Start

So... I decided to start my blog AGAIN to keep record of my study and research.

I have failed to continue several times: when I started study abroad in University of Toronto, and when I came back. The first few posts of this blog are from my last failed blogging.
I had no clear objective except keeping record of my life.

But this time I have a bit clearer purpose that will keep my motivation.
I decided to do so because...
- I often forget what I read or learned.
- I had a class on reflective teaching and learned /studied about the benefits of journal writing.
- I wanted my life more organized.

I will try to learn something everyday or at least once in every couple of days and write them down here.

Model of speech

This year, my seminar in phonology deals with intonation in English. Every student in the class reads aloud example sentences for intonation training in the text book.

At my turn, I noticed myself imaging how my Canadian friend I lived with would pronounce the passage.

I had a déjà vu feeling doing that. And...aha! It is when I try to talk in the standard (Kanto) style of intonation. (I'm a Kansai dialect speaker.) I always imagine how my Tokyo pal would speak and imitate his virtual speech played in my mind.

If other people also do as I do when they try to speak in a dialect or a language with a intonation pattern different from theirs, then having a one person to imitate will be a big help for intonation practice.

And I believe it will be superior to listening to learning materials in that you can have a concrete image of the person you know, although it may be insufficient for providing a variety of speech patterns.

More time for English!

I work at a kind of private school, or juku, if you have some knowledge on Japanese education business. My student for Tuesdays is a biy in the 3rd grade of his high school. 

He said he is thinking of applying for some college dedicated to study of English and wants to be an afluent English speaker.

After having had two classes, I found out that his basic grammar was not really bad, but  his performance becomes pretty poor when it comes to vocabulary and sentence sturucture comprehension, which didn't seem to be that of an gaidai applicant.

I have seen several cases of school kids having problems with vocabulary.

So I looked back how I gained vocabulary big enough to enter my current university and to have spent 4 years without a big insufficiency of English vocabulary.

I owe to the vocabulary book I got from my cram school, but I think, at the same time, reading a lot of materials, ranging from Peanuts comic books to Roald Dahl and Eiken exams, increased the number of lexical items.

Then I suggested him to read more. I hope he will.

Another student of mine has a big problem with time. He says he has no time to read with his homework of other subjects. Damn it! His school gives him too much.

I guess, though teachers of other subjects may say the same thing about their own subjects, learning English needs much more time than other subjects if you are to enter the university, and time for Engish training -- traing for the four skills-- provided with in the current curriculum is not adequate.

They should need more reading, writing, listening and speaking. After all YOU ARE LEARNING WHAT CHILDREN LEARN FOR 9 YEARS CRITICAL PERIOD.

About me

The author of this blog is a Japanese university student who is interested in;

• English education,
• linguistics,
• phonology,

which I major in/learn about at my university,

• education in general
• french,
• computer,
• psychology,

and vehicles like

• train
• ship
• car
• air plane (flight sim and real planes, not RC or models, particularly in the mechanism and flight experience)

plus sciences/ technologies of these vehicles.

I recently started to think logging my life may be something useful, which is why I started this blog.

I used to have some blogs on Blogger and Wordpress but stopped and deleted for my laziness. This time, I will try to keep writing.

I would be happy if you people; 

• leave thoughtful comments on my (English) education posts, 
• understand and share with me the fun of studying phonology and playing a flight sim, 
• teach me about french or computer things, 
• and correct my English/French.

The last but not the least, I'd like to appreciate you for being interested in my blog.


See also the French and Japanese version of this blog