のルナファミリーどなたでもご参加頂けます。

参加方法として、Zoomを録画したものを投稿します。
動画は随時、公式YouTubeチャンネルにアップされ、,イオンモール松本、信毎メディアガーデンにて上映されます。
ご参加していただける方は、参加用ZoomのIDより参加して下さい！

※スクールにお立ち寄り頂ければ人数分のバンダナとうちわの貸出します。また、ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツも販売します。お問い合わせを。

＜リモート松本ボンボンZoom録画の予定＞
Zoom ID : 下記よりアクセス
日時：7月18日（土）
18：00～おしゃべり、18：10～踊り練習、18：25～本番（録画します）
終わった後は、そのままZoom飲み会（飲み会は自由参加です。いつでも退出可）
服装：ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツ（ない方はお持ちの赤Tシャツがあればうれしいです）・バンダナ・うちわ貸出します。（添付写真をご参照ください。）
来年も使えるオリジナルTシャツは在庫に限りがございますが、1枚1,500円でご購入頂けます。（ルナ生徒様は1000円で販売）

参加費は無料。 ご家族ご友人など、お誘いあわせの上 是非ご参加ください！
三密をさけたお好きな場所からZoomご参加頂けます。
ご不明な点は、お気軽にお問い合わせください。

Hello Luna family,
As you may know that "Matsumoto Bonbon " has been canceled this year.
However, "Shinano Mainichi Shinbun" will have a ''remote'' Bonbon dance event this year.
Luna will join this event .

Let's dance together with our families and friends with zoom! We will make a Zoom chat room for Luna members,and we will record the dance routine as a group. We will then send this to 'Shinano Mainichi '' for them to use. They will collect recordings from different groups and make a dancing compilation. This compilation will be played at several shopping malls in Matsumoto city during summer.

Date : July 18th, 2020 (Sat)
Start time : 18;00
Time schedule 18：00～Chat、18：10～Practice dance、18：25～Record dance together

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86759696384…

ID: 867 5969 6384
Password: 580897

Wear a red shirt/union jack/express yourself!

We can't wait to see all our friends :)

Celebrating New Year in Nagano, Japan

OUP Graded Reader "Japan"

Because of his job, we have moved house 13 times during our 34 years marriage.  We lived in Nagano city for over 15 years in total.

In Nagano city there were so many temples and shrines.  Each one was well managed by local people.

On New Year's Eve, we visited shrines and temples as much as we could.  We left home before midnight and walked to Zenkoji-temple at first.  Next we visited our local shrine Kamo.  They welcomed us with a glass of sake, a mikan-orange and a lucky charm.  Then we started our New Year walking tour of visiting holy places.  Each one entertained us with their original way: a glass of sake, a bowl of miso soup, a cup of hot sweet sake, lucky allow etc.  By the end of the tour, we were full, quite drunk and hands full of lucky charm. 

We came home about 2am and straight to bed.  We got up around 8am and had a box of New Year food.

  That was our enjoyable typical New Year celebration in Nagano city, which we are missing so much…

Posted for Sayuri

Pure & Sad love of Romeo and Juliet

I think that Romeo of the Montagues family and Juliet of the Capulet family should talk the marriage over the Prince Escalus of Verona.I guess he always hope that Verona will be peaceful.He will be happy to take an action for their marriage because he will think that their marriage will be a chance to finish the arguments between the Montagues and the Capulet and to bring peace to Verona forever.
The Prince Escalus could stop the fighting, but the Montagues and the Capulet hated each other.Even if he could remove/alleviate feeling of dislike, the dispute was happened at any moment in Verona.I would like the Prince Escalus to persuade them to apologize for past sins firstly, and then to promise not to fight again and to be good friends.
Romeo and Juliet are loved by their parents.With the advice from the Prince Escalus, their parents might consider their marriage unwillingly, but eventually they will be able to accept it because they want to be happy for their child.

House - a spooky story

Tomo is a very clever Japanese college student. He is standing on his own two feet this spring, living alone in a rundown old apartment in a quiet, sleepy Tokyo suburb. One night, he had just finished his shift and had watched the news on his phone on the train ride home. Sleepily, he got home 1 o’clock in the morning, took his clothes off and went to bed right away. 

The next morning, he realized that his T-shirt had vanished. “That’s odd”, he said. It was his favorite one, and he was pretty sure he’d left it on the floor. However, he was not certain and he was late for school. So he left, puzzled. ‌ 

He came home early that evening because he didn’t have anything special after school. He said “I’m starving!” He looked for his Cup Star instant noodles in his stockroom. “What? Why aren’t there any? I bought more than ten last week!” he said. He thought that something was strange. Suddenly, he heard a dull sound from his bedroom. He walked cautiously towards his dark room, and opened the roof-space very slowly, silently. The next moment, a mysterious massive lump dropped from the hole onto his bed. Surprisingly, the lump had long black hair and was wearing Tomo’s clothes. There was also some rubbish, too. Paralyzed with terror, the student raced out of his house calling 110 as he ran. 

The homeless tramp was arrested, but Tomo will never sleep well again – he had been stalked and spooked.

Posted for Masato

A chocoholic on pralines!

Dear Neuhaus,

As an English learning student, I am reading English books, mainly

Oxford Bookworms Collection.

When I read a book 'Chocolate', I was so delighted to find the story of Neuhaus's invention of a new chocolate 'pralines' in 1912. That was the same story that I had learned through the booklet inside your lovely chocolate box that I bought at Neuhaus in Brussels. That shop was very elegant and beautiful and shop clarks were nice and friendly. There were so many different kinds of pralines and other chocolate. They looked so delicious and I wished to have them all!

Your first invented pralines are really tasty and I can easily understand why they are still popular. Their triangular shape is unique and outstanding and they make the texture and taste more sensible and irresistible.

You also support sustainable cocoa farming, which is important nowadays. I feel no guilty buying a lot of your beautiful chocolate because that helps some cocoa farmers as well.

Thank you for your great invention of pralines. I know you keep fascinating us with your magical chocolate.

Best wishes

Sayuri

Great homework excuse!

Unfortunately, Aoi missed class last week with a painful broken wing; happily able to joke about it this week and find a homework work around! From adversity, we flourish :)

Created with ChatterKid

Love a parade?! Join us for our first GLOBAL Bon Bon!

世界中のルナファミリーと踊りでつながろう企画！！

毎年恒例の松本ぼんぼんが、今年は コロナウイルスの影響で中止となり、残念な気持ちでいっぱいです。
ですが今年は、信濃毎日新聞が「松本ぼんぼん」を踊る動画を募集、ルナ連としてリモートで松本ぼんぼん企画に参加することにしました♪　（三密を避ける為、Zoomを使います。）

ご一緒に参加してくださる方を募集します。
現役生徒さんはもちろん、元ルナ生、世界中のルナファミリーどなたでもご参加頂けます。

参加方法として、Zoomを録画したものを投稿します。
動画は随時、公式YouTubeチャンネルにアップされ、,イオンモール松本、信毎メディアガーデンにて上映されます。
ご参加していただける方は、参加用ZoomのIDより参加して下さい！

※スクールにお立ち寄り頂ければ人数分のバンダナとうちわの貸出します。また、ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツも販売します。お問い合わせを。

＜リモート松本ボンボンZoom録画の予定＞
Zoom ID : 下記よりアクセス
日時：7月18日（土）
18：00～おしゃべり、18：10～踊り練習、18：25～本番（録画します）
終わった後は、そのままZoom飲み会（飲み会は自由参加です。いつでも退出可）
服装：ルナオリジナル赤Tシャツ（ない方はお持ちの赤Tシャツがあればうれしいです）・バンダナ・うちわ貸出します。（添付写真をご参照ください。）
来年も使えるオリジナルTシャツは在庫に限りがございますが、1枚1,500円でご購入頂けます。（ルナ生徒様は1000円で販売）

参加費は無料。 ご家族ご友人など、お誘いあわせの上 是非ご参加ください！
三密をさけたお好きな場所からZoomご参加頂けます。
ご不明な点は、お気軽にお問い合わせください。

Hello Luna family,
As you may know that "Matsumoto Bonbon " has been canceled this year.
However, "Shinano Mainichi Shinbun" will have a ''remote'' Bonbon dance event this year.
Luna will join this event .

Let's dance together with our families and friends with zoom! We will make a Zoom chat room for Luna members,and we will record the dance routine as a group. We will then send this to 'Shinano Mainichi '' for them to use. They will collect recordings from different groups and make a dancing compilation. This compilation will be played at several shopping malls in Matsumoto city during summer.

Date : July 18th, 2020 (Sat)
Start time : 18:00 (JST)
Time schedule 18：00～Chat、18：10～Practice dance、18：25～Record dance together

Zoomミーティングに参加する
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86759696384…

ミーティングID: 867 5969 6384
パスワード: 580897

Dress code - red t-shirt or something "British"

If I were rich, I would go traveling with my family

If I had as much money as Toad, I would like to spend for traveling.  As I don’t have much money, I always have to make plan within my budget.  But, if there is no limitation of budget, I can enjoy everything I want.

I would like to go travelling with my family as much as I can.  We went to Okinawa a few years ago and spent good time there.  As Okinawa is south area in Japan, I would like to go to north area for next trip.  I think Hokkaido must be an ideal destination.  It is north area of Japan and popular destination for tourists.  There is a lot of famous places to go and food to eat. 

After we enjoy travelling over Japan, I would like to take my family to foreign countries.  My plan is to enjoy watching professional sports games.  Soccer games in Europe, baseball games in America, tennis games in Wimbledon and so on.  I will reserve the best seats at every stadium and buy the premium ticket of league championship.  It should be the exciting experience for my family to visit famous stadium as well as see top players.

The famous destination like Hawaii, New York, London, Dubai, etc should be another great idea and the world heritage tour will surely give us inspiration.  It is fun to think about my trip and the most important thing for me is to enjoy every moment with my family wherever it is.

Self-destruction - Dorian Gray after reading

When the artist drew the picture of  Dorian Gray, he was only a good looking boy with an innocent heart. His portrait had pure beauty, just like the sitter, Dorian .

But the Lord, a very influential man opened up a new world for Dorian and he discovered the pleasure in the dark side of the world, which he'd never tasted before.

Even though Dorian hurt innocent people to seek his desire, he still kept his youth and beauty. His sinless appearance and his wealth helped him and people still listened to him. So he'd never realized his sin. Those bad spiral took him into darker side of the world and gradually it got spoiled him like opium.

When he realized his mistakes, it's too late. Nobody listened to him and believed him anymore. Only his empty appearance with no heart was remained. No wonder he would self-destruct.

Heathcliff's epitaph - as imagined for the local newspaper

It was a very quiet burial.

Mr Heathcliff passed away and was buried next to Mrs Catherine Linton. Following his will, only Mr Hareton Earnshaw and Mrs Ellen Dean, the housekeeper, were present and there was no ceremony and no words from the Bible. No one knew about his detail, even his age, so only one word 'Heathcliff' was on the gravestone.

There were a lot of rumors about Heathcliff.

Mr Earnshaw brought a gipsy Heathcliff to Wuthering Heights from a street of Liverpool in 1770. He got along with Catherine very well and he was brought up like her good friend. But after Mr Earnshaw's death, he was treated like a servant and was punished by people in the Heights. He was getting miserable but proud and started hating the Earnshaw and the Linton. His cruelty and violence were from his sad upbringing and all his life was the revenge to two families.

 

Posted for Sayuri

Sayuri's favourite garden - Karuizawa

My favorite garden was the deep green mossy garden of our previous house in Karuizawa. It was covered with beautiful moss and surrounded by azalea hedges.  Many tall larch trees made the garden like a small reserve for wild animals.  You could see squirrels, pheasants, titmouses and even wild boar.

I thought moss grew without any care but it was quite a job to keep moss beautiful.  They were very sensitive and we needed constant weeding.  Once weeds made their way into moss, it was almost impossible to get rid of them from moss and they made moss die.

When it's autumn, colourful leaves fell on the green carpet of moss like a beautiful picture.

In winter, white snow on the moss was like a playground for small animals and you could enjoy seeing several kinds of small footprints on it in the morning. 

It was only one year but we still have cherished the beautiful memory of our beautiful garden in our lovely house in Karuizawa.

Posted for Sayuri