We're better when we work together
Last night, as I browsed through the latest “status updates” from my Facebook friends, I was struck by the fact that over 60% of my friends are non-native speakers of English (NNS). Their mother tongues range from Arabic to Zulu, yet almost all of them regularly communicate with me in English. Additionally, many write blogs [...]
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There are teachers, and there are Teachers. I respect anyone who steps into a classroom, but I adore educators for whom teaching is as much a vocation as a job. Why? Share the post “Why I Love Teachers”FacebookTwitterGoogle+
It has been a busy, exciting year. Karen Frazier, Ritsuko Nakata, Carolyn Graham and I finished the 4th edition of Let’s Go. I did workshops on the 5 largest islands in the Japanese archipelago (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa, in case you’re curious), in Korea, and online. Chuck Sandy, Kate Cory-Wright and I co-wrote [...]
Soon after I moved back to Japan, I had coffee with Kazu Nakamura, the new (at that time) president of Oxford University Press Japan. During our conversation, Kazu outlined his goals in regards to OUP’s educational mission. Part of the conversation, paraphrased in my memory, went like this: Kazu: I want us to provide teacher [...]
This is the story of a sensitive soul who decided to teach English as a foreign language. Like other such souls she was acutely aware that the world is not as it ought to be. While at university she had seen fellow students flocking to the careers fair and queuing up to become employees of [...]
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Some people fear that in the race to make Indonesian students more global, they may be losing the sense of what it means to be part of the Indonesian nation. August 17th is Independence Day in Indonesia. Just like other countries, on this day we celebrate the history of how Indonesia became a nation. When [...]
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Iro iro is Japanese for “this and that.” I love the sound of the word, and it sounds better than publishing a post called “miscellaneous stuff” So, here’s my iro iro: 20 years of learning and playing with Let’s Go Share the post “Iro Iro”FacebookTwitterGoogle+
It’s Children’s Day in Japan, a holiday for rejoicing in children’s unique personalities and celebrating their happiness. It seemed appropriate to use this post to showcase some of the ways that children around the world have worked with their teachers to respond to the earthquake and tsunami in this country. Share the post “Aftershocks 5″FacebookTwitterGoogle+
Teachable Moments I had a wonderful moment in class this week. I printed out the comments on the We love Japan message board and took them to one of my adult classes. I thought they would provide some lovely, simple reading material on a topic that my students are very familiar with—the earthquake and tsunami. [...]
