Saturday, September 20, 2014

Bonus Opportunities for September

Go to a pre-approved community event and report back on it in your target language (either Spanish or Japanese) in order to earn bonus points. These points go towards your participation grade (40% of overall grade).

Eligible Events and Activities:

  • Home Football Game at AHS (Fri., 9/19)
  • Puyallup Fair
  • Home Soccer Game at AHS (Thurs., 9/25)
  • Home Volleyball Game at AHS (Mon., 9/22)

(You may bring in up to two tissue boxes for bonus points as well!)

Got other ideas? Bring 'em to the discussion in class (let us know what's happening)!

Monday, September 15, 2014

Website: Kana Stroke Order, Counters, and More!

Resources for practicing Hiragana and Katakana Stroke Order, Kanji, Numbers and Counters, and more! Check it out!

--> http://www.umich.edu/~umichjlp/

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Materiales / 資料(しりよう)

FOR FRIDAY, SEPT. 5, PLEASE HAVE THE FOLLOWING MATERIALS WITH YOU:

- Binder (1.5 to 2 inches)
- 10 pencils
- 3 red pens
- 3 black pens
- 2 erasers
- 100 sheets of paper (in binder)

Binder is graded and is intended to be used solely for your Foreign Language materials.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Japanese Starter Kit

My students in Japanese 1 are welcome to download the following starter kit. Its contents are listed below, along with some notes for use. NOTE: You will be given hard copies of most documents in class on the 3rd of September.

{{{ GET THE KIT }}}

STARTER KIT CONTENTS:
  • Blank Kanji & Kana Writing Practice Sheet
  • Combo Hiragana and Katakana Chart
  • Complete Hiragana Chart with Pictures
  • 4 Japanese Radio Stations: Use VLC Media Player to open these.
  • Hiragana and Their Respective Kanji of Origin
  • Hiragana Writing Practice Sheets with Stroke Order
  • Important and Common Student Questions in Japanese
  • Japanese Alphabet Song - Hiragana/Katakana (use VLC Media Player)
  • Plain Hiragana (Large Characters)
  • Textfugu Hiragana Chart with Dakuten and Combinations

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Un recuerdo de Ecuador

Mi esposa y yo fuimos a Ecuador durante las vacaciones del verano este año. ¡Tengo tantos cuentos para contarles...!

Un iman de Ecuador

今年の日本語1の教科書が着きました!

みんなの日本語 MINNA NO NIHONGO

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Neurogenesis and Rational Decision Making

SUMMARY: Learning a new language encourages your brain to grow. Also, thinking in and making a decision using a new language helps you to make better decisions.

Learning a language makes your brain grow:

Language learning makes the brain grow, Swedish study suggests
At the Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy, young recruits learn a new language at a very fast pace. By measuring their brains before and after the language training, a group of researchers has had an almost unique opportunity to observe what happens to the brain when we learn a new language in a short period of time. 
Learning a language allows you to better analyze risks and rewards and set a more desirable course of action for yourself:

Thinking in foreign language makes decisions more rational
...[R]esearchers believe a second language provides a useful cognitive distance from automatic processes, promoting analytical thought and reducing unthinking, emotional reaction.
You might think that the decisions you make in a foreign language don't differ from those made in your native language. However...
"It may be intuitive that people would make the same choices regardless of the language they are using, or that the difficulty of using a foreign language would make decisions less systematic. We discovered, however, that the opposite is true: Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases," wrote Keysar’s team.
TL;DR: Using a foreign language reduces decision-making biases, allowing you to make more rational and less reactionary choices.