Last Updated on 10/30/2006
1. Get the Japan Times (JT) on the morning of Tuesday, September 26, 2006 at a newsstand of a train station near your house. Note that the JT is a morning paper and that you cannot buy it in the afternoon. If you should forget to get the JT, go to the JT by the next class and buy a copy of the news paper. See here and this map for info about where the JT is. You should call their Sales department first before you go there.
2. Use the JT and finish Handout, pp. 3-4.
3. Start thinking about the topic of your first presentation. Your presentation date comes a lot faster than you think!
4. Look at the Schedule section of our homepage and check your presentation date. If you find any errors, report them to Mr. Shimura in the next class.
1. Look at the Link section of our web site and study how to write emails in English, one of the most important writing skills in English for YOUR future.
2. Finish Homework #2 (Handout, pp. 7-8.
3. Look at the Schedule section of our web site and check the schedule/deadlines for your MOP. Use your schedule book and manage your time well.
1. Look at the Schedule section of our web site and check all deadlines of Step 1 for your MOP. Write the info in your schedule book and manage your time/schedule well. You must finish everything BEFORE its deadline. Deadlines are for you to succeed in finishing a big project like the MOP.
2. Look at Handout, pp. 13-14 and review Study Skills (SS) presentation skills. You may need to look at the SS Handbook and handouts from the SS class.
Mr. Shimura will attend a conference during this weekend, and he will not have an access to the Internet from noon on Saturday, October 14 to the morning of October 16. If you need his advice about your MOP, send your email by noon on Saturday. He will reply to your email from Monday morning. Thank you very much for your understanding and cooperation.
This class has been canceled due to the baseball game between Keio and Waseda. Do the following by the next class instead:
(1) As a homework for the last two classes, you have already read a book on PowerPoint and studied how to make good PowerPoint slides, it is time to look at the example PowerPoint slides in our web site. You can find some real example PowerPoint slides by students in the Monday-4 class.
(2) Look at the Schedule section of our web site. The second presentations (i.e., FOPs [Full Oral Presentation]) will start on November 13. We will decide your presentation date for your FOP in the next class on November 6. Check your schedule for November and December and decide which dateS are good for your second presentation.
(3) Start thinking about the topic (and even a particular news article) for your FOP. The FOP is 20 minutes long. Yes, it is longer than 15-minute-long MOPs, because you will have 5-minute discussion with your classmates about your news article. In this discussion section, you will first ask a discussion question. Your classmates will answer this question. This discussion question is a yes/no question. And it has to expect both yes and no answers from your classmates. If everyone says "yes," for example, you will not have any discussion. So make a yes/no question which will have both yes and no answers from your classmates. Here is one example from a past class:
Should we prohibit smoking in all public places (e.g., stations, schools, any roads, etc.)?
This is a good discussion question because you can expect both yes and no answers from your audience (i.e., classmates). The discussion question is the main part of your second presentation, so the success of your FOP depends A LOT on the quality of this question. Make a good discussion question!
How can you make a good discussion question? You should do two things. First find a good topic for a good disussion quesiton. Note that it is not easy to make such questions with certain topics. You should find a topic (= news article) about which it is easy to make a discussion question. Remember, it can take a lot of time to find a good topic for a good discussion question. Therefore, start finding a good topic for your second presentation NOW!!! Second, ask the question to yourself. Imagine this. If one of your classmates asks the question in his/her presentation, will YOU volunteer to answer it in English? Can you give at least one reason for your yes or no answer? If your answers to these questions are yes, the question must be good. If you find a good topic, you can reserve the topic by sending the info about it to Mr. Shimura by email. The email should included:
(1) Your name and class title (i.e., Akihiko Shimura, Monday-5 Class)
(2) Headline, date, and page number of your news article (see the Schedule seciton to learn how to write this info in a good format
(3) Five comprehension questions and their answers
(4) One dscussion question (Note: no answers are necessary).