Culture through English 2A: Supplemental post about refugees・難民についてポスト

Hello!

How are you? Here is a special post to go with our 2nd short presentation - about refugees (難民) and what they need for immigration (移住). 

Support & preparation (準備)
If you choose to present on this topic, here is some support for you. 

The picture at the top is of a refugee boy in a refugee center in Germany. While he may be smiling, refugees have many problems, and many things they need. Watch this video below. It's mostly in Japanese, but with some English, with Japanese subtitles  (日本語の字幕). 

Watch the video as many times as you need to. When you are finished, answer these questions in your notebook about the different parts of the video (you can make notes in English or Japanese):

日本のメッセージ
1. What did the first woman say about coming to Australia as a refugee?
2. What did the second woman say about communication between the government (政府) and refugees?

シンポジウムから待たヒント
What did Ishii-san say about the two women's refugee stories?

日本にできること
What did Moriya-sensei from Hokkaido Educational University (北海道教育大学) say about the needs of refugees?

長野県松本市の取り組み
What did Takizawa-sensei from Toyo Eiwa Women's University graduate school (東洋英和女学院大学大学院) say about help for refugees in Matsumoto city in Nagano (長野県松本市)?

求められる視点
What did Daniel Alkhal (ダニエル・  アルカル ) from the UNHCR (国連難民高等弁務官事務所) say about the three different steps of support refugees need?

Make these notes in your notebook. You can make these notes in Japanese or English.

Good luck! Take care!

Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Asylbewerber_-_15.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Asylbewerber_-_15.jpg
Video uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the video. Uploaded strictly for educational purposes only. All rights reserved to the 
copyright holder(s).

Writing English 2A: Special post on hikikomori and social adjustment・特別ポスト「引きこもりと社会適応」

Hello!

How are you? Here is another special post to go with our 2nd writing assignment (作文2) - your opinions about hikikomori and what they need to re-enter society.

Support & preparation (準備)
If you choose to write about this topic, here is some support for you. 

Watch this video. This is a Japanese short news documentary about hikikomori and the efforts of a special school, called One Step, that intervenes (取りなして) in family situations where there are hikikomori, and tries to help them take the first steps to integrate (溶け込む) back into normal lives.

Watch the video as many times as you need to. When you are finished, answer these questions in your notebook about the different parts of the video (you can make notes in English or Japanese):

First case – the 47-year-old man

Where is the man living?

How long has the man been living in his room?

How does his parents feel about his situation?
How much money have they lost because of his situation?

How did he react when the One Step School people tried to interview him?

What were some of the things that the man had written in the letters?

What was his job?

What did Hirooka-san from the One Step School say about hikikomori?

According to the newspaper story shown in the video, around how many hikikomori are there?

Second case – the 41-year-old man

In the man's home, what did the One Step School people find when they first walked in?

What did they find near the washing machine?

How long has the man been building up the garbage in his house?

What might have happened to have caused him to build up the garbage?

Around how many hikikomori are staying at the One Step School?  

What kinds of services does the One Step School have for the people who stay there?

Task 
Now look at your notes and write 3-4 paragraphs about what you think of what hikikomori need. 
What are your ideas about how they can re-enter society? 

If you believe that hikikomori are not society's problem and that they should not be given any help, give 
your reasons why.

I know this is also a deeper topic than what some of you have done before - so as I say in my handout 
about our 2nd writing assignment, I will give some extra points to you for trying for this topic.

Good luck! I look forward to reading your great writing about this issue.

Take care!

Image: By علاء - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56389070
Video uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the video. Uploaded strictly for educational purposes only. All rights reserved to the 
copyright holder(s).

Writing English 2A: Special post about refugees & immigration ・特別ポスト「難民と移住」

Hello!

How are you? Here is a special post to go with our 2nd writing assignment (作文2) - your opinions about refugees (難民) and what they need for immigration (移住).

Support & preparation (準備)
If you choose to write about this topic, here is some support for you. 

Refugees have many problems, and many things they need. Watch this video. It's mostly in Japanese, but with some English, with Japanese subtitles  (日本語の字幕). 

Watch the video as many times as you need to. When you are finished, answer these questions in your notebook about the different parts of the video (you can make notes in English or Japanese):

日本のメッセージ
1. What did the first woman say about coming to Australia as a refugee?
2. What did the second woman say about communication between the government (政府) and refugees?

シンポジウムから待たヒント
What did Ishii-san say about the two women's refugee stories?

日本にできること
What did Moriya-sensei from Hokkaido Educational University (北海道教育大学) say about the needs of refugees?

長野県松本市の取り組み
What did Takizawa-sensei from Toyo Eiwa Women's University graduate school (東洋英和女学院大学大学院) say about help for refugees in Matsumoto city in Nagano (長野県松本市)?

求められる視点
What did Daniel Alkhal (ダニエル・  アルカル ) from the UNHCR (国連難民高等弁務官事務所) say about the three different steps of support refugees need?

Make these notes in your notebook. You can make these notes in Japanese or English.

Task 
Now look at your notes and write 3-4 paragraphs about what you think of refugees and their needs, especially in coming to Japan.

If you believe that refugees should not come to Japan, give your reasons why.

I know this is a deeper topic than what some of you have done before - so as I say in my handout about our 2nd writing assignment, I will give some extra points to you for trying for this topic.

Good luck! I look forward to reading your great writing about this issue.

Take care!

Image: By Mikhail Esteves from Bangalore, India - Mae La Refugee Camp, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2720844
Video uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the video. Uploaded strictly for educational purposes only. All rights reserved to the 
copyright holder(s).

Writing English 2B: Final writing assignment support post - the future (Part 3)・期末作文のサポート「未来」(Part 3)

Hello! 

How are you? Here is one more supporting post for your final writing assignment about Japan and the future. 

Some of you might have gotten the feeling that writing about the future only means writing about science and technology - and if I gave you that feeling, I'm very sorry! I did not mean only to focus on science and technology. I made my Part 1 and Part 2 posts about science and technology only because so much of what a lot of people imagine about the future involves things like computers, robots, rockets, space travel, and things like that.

But this is not all there is about the future - there is also society and culture too. You do not have to focus on science and technology in your thinking about the future - there are also things such as fashion and music, and the looks of cars and buildings, and the way people live in their day-to-day lives.  

Look at the picture above. It shows an average Japanese family having dinner, and it comes from a Japanese magazine article from 1954 about home life. Is there anything different about family dinner time now than from then? 

Activity
What kinds of social or cultural changes can you see happening in Japan in the future? Japanese society and culture has already been through many changes since World War II. 

Take a look at these next group of pictures. They show some changes that have happened in around the last 50 years, up to now. What do you notice about the buildings, or the cars, or the way people dress? How do you feel that things have changed? 

Chuo-dori, Ginza, Tokyo, 1967

Chuo-dori, Ginza, Tokyo, 2017

Japanese young people, 1964

Japanese young people, 2017

Some street fashions in Japan, late 1960s

Some street fashions in Japan, 2017

So what kinds of changes can you imagine happening in society or culture in the future? What sorts of fashions might people be wearing? For example, would long hair come back into fashion among men? Would women wear mini-skirts again? Or - would men wear skirts and women wear suits? How about music? What would it sound like in the future? 

What designs in cars could you see in the future? Would we see a return to some older designs in cars? How about buildings? How might they be different? Perhaps would we see something that people 50 years ago would never have imagined? 

Good luck with this! I hope this can give you more ideas on how you can write on Japan and the future. 

See you next week!

Images: Top - by Unknown - Japanese magazine "Photograph Gazette, May 1954 issue" published by Government of Japan., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17850644/Ginza in 1967 - By Roger W from Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A. - Tokyo - Chuo-Dori, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=60804070/Ginza in 2017 - By Gary - DSC08269 - Chuo-dori Ginza, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40961932/Japanese young people in 1964 - screenshot taken from Japanese+youth,+Tokyo,+1964+(11).jpg/Japanese young people in 2017 - screenshot taken from https://www.google.co.jp/search?biw=1199&bih=746&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=w2dXWpWxAcr08QXcjLHAAg&q=japanese+young+people&oq=japanese+young+people&gs_l=psy-ab.12...0.0.0.37755.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1c..64.psy-ab..0.0.0....0.ZsHKi1iiTEI#imgrc=VXhxXXgo1PeJ-M:/Fashions in the 1960s - screenshot taken from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVifNM1qJpNSwRHH30eGOOMQ8u1eWIFbtfL4B4grLM0EviNv46NNj9VRDifgsZfFAEvaTiqIjWnD_UNt_16_RwAXy9_4PHc47nUIu8RRYAJYcTeEPqcCIDsukeHRDb2yeAS0lm4qld3xE/s1600/Street fashion in 2017 – screenshot taken from https://medium.com/@TokyoFashion/japanese-street-fashion-2017-15-things-you-need-to-know-ab06eabfca39

Writing English 2B: Final writing assignment support post - the future (Part 2)・期末作文のサポート「未来」(Part 2)

Hello! 

How are you? Here is a second supporting blogpost for all of you from a different viewpoint about Japanese technology for the future, and the role it might play in shaping our lives and society here. 

As you can see above, this is a picture of ASIMO - the robot that can walk on two legs that Honda developed. Do you feel that this is a great achievement - or do you see any problems or difficulties with the role that robots might play in our lives, or even society, in the future?  

Activity
This is a short video that was made in 2015, but it is still timely. Watch it as many times as you want or need - there's no dialog on it, so it is easy to follow. 

Here's one basic question: How would you compare and contrast (比較対照して) the things you see about technology and the future in this video with what you saw in the first supporting blogpost about American ideas of the future after World War II? 

One common idea is that technology will be important in our societies and lives in the future, and play a positive role. Would you agree with this - or do you see any problems with technology and its possible impact on Japanese society in the future?  

Good luck with this! I hope this can give you some more ideas and some different ways to think about this theme of writing about Japan and the future.

Have fun with this! See you next week!

Image: By Morio - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29969316
Video uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the content of the video or the products depicted. All rights reserved to the copyright owner(s) of content and products. Uploaded for classroom use only.

Writing English 2B: Final writing assignment support post - the future (Part 1)・期末作文のサポート「未来」(Part 1)

Hello!

How are you? Here is a first supporting post for the final writing assignment about Japan and the future. Today let's look at this theme from a unique angle - some ideas that were common in the U.S. after World War II about the future (未来). 

Every culture has its own ideas about what the future looks like. The picture above comes from an American magazine called Popular Science. It has been published for a long time, and this picture is from 1947. 

In one of their magazines from that year, Popular Science had a report about the future. It imagined many things about it. How many of these things do you think have become real? 

These are very some American ideas, especially after World War II, about what the future would look like. But would any of these ideas be the same as some Japanese ideas at that time about the future?  

Activity

Let's look at these other pictures from the 1947 Popular Science article. What do you think Americans might have imagined in them? 

例えば：In the picture at the top, maybe they thought all our electricity (電気) would come from nuclear power plants (原子力発電所) in the future. 

As one way to help you with ideas for writing about the future from a different viewpoint - let's try to imagine what they thought in these pictures!

If you want to see the where these pictures came from with a report about them, go to the Popular Science website here. 

I hope these ideas can help you, or lead you to more or other ideas, for your final writing assignment about Japan and the future.

Have fun! See you next time!

Images: Screenshots of illustrations uploaded to Popular Science website. 

Uploaded for educational purposes only. I do not own the rights to these illustrations. All rights reserved to the copyright holder(s). 

Writing English 1B: Supporting post for final writing assignment - opinion writing (Part 2)・期末作文のサポート「オピニオン書き」(Part 2)

Hello!

How are you? Here is a support post for any students who are interested in doing opinion writing for the final writing assignment (期末作文). 

Ideas 
You can take your ideas from the news - either from TV, or the internet, or newspapers or magazines - and you can base your topics on anything - politics (政治), society (社会), sports, movies, music, and so on. 

Task
When writing your opinion, follow these guidelines:

First, show the issue or problem and where you first saw it or heard about it - on TV, the internet, radio, in the newspaper, and so on.   

After that, show what impact the issue or problem has or is having in Japan - with a certain type of people (for example, older people, or university students, or workers, or children, and so on), or in a certain area (the Tohoku, Okinawa, the Kanto, and so forth), or in a certain field or industry (companies, shops, schools, universities or other things). Try to find out and show details (詳細) where you can. 

Finally, bring in your opinion of the issue or problem - what do you think of it, and what solution (解答、答え) would you propose for it - if you feel you can propose a solution or answer to the problem or issue? 

You do not have to do a big or heavy topic if you don't want to! Here are some ideas for you if you can't think of any on your own. Choose one (1) of these: 

• Voting (投票権) age - in Japan, it is 20. Should it be lowered to 18 years of age, as it is in many countries? 
• Tattoos - in Japan there is a big taboo (禁物) against them. But do you think they are really a big problem? 
• Smartphone access and use among children - this has become a big issue lately. Is it okay for children to get access and use smartphones, or should there be an age restriction (制限)? 
• Foreign immigration (移住) to Japan - this has also been a big question lately. Should Japan allow some numbers of immigrants (移民) to come in to help increase the numbers of workers? 

Good luck! I hope these ideas can give you something to write on if you can't think of what to do for our final assignment.

Take care! I look forward to reading your great writing on this task.

See you next week!

Image: By Norman Rockwell - U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16925968

Writing English 2A: Writing assignment 2・作文2

Hello!

How are you? Let me show you our 2nd writing assignment - your opinions about refugees (難民) and what they need for immigration (移住).

I am gathering writing on his topic into a book called Leaving Home, Going Home - this is a book about student writing on refugee issues. The best of your writing on this topic could go into this book, so write to the best you can!

How much to write 
I would like you to write as much as you can, because your work may be published (出版した) on both this blog and in the Leaving Home, Going Home book.

I would like to see maybe 3-4 paragraphs' worth of writing.

Deadline (締め切り)
It will be June 22nd (6/22), so I want you to bring in a first draft (下書き) next week (来週) in your notebooks in pencil. Then you can write to the finish and turn in your work on 6/22.

Preparation (準備)
Refugees have many problems, and many things they need. Watch this video. It's mostly in Japanese, but with some English, with Japanese subtitles  (日本語の字幕). 

Watch the video as many times as you need to. When you are finished, answer these questions in your notebook about the different parts of the video (you can make notes in English or Japanese):

日本のメッセージ
1. What did the first woman say about coming to Australia as a refugee?
2. What did the second woman say about communication between the government (政府) and refugees?

シンポジウムから待たヒント
What did Ishii-san say about the two women's refugee stories?

日本にできること
What did Moriya-sensei from Hokkaido Educational University (北海道教育大学) say about the needs of refugees?

長野県松本市の取り組み
What did Takizawa-sensei from Toyo Eiwa Women's University graduate school (東洋英和女学院大学大学院) say about help for refugees in Matsumoto city in Nagano (長野県松本市)?

求められる視点
What did Daniel Alkhal (ダニエル・  アルカル ) from the UNHCR (国連難民高等弁務官事務所) say about the three different steps of support refugees need?

Make these notes in your notebook. You can make these notes in Japanese or English.

Task 
Now look at your notes and write 3-4 paragraphs about what you think of refugees and their needs, especially in coming to Japan.

If you believe that refugees should not come to Japan, give your reasons why.

To be honest, this is a deeper topic than what some of you have done before - so I hope this is interesting for you.

Good luck! I look forward to reading your great writing about these issues.

Take care!

Image: By Mikhail Esteves from Bangalore, India - Mae La Refugee Camp, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2720844
Video uploaded from YouTube. I do not own the rights to the video. Uploaded strictly for educational purposes only. All rights reserved to the
copyright holder(s).