Musical role models - K-Pop group BTS

 

The amazing Taylor Swift - most admired musician

Taylor Swift is a really famous singer, al over the world. Amazingly, she has already won 12 Grammy Awards. However, she hasn't only performed music. She has shown us heart-warming contributions to society.

Taylor is a 34 year-old singer songwriter, who is from the USA. Her hit songs, which she composed, have been enjoyed by countless people. I think there is no one who has never heard her music on the Earth. She is a really successful celebrity!

While Taylor has been developing her music and adored by her fans, she has made a lot of contributions to society. She has donated millions of dollars to people in difficulty. Maybe most famously  was donating millions of dollars after a tornado in Tennessee, where she is from. She didn't only donate, but also launched "Speak Now...Help Now" fund. This funding institution has helped victims of tornadoes and floods. 

Following this, she has met a lot of children in difficulty, like those who are in hospital. The most heart-warming episode is that she made a song "Ronan" for a young kids Ronan, who died of cancer aged three. How kind a person is she?

In conclusion, Taylor Swift is making a big difference to people all around her. She was selected as a celebrity who contributed to sociaty by dosomething.org, an American charity group in 2014. She is a real role model for us all!!!

Posted for - a Japanese HS teen fan :)

The musician I admire most - Motoki Omori

Motoki Omori is the vocalist of Mrs. Green Apple. The band was formed in 2013. "Mrs. Green Apple", the band name, means "we want to keep going like a green apple - never ripen". "We want to project a soft, androgynous image as a band".

Motoki Omori

He has been active for a long time. When he was a high school student, he established the band with his friends. He was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1996, and loved music from when he was young. Omori, who was influenced by "Mongol 800", bought an Epiphone bass guitar when he was in sixth grade at elementary school. Then he formed the band "1733" (one seven double three) with his classmates and a teacher, motivated by the desire to stand out at the graduation party. With his band, they performed their first original songs and Mongol 800 cover songs.

When he was in the first year of junior high school, he started DTM. At the time, Omori said "I didn't understand the concept of programming, so I was just groping around and trying things out" He didn't know how to recors guitar, so he played drum sounds on an electric paion and recorded the rhytm by putting a microphone close to the speaker.

Later, wanting to learn chords, he started playing the guitar. He had a toy guitar at home, so he took it to a music store and learned how to change the strings - and bought a Les Paul type guitar from an unknown manufacturer. He was self-taught in songwriting at the time, but he used his experience, starting out with the bass, to create his songs from chord progressions. In addition to creating original songs, he copied 'Radwimps' and 'One OK Rock'. 

Now he is very popular, and he is widely loved by fans of all ages, not just young people. Songs which his band wrote are positive and make people cheerful. His positive and interesting character makes us curious about him. He and his band have never forgotten their original intentions, that made them more and more popular. Nowadays, they are famous not only in Japan, but in foreign countries too. Do you think that they could be more famous or popular? I think they will be!

Posted for ...a high school student

Rei the reader!

I want to read!

Adopting Oxford Phonics World as our 'go to' phonics resource/series at Luna International was a no brainer, especially with covid-induced needs for online resources/presentation tools. We love the clarity of the materials, the logical presentation & progression. I am not a fan of the North American drawl that undermines accurate pronunciation in the audio of some units...but, I am very picky.

Unfortunately, we now have little brothers & sisters not even needing to come to Luna because they've grabbed a sibling's classbook and submerged themselves into the learning!

Screen time smasher!

Big brother Yoshi I have known since kindy...and he's been learning with us at Luna as well for a quite while now. He used to hide behind his classmates & not say 'boo' to a goose, but no more - a confident reader, neat writer & speller, and almost glib with answering too easy questions! Loosing games no longer a 'problem' either :)

I've been told his five-year old brother Rei is #OPW fan number one! As you can see, he's an independent learner...and has had to have a home screen time limit for the OPW app imposed to 15 minutes (maximum!) daily. Oh my word - if only we had that 'problem' with our students :)

I blame his parents..

Not fair?

As you can see in the pic above & videos below, Rei is an independent learner already. So, dad will be out of a job soon (as well as me!). 

Just imagine if every five year old in Japan had this kind of leg-up from mum & dad before they even get to elementary school? Game changer! Goodbye 'romaji' crap & katakana cribbing. Well done mum & dad...and thank you dad for choosing Luna International again for your family...like your parents asked me to teach you & your buddies when you were at elementary school.

Turbo-charged learning like this could/should be a game-changer for Japanese children. Tragically, I doubt very many decision makers within MEXT or BoE have the first clue about how vital a grasp of phonics is...especially with the ongoing race to the bottom which is 'providing' language teaching to children in kindergarten & elementary schools (and JHS/HS) from the lowest bidder/freshest face on zoom or YouTube/flashiest app on some administrator's TikTok feed. 

Hinata's musical postcard

 

Dear Jim,

I went to a big music festival in this weekend. First day, I enjoyed my favorite artist live. I like this artist more.

Today I went to the world Natural Heritage in this city. That's place is one of Japan's most beautiful and unspoiled national parks. I enjoyed the view and take many picture.

I will do my homework tomorrow. Because I have a lot of homework but I didn't do my homework in today and yesterday. I want do that tomorrow.

Thank you

Mark Zuckerberg's short biography

Mark Zuckerberg was born on May 14, 1984, in New York is well-known for founding Facebook, Inc. (Now, Meta Platforms, Inc). He showed an interest in computers and programming. He began coding at a young age and created several software programs while he was in high school.

In 2003, Zuckerberg and his classmate launched a software “Synapse Media Player” for playing music while he was in high school. After entering Harvard University, Zuckerberg launched “Coursematch” and "Facemash.com" networking site initially for Harvard students. And then, he launched “Facebook” and wanted to connect people and to cultivate communities via social network.

In 2006, the function named “News Feed” was added. It could know what your friends were doing on Facebook and was a convenient function among friends. However, it had a risk to be used for cyberstalking. In 2010, the movie “Social Network” was launched, and it described the battle named “ConnectU” between Zuckerberg and his classmates.

Through the various troubles, Facebook became famous and attracted attention, and it was grown drastically as one of the most influential companies in the world. Through Facebook, he transformed how people interact online and created digital communication in ways which could not image before.