Matsumoto information - history & activities

Matsumoto-jo(castle) / 松本城(まつもとじょう) (Photo credit: TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋))

Dear Hannah,

It's great that you are coming to Matsumoto. It's a more beautiful city than London, and it's less historical than London. It's in central Nagano, in central Japan, about three hours by car, train and bus from Tokyo.

There is a castle in Matsumoto. I think it's one of the most historic buildings in Japan, so a lot of people from other prefectures visit it every year. Matsumoto is surrounded by mountains, so it is famous for skiing in winter.

When you come to Matsumoto, please tell me soon.

Love, Miku xxx

Our predictions for the future; teen voices

In class, Akiho, Miku and Mizuki interviewed each other about their thoughts for the future. As a follow up, I asked them to write down their ideas for next class. We spent that next class putting their ideas together into sensible topic groups in Prezi (a wonderfully easy bit of kit!) and dragging in some artwork & video to emphasise the pionts they wanted to make. They particularly enjoyed being able to collaborate, as they used two PCs in the classroom and worked on different parts/gave each other feedback & pointers. I think Prezi is a superb way for them to showcase their ideas - and encourages them to come up with more ideas as there is a lot of real estate that they can cover!

Please have a look, tell them what you think?

Our opinions about the future on Prezi

PS. Yes, the Star Trek link was my contribution :)

Hilarious

I've been teaching this pair of clowns since New Year, and I have to admit we might not be learning at maximum speed...mostly because the girls invariably evaporate into gales of laughter. Doesn't seem to matter what we're trying to do (irregular past tenses, pronunciation of 'ed in past tense verbs, reading a reader) there will be something happen that is just too much to keep a straight face.

So I'm really enjoying the class, as you can see. School can be tiring & club activities overwhelmingly demanding...so English needs to be a bit of fun as well as very useful. Miku & Maho brighten up my week every Thursday evening very nicely. Here you can see us trying to play whirl-a-vowel, matching long vowel sounds. Naturally, the 'hive' looked like something else: result = paralysing laughter! I can't remember who won the game, but my ribs hurt and an hour flew by. With a bit of luck, dipthongs 'went in' as well.

Thank you girls - look forward to seeing you every week!