JLPT is coming up this Sunday!

Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) administered by American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) and the Japan Foundation (Japanese government) is coming up this Sunday (12/2/2012).

Hopefully we will have a good weather without snow!!   Many students could take a test as we expected.

December dinner will be held on Friday 12/7/2012 (next week), which is the Pearl Harbor Day!

Gradually filling up the classes in Spring semester.  I am truly hoping that more people join the Spring trip to Japan!!!

Time flies and flies!

Once getting into November, the end of the year seems to come very fast!  Indeed, 2 weeks have been passed in November and GTS is about to be heading to Philadelphia to attend the annual conference for ACTFL/AATJ (American Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages/American Association of Teachers of Japanese).

GTS is the leadership of AATJ-Community College SIG and also one of the board members of AATJ.  Mostly GTS is overlooking the students activities for Japanese learners of K-16 throughout the United States.

We have launched the Japanese National Honor Society for Community College Students this year and I am ready for inducting several next semester!

For COD classes, usual withdrawal from classes mounted and now 47 students are in 1101.  GTS is really hoping that all these 47 students would pass the course!

Japan Symposium finished Successfully!

The biggest day ofthis semester, Japan Symposium was successfully ended with the great Taiko Drum performance and Asian fashion show on last Thursday!

The Opening Ceremony with our college president and Consul General of Japan at Chicago was attended by over 120 audience which was followed by sessions of Dr. Norma Field and Dr. Jason Jones. The afternoon movie viewing and discuaaion over the recent award winning film "Okuribito (Departure)" was well accepted as well.

Thank you for all those attendees as well as orgnaizing committee members of College of DuPage.

Spring field trip is coming up this weekend and this blog will become the report of the each day events!

JCC/GTS Dinner was flourished!

March dinner has just passed with about 20 participants including several new faces. On Sunday night I had a dinner with some JET alums to think back just one year ago, which is the day Tsunami attacked Japan.

The first class for the Spring Kyoto Trip was held and everyone introduced among others and all wished stronger dollars and full-bloom of Cherry Blossoms.

There will be American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) annual conference this week in Toronto, Canada and I will be presiding one session. I am looking forward to meeting several professional friends in rather warm Canada!

Denver, Colorado!

GTS is in Denver, Colorado for attending the annual conference of American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the largest professional orgamization in the U.S. in the field.

National Council of Japanese Language Teachers (NCJLT) is its affiliate and GTS is one the leaderships of the National Level. NCJLT will merge into another organization and it will be re-born as American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ, 全米日本語教育学会) in January 1, 2012.

GTS is honored to be nominated as one of the three candidates of this new organization and the election will be conducted shortly. Though the chance of winning the election is slim, it is the great thing that teachers in our field recognized GTS!

GTS/JCC Dinner went well!

There are some new comers as well as a former student from 10 years ago, who was in Kyoto on the Day of 9/11/2001 in GTS field trip group! We almost could not make it in time for returning to the U.S. but we were the first group of returning from Japan!

I am working on the voice acting for Mr. Butch Harmon, the coach of Tiger Woods! Well, nobody will notice my voice but hope many Japanese golfers learn how-to from the DVD!

The end of the year 2011 is really nearing!

Tea Ceremony Demo Blasted!

Over 40 students and teachers and community people enjoyed the almost-authentic Japanese Tea Ceremony (Cha no Yu) yesterday with the tea practitioner, Ms. Akiko Sato. She brought almost all the materials and decorative scrolls, etc to the college to show 'traditional tea serving.'

Those who participated the actually ceremony, Otemae, were my students in their 5th semester of Japanese and went to to Kyoto this past summer as a study abroad student.

Everyone in the audience had a chance to taste the traditional Japanese tea and enjoyed a little moment of Japan!!

Japanese Taiko Drum is Coming and GTS Talk!

There will be Japanese Taiko Drum performance at our Art center (MAC) this coming Friday at 8pm. (10/21/2011) This Taiko Group is called "Yamato" originated in Asuka village of Nara, the ancient capitol of Japan (~784).

GTS has no particular relationship with this group but will give a talk prior to the show about maybe drum maybe not.

Hopefully many will show up to enjoy both GTS talk show and the actual Taiko performance!

First test for every class has been completed!

It is already mid-September and GTS is staying in Chicago downtown hotel to participate in the workshop, "Imagining Japan: Literatures, Arts and Religions." This workshop is a joint project of the East-West Center and University of Hawaii in Collaboration with: The school of the Art Institute of Chicago and College of DuPage and funded by the Japan Foundation. I want to prepare some new discussion materials out of this workshop and utilize in my future classes. These classes will be Japanese 1100 and/or Humanities 1800 (Field Trip to Japan)

During my stay in the hotel, I have finished grading of tests.
The average score of 1101 and 2201 is about 80% and 1102 is 75% as projected. After this first test I will probably lose some students from 1101 as usual.

Spring semester schedule has been now published and there will be 2 classes of 1101 (day and night) and 1102 (day and night) as well as 1 class 2202 at night.

AP Scoring Finished and ready to go to Japan!

13-day AP Scoring session has just ended and be ready to go to Kyoto with 14 students on coming Tuesday. We will fly into Narita by American Airline and transfer to Itami by Japan Airline. Our fist night stay will be at the Kyoto International Academy accomodaiton facility before meeting with host families on the following day.

This year, everyone will get the KIA student ID which allow them to be admitted to various facilities such as, Kyoto Manga Museum, Kyoto City Zoo, Kyoto City Museum, Nijo Castle, etc. as many times as they want. First time Japanese Snack Factory visit is also exciting!

Hope the rainy season end soon and the trip give us great experience. Once getting to Kyoto, this blog will give everyone the daily up-date!

AP Japanese Test Pre-Reading has begun!

GTS arrived in Kansas City, MO for scoring AP Japanese Test for high school students. Actual scoring session will begin next Wednesday but we are now working hard to create the scoring criteria and training materials. About 2000 students took this test as usual and scoring session will last until 6/16! This is the final year for this scoring location and the site will move to Salt Lake City next year! One of these night, we will probably go to Kansas City Royals ball game and the movie theater where I cannot go that often back in Chicago. I was already tired but am happy to reunited with some teacher friends from all over the U.S.!

June is just around the corner!

Upon getting into June, GTS will fly to Kansas City for AP Japanese Scoring Session between 6/3-16 just before taking 14 students to Kyoto for the Study Abroad Program. Probably just about 2000 high schoolers took this year's AP Japanese tests to hope to get some college credits before entering a college/university.

Starting the next year, AP Scoring location will be in Salt Lake City, UT.

Fall registration has begun and 10 students registered for 1101 (100 seats in 4 sections available).

Japan seems to be attacked by 2nd typhoon this year already and the rainy season has also begun. Hopefully the rainy season ends earlier so that my students can enjoy more there!

Conference in Hawaii!!

Association of Teachers of Japanese will have the annual conference in University of Hawaii this weekend in conjunction with the annual conference of Association for Asian Studies. As GTS is one of the conference organizers, I am in Hawaii now to be ready for it. Since I am in Hawaii, indeed, I am having some fun now at North Shore, Kailua, Dole Plantation, etc. I did swim with 2 daughters under nice sunshine! Last visit to Hawaii was summer 2005, so 5 years have passed. Hopefully I can come back here in Hawaii in 5 years again! Refreshing at least now!

GTS/JCC dinner this Friday night!

The regular monthly dinner is coming back to the first Friday of the month and it will be this coming Friday. I will be there at about 6:30pm to be ready. Past few days have been busy for assisting Consulate General of Japan at Chicago for its interview process for JET program and annual Japanese language speech contest initial screening process. Now I have to be spiritually ready for the Annual Conference for Association of Teachers of Japanese held in Honolulu during COD Spring Break. As I am a member of conference program organization committee as well as Conference Proceeding Editing committee, I will become super busy soon. Oh, I have to prepare the summer study abroad program as well. Summer program seems to become one of the largest groups in its history with some 18-19 students!! Airfare is super expensive, dollars are super weak, but students hopefully super GENKI!

Japanese Teaching Workshops in Chicago!

After unexpected two-day Blizzard off, this coming Saturday and Sunday have workshops for Japanese education. Two worshops will be held at Japan Information Center (attached to Consulate General of Japan in Chicago). Saturday one is for K-16 Japanese teachers in the area (mostly IL, IN, WI, IA) and Sunday one is for teaching Japanese as a Heritage language. Teaching Japanese, to second-generation Japanese-Ameican kids as well as to those who has a Japanese-speaking parent, has a different meaning for them so we have to focus some effective methods. Oh, well writing about this will need 20-page paper so I should just prepare two workshops. Good thing is that I am just a organizer and the facilitating specialist will come from California! I hope flight from Los Angeles would arrive on time and have a welcoming dinner here!

Blizzard closed the school but not GTS!

Once in 40 years blizzard attacked Chicago area and almost all the schools were closed. COD was closed right after 1102 students' taking the first chapter test this semester. Thanks to the Blizzard ironically created time for me to mark every test and find out who were "injured" and who were "defenced well." The average score of the test is just about 70% so I would say it was a bit harder but it was quite usual at the beginning of the semester. Blizzard gave more time for 2202 students to prepare the test due to the cancellation of the class so I am expecting that they will perform great on Monday! I am rather busy for organizing two up-coming workshops this weekend held at the Consulate General of Japan at Chicago! Oh, yea my birthday is coming up on Friday!

Rather small GTS/JCC dinner but good start!

The first dinner of 2011 was rather small group but it was a good start of this rabbit hopping year. 1102 classes began and 36 students in 2 classes seems to determine themselves to move on. 1101 and 2202 will begin the course tomorrow and just about 10 students will continue to study at 2202 while 1101 class is full of 25 students. Usually I have a Spring Field trip to Japan during the spring break but there is no trip due to my another professional commitment so regular classroom teaching schedule makes me busier than usual. From Monday through Thursday, 9 to 9 (12-hour daily schedule) working will challenge me until May!

Spring Semester 2011 is nearing! Greeting!

GTS hopes that every one's winter break was comforting and energy saving for the beginning of Year 2011. The rabbit year, hopping year, growing year, exploring year, exciting year, .... GTS family including newly added SHIBA-INU, Taro, DROVE down to the Disney World and certainly and safely returned home. How many miles? Just 2400 miles which is equal to the round trip between Hakodate in Hokkaido and Fukuoka in Kyushu! We welcomed the year 2011 in the car in Tennessee while driving back to Chicago. By the way I am writing this in San Francisco where I made a presentation about Japan Trip! Busy life continues in 2011. Spring semester is just around the corner and 2 classes (one is 1101, and another morning 1102) are now full! Night 1102 seems to have 14 more seats left, which I doubt is to be filled. The summer study abroad registration is now ready and I am holding a few successful application forms in hands now. Welcome to GTS page, classes, world and circle. Let's enjoy the rabbit year 2011 together!

Happy Thanksgiving 2010!

GTS family except TARO visited the friend's family house to have a lunch party! Nothing to do with turkey as chicken is tastier and eating turkey is quite foreign to us. Kids are having fun together and parents are talking about the kids' future. hahaha, sounds very non-unusual. After Thanksgiving, school matters will be wrapped up rather quickly. Weak dollar prevent GTS from visiting Japan this winter so I am planning to drive down to possibly FL towards the end of the year 2010. GTS will make a presentation on Jan. 7 as a panelist in San Francisco Fisherman's Wharf where the annual conference of Japanese Studies Association (JSA) is held! The topic? Of course about study abroad and international field studies! Oh, yeah, JCC/GTS dinner will be held on Friday 12/3/2010! Around 7pm! During the Spring semester, the dinner will be held on the SECOND Friday of the month for various reasons. My Japanese tweet is 'satsutan.' Can be fun for Japanese language study. Only 8 seats for 1101 in Spring are left! 1102 and 2202 still have plenty!

Conference in Boston!

GTS has been in Boston since Friday morning and now I am on my way back to Chicago. I met Prof. Eri Banno, the author of GENKI textbook and talk about the revised edition scheduled to be ready in February next year. Also attended the workshop for using textbook called "Doko Demo Nihongo" which is planned to be used for 2251 next fall. I won the raffle ticket to get a big Doraemon nuigurumi which is probably going to one of the daughters. 5th test has been done for 1101 and now everyone began struggling to master Te-form. Spring registration is underway and only 9 spots for 1101 are left (This is the first time to offer 1101 in Spring at COD!) Though Christmas field trip to Japan was canceled, the summer study abroad program seems to be fairly promising since over 10 students in my class currently plan to apply! Spring break field trip will come back in 2012!