Study Abroad Kyoto Group Arrived in Japan!

COD STudy Abroad Group safely arrived in Kyoto last night. Everyone seemed jetlagged and exhausted but also excited to have 6-week experience in Japan! We will learn about the city and transportation basic today as well as getting ready for class with the placement test!

Our summer began!!

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!

Study Abroad Orientation passed successfully!

Two-day Study Abroad Orientation was successfully finished last weekend and everyone got excited about the up-coming trip to Japan. There are 14 students (10 from COD, 1 from Waubonsee CC, 2 from Harper CC and 1 from Prairie State College). 10 male students will protect 4 female students during the trip and 3 students with over two years of Japanese learning experience will assist other students. It is a small but good group and I am confident in making this trip very fruitful!

2010-2011 academic year ended!

Final exam week has just passed and all grades were reported! The academic year has done and now should be ready for the orientation weekend for the study abroad program coming up in a few days! Since GTS allows students to withdraw in the last minutes to avoid lowering GPA, quite a few withdrew from classes after the actual enjoyment of the class activities with other classsmates.

Japanese 2252: 1 A, 2 B's (3 survived out of 3)

Japanese 2202: 3 A's, 1 B, 3 C's, 2 S's and 1 F (9 survived out of 10)

Japanese 1102: 12 A's, 2 B's, 1 C, 5 D's 1 S, 2 F's (21 survived out of 23)

Japanese 1101: 4 A's, 1 B, 3 C's, 2 F (9 survived out of 10)

Waubonsee 102: 2 A's, 1 B, 2 C's (5 survived)

Well, over 100 students began learning Japanese last fall and 21 survived (20%)!! Is this low? Not quite!

May Dinner is coming up tomorrow!

Time really flies and May JCC/GTS Dinner will be tomorrow and hope to see many of you at the end of this semester. June and July don't have a dinner because of the GTS' AP Scoring and Study Abroad Program but we will meet again in August 5th before the fall semester!
First experience of 1101 in the Spring semester began with over 25 students but there are only 10 left in class at the end. Hopefully everyone passes the course. 1102 students mostly pulled through the course and wait and see how they are! Summer Study Abroad Program in Kyoto for 6 weeks will have 15 students despite the nuclear and natural disaster!