Jan. 30, 2008, all classes, 8 period day

Independent Study Japanese

Group finished reading Ch. 5 of An Encounter in Japan, 日本との出会い out loud, with discussion and explanations.

A major feature of this lesson is introduction of transitive and intransitive verbs, 他動詞　｛たどうし｝　and　自動詞　｛じどうし｝。　The former type takes a direct object目的語｛もくてきご｝whereas the latter does not. The class as a whole read pages 141 to 146 in ようこそ：Continuing… Homework assignment was pages 146 and 147, exercises 8, 9, and 10.

Cultural points: 1. special bathroom slippers, 2. Japanese pickles at breakfast, especially the ones named after a monk, たくあん。




Japanese 1

We did speaking practice today, using the board for cues as we worked at reviewing/reacquiring certain vocabulary:

１きもの５
Likes, dislikes, adj., days of week, animals

What's on the menu each day at our restaurant?

日よう日　の　メニュー｛Menyuu｝　は　コーヒー｛Coffee｝　と　おちゃ　です。 Sunday’s menu is coffee and green tea.

月よう日　の　メニュー　は　アイスクリーム｛Ice cream｝　と　おすし　です。
火よう日
水よう日
木よう日
金よう日
土よう日

なに　が　すき　です　か。　なに　が　すき　じゃ　ない　です　か。
なに　が　おいしい　です　か。　　なに　が　まずい　です　か。


Pattern: “Day-of-week subjects are adjective “ ('Monday's child is full of grace" is inspiration for this.) In our case, we’re using (astrological) animals as subjects.

日よう日　の　たつ　は　うるさい　です。Sunday’s dragon is noisy!
月よう日
火よう日
水よう日
木よう日
金よう日
土よう日
おおきい、ちいさい、まずい、おいしい、あかい、かわいい、うるさい、むずかしい、やさしい、たのしい
Homework: be prepared to speak and answer questions about content of these exercises – foods of certain days at restaurant, characteristics of animals on certain days

Guest: Mr. Kris Hipchen from DePaul University


Japanese 3

Students received writing prompt: “In Japanese, tell the story of a movie, novel, play, or TV show that you liked.” They wrote for 30 minutes using the Word program and sent the product to Kimmel Sensei by email, both as attachments and in the message window, with “student name story writing assignment” in the subject line. They were to use no dictionaries, no textbooks, no online resources, no assistance from classmates, but only the contents of their own minds.

Homework was to read page 74 in the 3 Kimono text.

Japanese 2

As is appropriate with a new semester, the Japanese 2 class is starting a new lesson, lesson five in 2 Kimono. In class students listened to the まんが dialogue, both a normal speed and at repetition speed. This lesson introduces training practices for sports and therefore offers kilometers, meters, miles, and more refined time measurements (minutes).
Homework is to rewrite the dialogue with カタカナ replacing the ひらがな and かんじ, and ローマじ replacing the カタカナ. Everyone needs more practice with カタカナ。


Japanese 4/AP class

As new “class requirements” forms were handed out, students handed in summaries of article about Japanese publishing phenomenon, the cell phone novel.

Students asked questions about 漢字 in Ch. 5 of An Encounter With Japan, 日本との出会い。　Some students reported looking for漢字 vocabulary, and finding it, in previous lessons.　　AP students were reminded that the resources of Genki Online will be helpful with 漢字 study.

A major feature of this lesson is introduction of transitive and intransitive verbs, 他動詞　｛たどうし｝　and　自動詞　｛じどうし｝。　The former type takes a direct object目的語｛もくてきご｝whereas the latter does not. The class as a whole read pages 141 to 146 in ようこそ：Continuing… Homework assignment was pages 146 and 147, exercises 8, 9, and 10.