Shigeru Ban - the architect and his works

Centre Pompidou-Metz

Shigeru Ban, one of the most reliable and trustworthy architects, especially for vulnerable people in
devastated areas, civil war countries with refugees, builds remarkable architecture.  Easy and quick to build with unique materials such as paper tubes, which are incredibly strong beyond our imagination as well as reusable and easy to order anywhere in the world.  Whenever and wherever a big earthquake occurs, for example, he always rushes to the disaster area to construct shelters.  Ban was the first architect to claim the importance of ensuring privacy for refugees in camps or disaster evacuation facilities.

Honored as a Pritzker Prize winner, Ban was born in Tokyo in 1957, and had a youthful dream to play rugby at Waseda University.  However, after a disastrous defeat in an important match, he shifted his attention to his second interest, architecture.

La Seine Musicale

As soon as he graduated from high school, Ban went to the US and studied architecture at Cooper Union in New York, where internationally acclaimed architects, such as Le Corbusier and Bauhaus, particularly Alvar Aalto, the Scandinavian sage, had a huge impact on his ideas.  Their distinctive and sophisticated works inspired him to source paper tubes, his signature construction material for refugee shelters.

Not only those convenient houses, Ban designed many breathtakingly beautiful buildings, including the Centre Pompidou - Metz, La Seine Musicale, Toyota City Museum.

On December 4th, the Shimose Museum in Hiroshima, designed by Ban, was announced by UNESCO at the Prix Versailles 2024 as the World’s Most Beautiful Museum. 

Shimose Museum

Currently, over 30 projects, including the Noto disaster shelters as well as EXPO 2025 Osaka, have been directed by Shigeru Ban, the sleepless architect.

Why do people need a hug?

 An airport in New Zealand recently introduced a restriction on hugging time. 

Why do people need a hug?

People hug when greeting or saying farewell, mostly to show and express their feelings. Maybe they also hug because of their culture or habit, but it is true that hugs have positive effects phisically and psychologically.

A very scientific stimulation, such as light, slow strokingtriggers endorphons which induces calm & relaxed emotions. Hugs can also benefit our immune system. Scientists have found that huggers are less likely to catch colds than non-huggers.

Looking at this behaviour widely, not only humans but also monkeys and apes hug. We evolved. Do we do it for the same reasons? Maybe not, but nevertheless, hugs have a lot of positive effects. We may want to try it now! But be careful, hugging for too long can be stressful.

From these points, it is understandable that many people spend their time at an airport before saying good-bye, but it is possible that the airport rule is doing travellers a favour in minimising the stress of parting.

Posted for Yuto

A global perspective with young adult learners...

A recent topic with one of my classes was where they get their news from. The responses were predictably depressing & illustrated an almost non-existent exposure to anything & anywhere outside their algorythms on Youtube/school club/Spotify/Instagram. None of them had apparently EVER read a newspaper.

Guardian reader

I recently restarted my subscription the the Guardian Weekly...which I used to read pre-internet/smart phone days. Now a magazine & in colour, the quality of the writing remains excellent, balanced and thoughtful.

I am trying to get my daughter & high school students interested in reading it - but it is a bit daunting in terms of length and depth. The items are recent and varied, from headlines to opinion pieces; book & film reviews, recipes, and other looks at 'culture'...there's almost no sport and the position wrt conflict/politics/religion etc is factual & unbiased.

The pages that I've used with my student body = the Global Report. This 'Top 20" if you like, of news items from around the world takes my learners to all kinds of places they've never considered & news issues they're completely unaware of. I really want to trigger interest in the wider world, a wider horizon for my young adults to at least be aware of, if not interested and want to find out more - even if that's just looking for a country on the map.

I've gamified the 4 pages using Wordwall, making a reading comprehension challenge. Students match a short headline (mine) to wherever in the world the news item is from (headlined in the magazine). I've tried to paraphrase using synonyms for unfamiliar/unknown vocabulary, and asked students so far to work together. 

Due to copyright, I can't share the pages from the magazine, but I hope you'll get the idea, and maybe even get a subscription for your school/home?

Here's the quiz for Nov 9: https://wordwall.net/resource/82519867

Here's the quiz for Nov 15: https://wordwall.net/resource/83219932

Here's the quiz for Nov 22: https://wordwall.net/resource/83257721

Here's a sample for Nov 29:

Health service in Japan

 In Japan, universal health insurance coverage allows everyone to access health services. 30% of medical expenses are paid by us, while the remaining 70% are financed by insurance payments made by the general public. 

One of the advantages of Japan's healthcare system is that we can access it without hesitation and recover before it becomes severe. I often feel unwell as I get older but feel reassured that I can access health services all the time.

However, it has some disadvantages. The initial disadvantage is the expense of insurance premiums. It is gradually increasing because of Japan's aging society and access to healthcare services is rising. The second disadvantage is the slow progress of advanced medical technology and/or specialty care because private practice is not readily accessible.

To improve the initial disadvantage, it is recommended to shift to generic to minimize medication costs. I am unable to come up with innovative ways to improve health services, but I expect that the excess or unnecessary medication will be improved because the insurance card will be shifted to ID card called “My Number Card” and it can see when/what people get health service and what medication is done. 

Book review - 'Ningen Shikkaku' (No longer human) by Osamu Dazai

Ningen Shikkaku is a semi-autobiographical novel, set in Japan in 1948, following the life of Yozo, who has some feelings about discomfort and isolation against society and distortions between others through his whole life.

Hi knack of pretending to be a fool somewhat attracts people. However, he is always afraid of strangers. Travelling through his life, his weaknesses are revealed. The reader cannot stop comparing themself with Yozo and exposure to ugly parts of humanity. You may sometimes feel disappointed with or hidden emotions but realise our warmthof humanity.

It is an interesting journey and worth a read.

Posted for Yuto

Old fashioned, but it works!

I've always liked making materials for classes but kind of got out of the habit with so many digital resources to play with.

My number one preference with younger learners is Wordwall, as I can easily import class sets from Quizlet (been using that site for over 20 years) from resources previously compiled - be it text book lexical sets or glossaries from readers. The twist with Wordwall is that any images offered will not be the same as Quizlet = students do not just memorise the pictures. Once made, any one set can be used in a variety of different game options, and also be printed out as worksheets.

However, screen time can be overdone and younger learners need "hand time" as well - feels like something new & different.

Two halves of the 'gap fill'

To encourage question asking - and a follow up - as well as requiring students to actually listen to the reply and 'do something', this pair work exchange is easy to prepare and engaged students from start to finish. Target language was vocabulary items (classroom/school bag objects + colours)..."What is it?" (pointing at a blank square) then "What colour is it? Listener draws the item in the colour, and labels their picture (book open to spell OK if necessary). To fill up the grid I also added students' names = draw portraits of each other. 

Only 'banned' item = erasers, to stop this turning into an art class!

This worked one-on-one with "can do" kids...in teams when the group needed a bit of peer-support = added bonus of "your turn" etc classroom language.

Exercise complete

Students themselves decided to label their pictures, which was an added bonus to plenty of speaking/listening, with teacher gently making sure good intonation/full answers, and not too much time spent drawing (a relief to the less artistically gifted like me!)

This suited reviewing 2 units of vocaulary from OUP's Everybody Up 1

The second activity, to also review the same content...downloaded & printed the picture dictionary from https://elt.oup.com/student/everybodyup for the relevant units (Although from 3rd Ed, matches 2nd. Ed content)

Four-in-a-row template

Then a scissors & glue job (could also be a digital effort with excel I know, but this was quicker for me!) to fit onto a Mark Hancock game template of old. Can be played 1 v 1, or two teams; both worked equally well, and generated a lot of chatter. Quite a lot L1, but that was totally focussed to game play strategy/winning, with team mates (which was beyond my young learners in English)...whilst at the same time they were code-switching to read the vocabulary/name the pictures or ask each other "What is it?" & "What colour is it?"...because they really wanted to. When a drill is not a drill :)

Play? Roll the dice & choose a word from that box. Aim = 4-in-a-row. First past the post or fill the whole board, depending on time etc. Use - two different colour pencils. Use one board for each pair/team to share, or just one board to get passed backwards & forwards - I decided against this option as I realised half the class was always looking at the words upside-down.

Teacher? Sit back and enjoy the reading/speaking/writing magic :)

The template I made on the right - obviously colour needed for colours, but b/w will usually work nicely as the artwork is clear/matches the text book.

Game over!

The finished (yeah, messy!) Books open? If necessary...I prefer a sneaky peak only if "stuck". It worked out that teams helped each other or not very 'sotto voce' giving the game away if they knew the word first eg "Oh no, pencil!"

Easily replicated for any review a language teacher can think of!