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!!

My talk-show went so well!

As exactly as I planned, my talk-show got all the audience into smiles and laugh and everyone seemed to get relaxed before the actual Taiko Drum Performance.

It was great to see some of community fans of mine and I really felt that I am supported by people in my college community!

Hopefully those students who got free tickets from me enjoyed both my talk and the performance!

Next Wednesday (10/26/2011) has the Japanese Tea Ceremony great performance by the local tea master I invited!

Japanese Tea Ceremony is coming to COD!

COD's foreign language honor society, Alpha Mu Gamma, hold the Japanese Tea Ceremony Demonstration conducted by the local Tea master on Wednesday, 10/26/2011 (next week)!

The ceremony lecture and demonstration will begin 2:30pm at SRC 2800 on 10/26.

I hope many people have a chance to take a look at the actual "way of tea," a part of martial arts!

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!

1st weekend of October is passing!

Last night was the first Friday night on which GTS dinner was held as usual. About 15 people showed up and one new student joined from 1101 and got motivated to study! (Hopefully) Some came after a long while and one brought his fiance!!! Congratulations!!

Today is the day of the field trip to the Anderson Gardens which is the largest authentic Japanese garden in the United States. The trip was planned by Alpha Mu Gamma (Foreign Language Honor Society) which I am the co-advisor of.

32 people went together and had a great time under the great weather. We went to the very nice but reasonable Japanese restaurant nearby the Gardens in Rockford, IL.

We were all refreshed and energized!!