What has learning a language given you?

The central image in this poster is a screenshot of the wallwisher linked here, which asked the questions: "What has learning a language given you? What do you love about language?"

If you love languages please add to the wall by simply clicking in an empty space on it and expressing what languages have given you. You can even link to video, images or audio in your comment.

The text below the image seemed a good idea at the time but basically arose from the presumption that so many people still make (I still hear it at parent teacher interviews); that is, we don't need to learn another language as everyone else speaks English. I am fairly sure that I am not alone in my opinion that this belief is not quite on the mark, kind of like the views of those who dismissed Galileo's views back in the 17th Century.

 

 

Home Made Mitarashi Dango: おいしい！

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Hiragana Play Dough

I've been meaning to buy some play dough for quite a while now, the kind we used to use in kindergarten - or more recently if you have children of your own. Play dough for creating whatever you imagine or, in our case, for helping to remember the Japanese hiragana script.

The class loved it, though its not an activity you would try too often. It was noisy but the students were thinking about the shape of each character and its associated sound. The results, thanks to the departments flip video camera, are below.

Language Learning: tips & tricks

Teaching our students how to learn is of course as important, if not more important, than what they learn. Learning a language is a new experience for many of our Year 7 students, and for those who have not learnt a language before, they may never have been shown how to do it.

Next time you set "learn the ... vocab on p... of the text" as part of your students' homework, give them a few tips on how they can do that, assuming you haven't already. Let them know that we all learn in different ways and the way one student learns their vocab will not necessarily be the way that everyone else does. We need to help each student find the most effective way for them to learn. At school I learnt my vocabulary by writing it down again and again (and again), now I learn through flashcards and by trying to use the vocabulary as often as possible. Both methods work in their own way but I now prefer flashcards and flash games.

Here's my attempt at putting some tips for language learning into one place. If you have any tips for me to improve the presentation, please let me know via a comment.

Music and Japanese Lyrics

A while back I wrote here about using music to inspire your Japanese language learning. In class this week my students pointed me towards 'jpopasia', a place to watch music videos and communicate with like minded fans of Japanese and Korean Pop music. The added benefit of this site, from my angle, is that many of the videos have the lyrics (including kanji lyrics) alongside them. This means we can listen to as well as read the Japanese. As mentioned in the post linked above, I learnt a lot of kanji and vocabulary from too much karaoke and now I see many of my students doing the same; as well as learning Japanese through manga and anime. The difference now is accessibility - Japan and Japanese music is so much closer. As the site's authors put it:

All we want is to promote Japanese music outside Japan. It's really hard to find and discover new Japanese music because of the language barrier and availability. We think we can fill this missing link in providing romaji titles and promotional videos.

So, find a song your students like, look at the grammar and kanji in the lyrics and use these to help reinforce the structures and script being learnt in class. In class yesterday, Angela Aki's song Tegami and lyrics helped us to revise a whole heap of kanji and to look at the grammar structures 〜ないで、〜そう（な）and 〜（え）ば. I even learnt a couple of new kanji myself.

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Blogs for learning about all things Japanese

Part of my presentation to Japanese teachers this week was aimed at providing teachers with some authentic, real-time Japanese resources - for the language and the culture. For me, these are the blogs and sites that I turn to when looking for images or short, reflective pieces on Japanese festivals, food, music, language and so on. These are my favourite J-Bloggers. People who live in Japan or have lived in Japan and blog about Japan and their experiences there.

The best thing about these posts is not only the quality of the images but also the real-time nature of the blog posts. Posts and images on Children’s Day or Hinamatsuri can be found around those days. 

Previously, I have posted on finding images for teaching culture. This new list contains some of those same sites and some added extras that I have found since. It also contains some sites that focus a little more on the language, as well as the culture.

If these don’t satisfy, the best thing to do is to look at the “Blogroll” (usually found in the side pane of the blog) on these blogs.

Muza-chan's Gate to Japan  - Great images and explanations of what's happening in Japan

Kimonobox - From Hinamatsuri to decorations to quirky Japanese products (and great images)

Shibuya246 - Awesome images and easy to read explanations

Japan: Life and Religion - Reflections on Japanese life, culture and Buddhism

A Rinkya Blog - A place to find Japanese gadgets and quirky collectibles.

Caught Red-handed  - A variety of articles on Japan and the language that contains the occasional gem

Rainbowhill Language Lab - Language and culture, including lots of tips for learning Japanese

 Tofugu - Lots of tips and resources for learning Japanese

Hungry for Words: Mostly Japanese - Reflections on the Japanese language and customs

...and keep an eye out for the Japan Blog Matsuri. The recent matsuri on Famous Japanese People was pretty useful.

What are your favourites? Please add any I've missed in the comments section.

 

 

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Japanese Adjectives - The Movie

Something designed to help think about the difference between i-adjectives and na-adjectives. Designed for my Year 9 class.

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