First Aid - my first (painful) experience

When I was 7-years old, it was caught a finger in the heavy front door in my previous house.  The door of my previous house had a thickness of about 8 cm and was so heavy.  It had strong pain and my nail of injured finger was gradually turned purple and finally whole nail of injured finger turned to purplish black.

When 2-3 month passed after injured, I visited a small farm nearby my grandmother's house and gathered grass to give to goats, sheep, and houses etc. After I gathered grass a few times, I found that my injured nail was removed completely without any pain. I couldn't find removed nail in grass field.

Have you ever seen under the nail? I have memory that under the nail, there was winding muscle? construction like large/small bowel and it was not good to see for a while. At that time, I was given first aid.

I couldn't remember how long new nail took to grow. I am sorry that I didn't carefully saw my nail's growth at 7-years old and didn't take any picture. If I have iPhone at that time, I will take many photos and update my nail's growth to twitter.

Posted for Ritsuko

Old MacDonald - ever been more fun?

A crowd pleasing app can give a teacher 'thinking time' to get the next activity cued up, or help you manage to stretch out a topic and refresh batteries. We were reviewing animals and there was a request for Old MacDonald (and I love the app developed by LoeschWare)...aim of the game is to choose farm animals and not wild ones - like tigers, sharks & camels, which if chosen are variously dispatched to many giggles.

WordFoto - now you can read a photo

 To be perfectly honest, I was scratching my head in a one to one class recently, with a very bright young lad wading through his (not ours) phonics book. It's a very dry affair; each page unimaginatively the same as the last, minute line art pictures as mysteriously unfathomable as they are hard to see.

There has to be a way to make this a bit more interesting, I was thinking to myself. I didn't want to make a list on the board (lazy, and just the same thing again). I thought about a mind map, but we've done that before.

Brainwave: WordFoto (find it here) app

I wrote the big 'ph' in fat chalk on the board + 'sounds like /f/' & took a quick picture. Then opened up the picture in the wordfoto app. There's a grey toolbar across the bottom.

• crop the pic if necessary; I wanted it nice & tight.
• words - tap this and then select "add a new wrod set >". add each word you want to see in the image as a new item
• style allows you to find a treatment of your picture you are happy with - pre-set transformations of your image as well as adding your word list in different fonts (compare ph set vs wh set below)
• finetune - does exactly that!

When you are happy with that, you can save to album or export to Facebook or by mail.

NB The images are not intended to be definitive lists of all the words in the English language with ph spellings as /f/, or wh with a silent h.  What posting to FB did was generate a blizzard of suggestions though (and some nice exceptions - shepherd & haphazard).

Now I can save these images to my YLs Evernote dossier too, for future reference. How have you exploited WordFoto? Would love to know!

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Graded readers for YLEs + iOS devices

 I wanted to give my class a break from their usual routine & recent prep for YLE, and exploit one of their OUP Story Tree (Graded Readers) a bit more.

The blue series is just about right for this class - some vocab they have not met before, but by and large they can get their heads around the story & make astute guesses about what they don't 'know'.

We had not listened/read this book before, so I played the CD and asked them to follow (fingers) - they each have a set of the books. They were hooked and enjoyed the surprise ending. They know most of the characters. This particular book introduces the 's' on the end of present tense verbs for third person singular subjects...but they don't need to be told that; going to let the penny drop (maybe next week if it doesn't clatter to the floor today!)

This time around, I 'played' a sentence from the book on my iPhone - it was playing the audio function from a quizlet set I had earlier made for the book (an old teachers' trick of cutting up sentences for students to put back together again!). Instead of my voice (familiar), or CD (tricky to cue) the US accented voice was a new challenge (didn't need a speaker either - new iPhone's inbuilt ones loud enough close up). Their task = find the page the sentence came from (and re-read it out loud). Books well and truly thumbed!

Next, in pairs/3some, showed the children how to plat 'scatter' on iPhones (via dedicated #Quizlet app) to match pairs (in this case, the sentence halves) e.g.

• Chip....goes on the swing
• They....look at the swing

I though they would do this as a scattergun exercise and basically wallop the screen until things matched up. Not at all! They were extremely careful to make the right choices & referred back to the book constantly. Great! Book getting read endlessly! As a co-operative task, I know an iPad would be much better option. Nevertheless, this worked nicely with children negotiating roles of finder/reader/typer, and checking spelling etc. The first run through took quite a while and was nice, quiet, gentle reading pace. Once they realised there was a timer and they were horribly slower than the other group...lights & action!

Unfortunately, the Quizlet app right now does not support images, so we were 'forced' to switch tech & go to the PC interface. All good - still a lot of learning & still mining the same simple story. Turn-taking continued as they dictated to each other, helped find letters on the key board & whack each other when they kept making the same mistakes eg 'i' instead of 'l'. I lost count of how many times they must have read each page - a lot more than "Yeah, know the story, bored!"

Check out the flashcard set for The Rope Swing here and find all our other great flashcard sets from "LunaTeacher"

Oh, nearly forgot! The grammar thing - didn't occur to anyone, so we'll use the board next week - and I really want to use Skitch app for that! Stay iTuned :)

Shinshu JALT presents - Mayuka Habbick on Chants & Picture Books

Last Saturday I had a very busy day catching up with my old friends Mayuka & Rob Habbick. Rob presented for us a couple of months ago, but this occassion was all about Mayuka and her really interesting ideas for using chants, and making your own (which I have never seriously thought about - actually not so hard!)

Unfortunately, overnight, something mysterious had happened; her iPhone had been 'wiped' clean - i.e. there was nothing in it...and that included her presentation material. PANIC!

We spent most of the afternoon at the Apple Store in Minami Matsumoto, but no joy, so we had to come up with some clever Rob workarounds. Lots of wires, coffee and trying to remember passwords = solutions delivered & a seamless pair of workshops! As you can see, well worth all the effort. Everyone is welcome at Shinshu JALT events - you don't have to be a member or even a teacher.



Why not come along next time, Oct 27th and tag along to the Hallowe'en Parade after?

Is it a video? Is it a picture? No, it's a gif...Kinotopic

I took the long way round to get to work this morning, as I wanted to have a peep at the cherry blossom before the massive crowds rock along to the castle this weekend - and before the rain due this afternoon.

I also wanted to try out a new app I found for my iPhone (no, not instamatic!). The app is called Kinotopic (details here) and what it essentially does is freeze a short 2-3 second video clip. Why bother? Good question...what the app then enables you to do is 'unfreeze' a portion or portions of the frame with a swipe of your finger, where a repetitive motion is then looped into the otherwise static picture. You can add other effects (as here, a grainy sepia effort - I really couldn't see very well, editing in the bright sunshine so it was potluck).

What do you think - would you like to try out Kinotopic?

Slideshow on the fly - Animoto via iPhone

My class needed some extra practice with the dreaded drilling; they really do not produce any 'extended' language unless I use a taser. No, we don't have one, but...

When we used a teacher's book resource lately we had an absentee, so I joined and made one myself (OK! I like a quick colouring in as well!). This week the retrieval system the children use = half a dozen knackered, ripped, squashed, battered and lost artifacts. Hmm.

Have already made the flashcards available on Quizlet (click here)for the unit we are doing (but I don't think the mums bother, which is a pity - especially as they ask vaguely "how come there does not appear to be a great deal of progress being made"). So, in between classes I quickly photographed the surviving artwork on my iPhone, and then opened up the (new) Animoto app. Imported the pictures, changed the muzak, added a title & left it to cook. Whole process took less than 5 minutes (the colouring took longer!) & I had a nice 'job done' email by the end of my next lesson.




Now the free version of Animoto only gives you 30 seconds, and a limited choice of music. For more flexibility I like Stupeflix, and am happy with the paid up version as good value for money. For this,very much on the fly, a free 30 second cobble-job better than a poke in the eye I say.

What are your experiences with making slideshows in a hurry?

Script for a Jester's Tear - observing iATEFL

I have to admit it felt very wrong to be driving towards the Fukushima nuclear power station on Friday night. I was not actually going there, but close enough (a lot closer than my relative safety in Nagano prefecture anyway). It was not a pleasant drive either – I passionately hate the Misayama tunnel road (I used to drive it regularly with classes in and around Ueda/Maruko) and it rained/was foggy all the way.

I was the only person staying in the hotel in Suzumenomiya. I am surprised there’s even a hotel there. The beer machine wouldn’t take notes – I only had notes. An exciting Friday night then? 

Well, actually yes, because on the other side of the planet the2012 IATEFL Conference was drawing to a close. I had been trying to keep up via twitter and their brilliant website which featured live interviews with the great & the good of planet EFL, as well as an archive. The final Plenary speaker was going to be a Scottish guy called Derek Dick – I’ve only ever known of him as “Fish”...but here’s the thing, I have known of him since about 1981. I was pretty sure99% of my teaching peers had no idea who they were going to be addressed by to conclude their shindig!

“Fish” used to be the lead singer/song-writer with a ‘prog rock’ group called Marillion. I saw them play a few times in Sheffield & Lancaster, even had a t-shirt. I managed to get the live feed going on my iPhone just as his familiar accent was reading a lyric from an oldie – which I was able to remember and recite from some very dark and dusty memory. My signal dropped out and eventually failed completely, but not before I had enjoyed hearing him sing to a genuinely gobsmacked audience (judging from tweets out of the audience) relishing his wordcraft and love of a story told well. 

I was annoyed to have lost the feed, but it actually gave me time to contemplate how lucky I was at all to have been able to participate so voyeuristically with a bunch of teachers in Glasgow on a wet Friday night in the middle of nowhere, Japan. If you had told me during my sixth form year that the lead singer who had just sworn his head off through a set at the Sheffield City Hall would be addressing me through my phone to a teachers’ conference on the other side of the planet (and that I would also know members of the audience and be ‘reading their minds’ in the process)...just too bizarre.

Have to admit I was jealous of the likes of @barbsaka @shellterrell @mickstout @eltexperiences etc actually being there...looks like one hell of a good conference and one that Japan’s own JALT really needs to take heed of. But, by the same token I knew I’d be back in Matsumoto for dinner without having to endure cattle-class & the indignation of being fingerprinted as a “welcome back”.

Just a small matter of examining 30 or so children for their Cambridge ESOL Young Learners exams in the morning, before the drive home tomorrow afternoon.

Treasure Island - a Neverending Story

http://audioboo.fm/boos/643027-misaki-s-treasure-island

I have not seen Misaki for a while, because our schedules have conflicted - I've been away doing exam stuff, or she has. Yes, exam hell time for her. But, she is escaping, which I am thrilled with, and from April will be enjoying a whole new life in Australia. Not messing around, but studying English before college.

She didn't want to open her book today, which was fine. Instead, I dug up a game I haven't used for ages. "Neverending Story" encourages collaborative storytelling by simply requiring turn-takers to add on to the story so far, putting a picture card onto the board. There is no 'right or wrong' direction for the stroy to take - totally at the mercy of the turn taker! What I like about it with my students is the chance for me to ask questions to extract more story details (if necessary).  Each turn the player needs to start at the beginning and recycle the story so far. When it is my turn to repeat the whole story with as much of their details as possible, a few embellishments/clarifications/mistakes - but modelling the correct narrative tenses without correcting them are looking for prompts. No pencils, no reading, no safety net!

Image via Wikipedia

I find this helps a lot with students getting beyond the first thing they thought of and leaving that as 'their turn'. It makes students listen to each other carefully, and check/clarify details. They have to link their ideas to each others', and use a lot of discourse markers.

By the time we 'finished' - timed out - we had run through the story at least a dozen times, adding bits and polishing the edges. I remembered a Shelly Terrell app recommendation for last year's JALT Conference and popped my iPhone into her hand with AudioBoo ready. The five minute free limit was ideally short - had to get on with it. As you can tell, Misaki is doing a lot of thinking to keep her story fluent. My apologies for getting in the way here & there, but I was watching the timer. Most of the ideas were hers after my "Once upon a time..."

Misaki & I would both like to hear/read your comments :)

Talk to the cat? Learn with a sock?

A lot of people think that childrens' apps in iPhones etc are 'just games'. Well, they can be, if you don't take advantage of them.

A while ago I used a voice recorder in class for a couple of different tasks, and I was pleasantly surprised that the students were very keen to hear themselves. Not only that, they were also critical listeners (much more than me). They got competitive about the time taken, and passing the recorder around in a question/answer drill accellerated the activity nicely too - more fluent and natural.

There is quite a debate about the pros and cons of reading out loud. Yes, it is not a usual feature of English usage, but there's little other way we teachers can monitor what the children are able to read/pronounce. NB Not 'understand'! I have always asked my students to read their homework after we have checked/marked/corrected if necessary. I don't like the whole class speaking at the same time - how can I hear everyone (and for the same time I don't speak when they do)? Instead, I will repeat the sentence after the students, to reinforce their pronunciation. If I model first, they are not reading, are they?

Reading a lot out loud is counter productive. I do not want a performance - so we do not do this with our graded readers. Readers are for fun & internalised consumption (instead, I really like to milk the workbooks/quizzes etc which we use for follow up, vocabulary development, finding grammar patterns, spotting rhyming words etc)

A big bugbear here in Japan is conformity. In my classroom, this manifests as everyone trying to speak at the same speed, pitch, cadence. The dreaded katakana-isation. One of my classes does this so much I pulled all my hair out last week - extending the last syllable in their responses in a falling sound which is horribly unnatural. Still trying to iron that particular issue out, but my one hour a week versus the rest of their exposure to badly done English = feeling a bit like King Offa with his dyke.

Talking Tom, and a number of other "Talking...." apps are very useful indeed. Basically a voice recorder with attitude - an animated cat does a few moves and doen't like being poked or punched (who does?) - so children are allowed to do that after they have done the job. And the job is? Read your sentence through, from start to finish, without pausing. If you pause, the cat will repeat what you just said. Daft? Yes. Annoying? Yes. Judgemental? No. Does it work with longer utterances? Not really. All I want with my young students for now is for them to get to the end of their sentences once they start. The cat repeating their production is funny, but not useful for pronunciation (the voice is distorted). It IS useful for intonation though - usually very difficult to provide feedback on. It picks up all chatter and giggles, which is nice as it breaks the ice...it also means everyone has to take a breath before they start. Good. Students realise they need to preview the entire line that they are going to say, and you can see them nodding their heads as they practice internally with the beat they want to use. So we are getting word level stress and sentence level? How cool is that?

(Our pre-school age learners enjoy Talking Tom et al as well - it encourages them to speak up and try out silly phrases because the cat is just as silly as they are. They love to hear their own made up words repeated perfectly! Very shy children will talk to the cat much more quickly than to me or another adult!)

I wanted to share a Sock Puppet video too - but to do that I have to pay Y85 per scene. What a rip off - lots of fun and very creative, but could get expensive as we have a lot of talented actors at Luna. I like this tool because it has to be collaborative, planned, and quickly executed (30 second limit on the free version). Hope to share somehow, soon.

What's the best use of a voice recorder you have found?

Confessions of a twitter stalker? Meeting Shelly Terrell

Shelly Terrell addresses the tech converts, JALT 2011

The highlight of my weekend was meeting Shelly Terrell, even briefly, and to see her present two workshops at this year's JALT Conference in Tokyo. I have been 'following' @shellterrell for some time now on twitter; she is a very healthy spider in the middle of an extremely useful network of teachers/ideas/links & inspiration.

And in person, she's a delight. It's always a bit uncomfortable meeting fellow twitterers in person - "Hello, I follow you" makes you sound like some kind of stalking perv! A good friend of mine was once approached in Tamita Gumtree with "Hi, I've been watching you from across the room". To which he replied "Well you f*** off back to the other side of the room!" Fortunately, Shelly is more approachable : )

A lot of people, especially here in Japan I think, don't "get" twitter. I did, very quickly, after overhearing Barbara Sakamoto (@barbsaka) at JALT two years ago, and deciding that if something was working for her, it should be worth investigating. Since then, following the likes of Barb and Shelly has opened up my professional horizons beyond all imagination. I am trying hard to make sense of and share on (if that is good English?) the useful bits and bobs I come across.

On Sunday I saw Shelly present on using an iPhone with learners - something I am particularly interested in as my daughter mastered my iPhone from the age of two. I would LOVE it if all of Luna's students could arm themselves with an iPod Touch - or even better, iPads...as it is, lending my phone to students is the best I can do, and on a limited basis as there is only one phone to go around. Whatever we do with it needs to be co-operative and simple.

Shelly mentioned a number of apps that I am familiar with, and a couple of others that I downloaded immediately afterwards! I also had the pleasure of finding myself sitting next to a former ESOL examiner trainer & ongoing football fan, and catching up as best we could in between furious note taking and app sharing ideas! Here is one link to take you the rest of the month to research. Find out what and how Shelly shares her great ideas here, and find her kitchen sink over here.

One thing I will be searching out for our YLE preparation is the Story Robe app and key words "learner autonomy" & "collaborative stories". You can see our Monday students working with a couple of these apps in use here...would love to hear some feedback.

This is me! Using iTech with YLEs

 My very flexible Friday afternoon class always gives me a decent energy boost at the end of the week, and today was no different (but Masa "Get well soon").

We were reviewing parts of the body. We've already drawn ourselves and designed monsters etc with funny ears or green hair etc. Wanted to try something else.

Tip. Get your students to pose naturally, before you start explaining what you are going to next if they are going to get shy. If they are already shy, do it the other way around, and show the disguise they can make.

I actually got the idea from one of the kids before class, as he had a mobile phone. I asked him what his number is (something else we have practiced lately - number fluency as well as useful thing to remember!) and he didn't know. He explained that he only used it for the camera - so I posed and his mates had a giggle. Mmm. Idea!

Quickly took the portraits I wanted on my iPhone (would let them, but chaos would decend/blurry pics etc.and we were in a hurry). With the image above, we opened it up on the phone with FaceGoo. Friends immediately piled in to distort the image - hilarious. You can get big/small features easily & have a whole chat about that ("Do you have a big nose?" is usually a bit insensitive!). Here, we added some facial hair - but we could have gone with fangs, even noises etc. A cool app for Y85

The image on the right we opened with a "Face in the Hole" app (there are plenty to choose from), and everyone suggested the usual body-builders, chimpanzees etc before she agreed with the final result. You resize the face you are inserting behind the template, rotate to fit etc.

The actual English language practice bit I was aiming for came next, as we stuck postcard-size prints into their books (you can always use inside front covers/fly pages for this kind of 'extra', if you do not have them set up with a scrapbook or file/folder) which they then labelled. Need to know new words here obviously 'tail', 'moustache' and 'beard'. The children then talked about themselves/described their pictures.

The beauty of using the tech is that it gets you past the reluctant artists or as here in Japan, the generic anime style of drawing. No rubbing out either or scruffy UFO type productions! Very personalised and at the same stroke, one step removed - imagination time! Despite the protestations, children immediately had to show mums what they had been howling about.

Disclaimer: Make sure you have permission to use their pictures - and be careful about disclosing their identities...basically don't.

Key words

During a snooze break in pre-school, I found a new toy to fiddle around with my photos on my iPhone. This is unusual - I usually fall asleep as well, ha! ha!

Experience lesson - Jim can do toddlers lessons!

Old Jimbo doesn't get in many class photos...

Yukari's "one coin" policy is proving popular, and also a lot of fun. Our nice big classroom is a very bright, warm and adaptable space. Today it became a bus, as we sang ourselves silly a la "Wheels on the Bus". We used Devon's version to prime everybody, then the full speed version to get the juices going (if you have an iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad, get yourself this as an app from Duck Duck Moose - and while you are at it get all their other apps - your kids will absolutely love them!)

The average age of our initiates was one and a bit years old, and all of our mums were keen to join in too (important!). Jim made sure they did, doing the gestures to other songs like "How's the Weather" and participating in "What's the time, Mr. Wolf?" Mums also had the chance to meet Simon and Eriko, who both wanted to join in the fun.

And a quick note: Jim is not "Employee of the Month" - Yukari is.

Coping

Folks,

I am finding useful links which you will find very handy.I have blatantly copied these from
http://asiajin.com/blog/2011/03/15/after-the-quake-a-variety-of-web-mashups-collecting-wisdom-of-crowds/
Recipes with not many ingredients (like now the shops are empty)

This website was launched on DropBox and shows you realtime public transit-related tweets sorted by railway operator and line.   Working on a keyword basis, this could be a better option as to learn which lines are out of service more quickly than the operator’s official announcements.

ThumbApps scraps fee for their iPhone app (Tsubueki) that aggregates transit-related tweets. (original price: 230 yen)   This helps you find better routes and avoid traffic confusion.

Download "Helping children cope after a major earthquake" www.sjsu.edu/cdm
(In 9 languages)

Save fuel. Don't hoard. Don't panic. And check on the old lady next door?

Stay safe.

Access our resources on and offline

In pre-school we are often using new flashcards, and sometimes mummies don't know what they are! We are going to share our materials through Edmodo this year, with each class having its own 'room'. All our classes will have exclusive access to the materials, songs, pictures, recordings, drawings, board work they have used in their class, every week.

We are making 2011 our year to share more of our materials with our students. One way we do this is through the site called quizlet. Check out the flashcards we used today with our pre-schoolers for the sound /b/ here. Notice you can hear the word if you click on the speaker icon next to the picture.


Try /d/ with this:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study english flash cards

Try this for the /g/ sound:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study english flash cards

If you want to see what else you can play with, search for sets made by "lunateacher" or "LunaJim".
If you have a smart phone, you should be able to download them to your device and play with them offline.

On my knees - like an Aussie cricketer :)

The Ashes - cricket's Holy Grail

While you were away holiday (or more accurately, while we were flitting over our Christmas & New Year break!), I have been listening to a lot of cricket; and not just any old cricket...The Ashes...

Obviously, living in a heathen, uncricketing, country like Japan (please bid for the World Cup?!) is a bit of a nuisance. Can't watch it on "Sky Perfect" which I guess is fair enough, given ice hockey, high school rugby, Giro Italia &GT300 are all much more popular sports (hint - I am being very sarcastic). Can't listen to the very traditional, & incomparable Test Match Special (TMS) from the BBC hosted these days by 'Aggers' (Jonathon Agnew), nor tune in to (ABC) Radio Australia's commentary with Jim Maxwell - because I do not live in either Australia for The ABC or The UK for The BBC. If I lived in one or the other I'd either be there or watching it on the telly 24/! This is about the most annoying thing about trying to watch or access 'my' sport these days - not living in the only place I wouldn't actually need a TV or PC or iPhone.

Wikipedia image - TMS

• If your PC is detected as being 'not in the UK' then you can't listen to live sports from the BBC.

• Ditto that for any other sport from any other country from their national provider eg ABC in Australia.

Now, there is a way to watch events 'streaming', which is very hit & miss - I recommends myp2p
You will need to download & install certain 'players' - the software to put the jigsaw together (and I recommend more than one, 'just in case') - check out the software tab on the site?

Another way to enjoy your sport is to 'do the ostrich' - hide your head in the sand with your fingers in your ears and avoid the scores! Find a stream to the game you missed at Diwana (register - no tricks at all) but beware any spoiler who tells you the score before you can watch. iPhone users remember, you can save a video to your phone and watch eg on the train. If a friend calls you before you have watched a game, don't answer!

This winter, England's cricket team has been touring Australia. The two countries compete over 5 Test Matches (each match a five-day game) to win 'The Ashes'. It is cricket's Holy Grail - and in my lifetime it has usually been about as achievable - ie impossible. Australia have been a dominant team for so long. Twelve hours ago, England ripped the heart out of the Aussies winning the game at The Sydney Cricket Ground. Not just winning...stomping up & down on them ruthlessly as the Aussies capitulated pathetically. HA! Grin grin I am smiling so much my face hurts!

To be perfectly honest I got to work early this morning. New Luna, new parking places, new classrooms, let Naomi-sensei in, turn on the heaters (-5 when he arrived)....NO! So I could tune in and listen to Test Match Sofa and catch the moment, for the first time in 24 years, England WON the Ashes in Australia. Yes, the last time England did this I was three three!

Over the holidays I have been cleaning, painting, and carpeting our lovely new premises.

Related articles

• England yet to peak, says Strauss (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Collingwood ends his Test career (news.bbc.co.uk)

iPhone apps in the classroom - Quizlet flavour

A quick warm up flashcard game got my boys in the mood this afternoon...for another game. As they'd been stars last week (Wordle story-telling) I figured they'd earned it. But, I wasn't going to let them 'burn off' valuable classroom time.

I plonked them in front of the PC & went to Quizlet. Giving them ownership was important, so they did all the work - typing in the words (from our flashcard game) of everyday actions. This gave me a chance to assess their typing skills as well (worryingly slow!)

Online, we then 'played' with what we'd created - there's no time lag, just leap in. 'Scatter' = matching the two sides of the cards you have created - in our case eg "wash" + "the car". Seeing they were automatically being timed meant I did not have to force them to pay attention! This, in effect, was exactly the same game we'd played in class!

There are a number of other ways you can challenge yourself on Quizlet, with the set(s) you have made. One of the lads was well-impressed (Sheffieldish for you) I had an iPhone, so I had the idea to use it as follow up. By the time we'd closed down the PC & opened books, I'd downloaded the flashcard set. Our textbook (OUP's English Time 3) has a picture dictionary/glossary in the back, of target vocab. I showed them how to use the flashcard app on the phone, and they realised tapping the tick in the corner meant they 'knew it'. Aha!

Gotcha boys! "Please write the words you have learnt next to the pictures of the actions." Scramble to un-tick the cards on the phone!

Classroom management situation I want to avoid here is kids just copying from one page in the book to another. What does that achieve? At best, a bit of letter writing practice. First, I asked them to write what they could. (I was impressed with what had gone in already.) Then, the coup de grace, use the phone if you want, to double check - the phone was on the TV in the corner, and they couldn't bring it back to the table.This internalises the spelling or phrase, and has them visualising the shape of the word or whatever they are doing to remember how to write it down. They are changing media: text - brain - pencil. I'm no theorist - what are they doing?! Result I want is learning...as footballers practice dead-ball moves or transitions etc.


And the boys? Competitive as usual, trying to mess up each others' turn at the font of wisdom, swishing the cards around on the phone. Taught them how to express themselves strongly in English once it was obvious they were getting tetchy in L1.


In all today I would say we took care of eight daily actions. Not a lot I know, but we are not going to forget them in a hurry! Sorry, no pics - phone was unavailable (could you have said that sentence 5 years ago & made any sense?)

Our neighbourhood - urban safari!

On Tuesday, our pre-schoolies 'went bush' - exploring the riverside which is a stone's throw from the school. A week ago we found 'Men at Work' - electricians, builders, bin men etc, on the 'quiet side' of the river.
Today, we had to hold hands tightly as we explored the busy main road, looking for shops and stores. We found all sorts of businesses not very far away, and challenged Naomi to draw a quick picture of each one. We think she did very well, as we told her what we could remember about each one - we went into the supermarket & found fruit & veg., meat, milk etc. In all, we found eleven different places where people work.

Chiaki-sensei in the supermarket

From Naomi's sketches we produced a fantastic flashcard set on Quizlet. Check them out for free (you can 'learn' or 'play') - download them too if you like. If you have an iPhone, you'll need an app eg "flashcard touch" - download them & use at home! Don't just use ours, by the way - whatever you are studying, somebody somewhere has already made a set! There are millions of cards for you to enjoy.

In the hardware store we found lots of colours - carpets, curtains, balls, slippers, and tools - a hammer that took two to pick up! In the DVD store we found comics & books as well as our favourite anime (cartoons). We checked out the 'oden' pot at the convenience store, as well as the ice cream freezer!

colourful carpets

Then there was the petrol station, busy with cars and a hairdresser's. We passed half a dozen restaurants - French, Chinese, fast and slow.

We really enjoyed exploring the shops and talking to people, but the main road is a very busy road. Maybe the most important thing we learned was to wait for the man to go green and beep before we crossed.

Help for tourists to Matsumoto - podcast super episode

Something I have NOT managed to get done since last October finally all fell into place this evening - my last student is absent, so I had a moment!

Please LOOK at our latest podcast - it is a slideshow for tourists visiting Matsumoto. I always felt it a shame visitors all take the direct/easy route to the castle from the station, then head back the same way and miss everything! All the cool shops I know, things to see down side streets (the things you always find out about after your trip?)

So, in full shiny podcast glory is Matsumoto for foreigners. It is an mp4 file - download it & email it to friends or send the link http://lunainternational.podbean.com/2010/08/06/illustrated-audio-walking-tour-matsumoto-city/

Visitors can load it on their iPod or iPhone & enjoy my lovely voice for 40 minutes of commentary, silly jokes and misdirection - don't blame me if people get lost (maybe I edited it badly?!) It was windy, so pls excuse the buffeting. Any good audio editors out there?

I am very excited about this - please subscribe? The podcast player is found on the "Easy Listening" page, tab at the top. Enjoy :)

http://lunainternational.podbean.com/mobile/   to subscribe directly with your mobile phone