Musical postcards

 As it is very difficult for many of us to travel abroad, we used our imagination. I asked Takeshi and Kanako to listen to this song and draw a scene of what came into their heads. I then asked them to pretend that they were on holiday there and to write a postcard as their homework task. In a time where we can't send/receive postcards, this is probably the next best thing!

Postcard from Waikiki

Hello!!

I arrived in Hawaii today. Refreshing wind and blue sea.

I feel Hawaii!! I enjoy going home.


Mie

Where would you like to go with friends?

You must go to Iowa City in America. You can go to America by aeroplane, and you can see American football. You can get to a stadium by car. In Iowa it has a big park!! You can play with friends ♡
In Iowa it has a shopping mall. You can skate and ride on a merry go round, and you can go to library. It has lots of books. It had Japanese books too.

When you come to America you must bring a water or juice. Have fun :-)


Posted for Nanako.

Postcard from...Cairns, Australia

G’day! Australia

   My family went to Cairns, Queensland, Australia from 30^th Dec. 2018 to 6^th Jan. 2019. I had been to Australia 3 times, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Albany. I researched about Australian education when I was a graduate student so it has been familiar with me.

   At first, we stayed at a hotel in Palm Cove, one of the beach resorts near Cairns, for 2days. It took about 40 minutes by taxi from the Cairns International Airport. Unfortunately, the sea was rough because of a hurricane so we couldn’t swim in the sea. Instead of that, we could enjoy swimming in the beautiful pool of the hotel. Especially for Sou, it seemed to be better because he was still afraid of the waves of the sea at that time.

   At the night of New Year’s Eve, we could see many fireworks with the countdown by the local people and tourists at the beach. It was really different from Japanese one.

   Next 2 days we moved to the Green Island which is located in the Great Barrier Reef. It took only about 50 minutes by ferry from Cairns. There is only one hotel in the island so we stayed at there. Sou was scared of swimming in the sea in the beginning and he just played in the sand, but, as he could saw many fish in the sea he gradually began to swim and seemed to have fun a lot. My husband, my elder son and I enjoyed snorkeling. We could see coral reefs, many kinds of tropical fishes, green sea turtles, manta rays and even small sharks! Sharks were frightening but they didn’t try to attack humans.

   Besides that, we rode a glass bottom boat, went night hiking around the island and I was amazed by the starry sky. In a morning, my husband and I went to the sea and swam. There was no one except for us. I felt dignity and somewhat holy there.

   The following 2 days we went back to Cairns and walked around the city. There is a big complemental outdoor swimming pool and free barbeque sites. Many people had a good time there. We also went to Kuranda, a village surrounded by tropical rain forests. We rode a gondola, called Skyrail on the way and took a railway, which has a history from 1900s on the way back. It was my first time to see the trees and plants of the rain forest. We went shopping and a zoo. My elder son could cuddle a koala and my younger one petted the back. We took some picture with it. The Koala seemed to be angry because he/she woke up even he wanted to keep sleeping. I felt sorry about that but it was a definitely wonderful experience for my kids.   

   I’m really glad we could have a special time and go through the days without any problems in Australia.
Haruka

Freezing Chicago

Hi All.  I was in the States for a week and spent the last weekend in Chicago.

First of all, it was colder than Matsumoto and had snow on Saturday.

Luckily, I could have a fun this time.  I went to the United Center to watch the ice hockey game, Chicago Blackhawks vs Vegas Golden Knights.  It was my first time to watch the ice hockey game.  The players moved around on the ice so quickly and the speed of shooting was so fast.  It was the exciting game until the last minutes, but Blackhawks couldn't beat VGK.

If I could have another chance to watch the ice hockey game, I want to learn about rules, teams and players so that I can enjoy game more.

Hiroshi's 'Strange' Holiday - after reading...

This is a story in the summer two years ago. I went drinking with my friends when I went to my home town. The place we drunk was far from my house in my home town. So I left for there by train. We enjoyed our reunion after a long time while drinking. So I forgot the time the latest train leaves.

After drinking, I decided to go home by taxi in the end since the latest train had left. However, I did not use taxi till my house to save the cost of a taxi ride. I decided to walk after getting down from taxi on the way. I walked along the railway. There are not anyone in the way to my house since it was the midnight. It was very dark and silent.

It was the night even the only dog did not bark.

However, I suddenly could hear the strange noise. That was the sound like someone hit the rail way at many times. I looked around, but there are not anyone. The noise continued for a few second. I shouted from fear. Then the noise stopped. When I tried to start walking as relieved, I found something surprised. There were some bunch of flowers by my foots. Those were offered for the dead men by traffic accident there. I could not breath in surprised at the moment. I start running in rush.

Posted for Hiroshi

Spicing up the dialogue with returnees - slow it down!

Apologies about the accent with the character one the left (interviewer); memo to self = preview before publishing (and avoid accents on Xtranormal - they are thick & heavy).

Summer Holiday interview
by: lunajim
Hana & Suzu mash it up in Luna's YLE classsroom

My returnees can fly through a conversation on everyday topics in a very haphazard and blazee attitude; quickly, relevantly, but with very little thought/development beyond answering the question as fast as possible. That leaves me scrabbling to diagnose 'what happened' & sourcing more material  to develop the conversation...bored students, frustrated teacher, progress little. In flying through their exchanges my students realise their goal of saying "finished" as quickly as possible; how often do you say thay in a meeting, phone call or chatting with granny?

Kids love cartoons, and using the keyboard is a profound playing leveller - certainly in Japan; few kids here are fluent typists. This inevitably slows things down - mini aim - so that we can focus on getting the nuts & bolts right. Not necessarilly spelling for a conversation (but we are typing it so why not in the process of making sure we get the words in the right order?)

My kids also have a habit of clock watching (in this class); in this situation the clock is on my side the entire time. The conversation they are working up was in note form from last week, and they want to stretch 'my' time into an hour. So, short ansers won't achieve that goal - make the answers longer/detailed! In doing this, also means the director can add more movement/camera shifts/noises/poses etc. Students edit each other much more readily than softly softly teacher, so we have peer learning/teaching going on too (much more likely to take note than to me). As we get towards the top of the hour there's a 'hurry up' factor & a desire to see the finished product.

The xtranormal site needs a minute or three to 'cook' i.e. render the video...you'll have to wait until next week to see it in class :)  Oh, the antici----pation!

Fukuoka - My holiday

I went to Fukuoka last November with my wife.We flew to Fukuoka with JAL.

We stayed for three days in a businesshotel near the station.The hotel had a hotspring;it was very nice.

During the day we walked around the city.We went to some shops and we ate ramen and motsu-nabe.At night we met friends and we went to a restaurant with them.We bought an old dish next day.

We had a great time.Fukuoka is full of great food.We had a problem;We walked a very long distance,so we were very tired.

Shizuoka - My Holiday

I went to Shizuoka last September with my family. We drove the car to Sizuoka.

We stayed for two days in the car. We parked our car in the parking area.

During the day we went to the sea and went up to the light house. We took a lot of photos. At night we went to a Japanese restaurant and had a lot of pork cutlets.　We bought some souvenirs.

We had a great time. Shizuoka is a good place and has a beautiful sea, and sunset is fantastic. We didn't have any problems.

written by Seiji