Final Thoughts

I enjoyed doing this project. I enjoyed recording and analyzing my own learning experience. I noticed many different aspects and points of views found in learning and teaching.

As a learner, I am happy with my progress. I realized that my weakness were NOT BEING ABLE: to learn on my own, to study on my own, and to assess my own progress. However, when there was no pressure of being graded, I was able to truthfully documenting my learning process.

I liked my own insights. I felt some of the ideas were quite unique given the backgrounds I had. I told the story of learning Japanese from a fluent Mandarin Chinese and English speaker's point of view. I analyzed the process from a cognitive scientist and linguistic point of view. I immersed in learning as a learner while occasionally approached and considered about learning as a teacher.

I witnessed the importance of have a complete and thorough lesson plan, as well as the effectiveness of drilling. I came across many aspects of feedback and multiple intelligence. These were just terms of ideas that we learned in class, but now I had a chance to get closer to them as a learner.

I also thought about motivations. It was such a magical and obscure concept. I thought about it over and over again. It was closely linked to my frustrations, that was my conclusion so far. However the process of discovery would not stop here. I want to keep thinking and search for better ways to motivate students.

In Chinese proverb, there was a story about an old man who lost a horse and then found two horses back. When he suffered from the loss, people felt sorry for him, but he told people not to, because loss might be a good thing. When the horse came back to him with another horse, people congratulated him for gaining, but he said it could be a bad thing. The story continued with his son riding on the new horse and broke a leg. In short, my point was just that I suffered from not having one Japanese teacher because my friend couldn't manage a time for me. However, I had unexpected gaining too. I was able to experience and compared different tutor/teaching style, as well as self-directed learning (term found from Oxford Brookes University's website).

I never considered myself as a studious student. I thought I would not be an autonomous learner (wiki) and that I was handicapped in autonomous learning. However, my goal in education is to help students become autonomous learners. Deep in my heart I've always had doubt in myself, for it seemed to be such an oxymoron, how can I be a dependent student myself yet want to teach students to be independent learners? Doing this project helped me understand more my strengths and weaknesses. It also helped me to see what I lack to become an autonomous learner. I felt that I may be one step closer to it now.

Log

Inspired By

Over the time of creating this journal, I thought of some games I might be able to use in the future.

I.
Game: Truth and Lies

Good for: Culture Lesson

Topic Example: Togei Kyoshitsu (Pottery Class)

Pre-game assignment:

Students research on their own three things about topic, given the information that they will test another team their knowledge on these things they researched.

Procedure:

Students will be separated into two teams. Team A will come up with three things about topic, Togei, and two of these things will be lies; only one will be fact. Team B will need to guess which one thing is the truth.

Then teams will rotate. Team B will come up with three things, and team A will guess.

II.
Activity: Two Rotating Circles

Good for: warm-up, sharing information and bridging knowledge

Topic Example: Togei Kyoshitsu (Pottery Class)

Procedure:

Students will form two concentric circles. 

Lesson 4

Lesson Four with Kayoko at Financier
Jan.11, 2011

Kayoko sensai (teacher) asked me whether I’ve learned about the week days, because if I haven’t then she can teach me that since she has already prepared that lesson for her class. I haven't got a chance to master the "conversation at a restaurant" that I envisioned in mind as the project was first proposed, but I thought I should learn what she had already prepared so that I did not create extra work for her.

This time the location was at a dessert place. We each had a dessert first before we started. 

We covered the 7 days of the week, how to ask "what day is today/tomorrow/the day after tomorrow?", and negation, such as "Today is not Sunday."

Materials

Kayoko brought her big and heavy laptop, which provided critical resources for today's lesson. Because of the laptop, we were able to watch a slide show, some youtube videos that she saved before.

This reminded me of a Chinese saying, "to do a good job, it is essential to have the tools sharpened (well-prepared)," and that was exactly what Kayoko did.

Learning Strategy

The days of the week are named after elements (except the sun and the moon), Kayoko told me. However, I think a more precise description would be the days of the week are named after planets plus the sun and the moon. Nevertheless, in Chinese (and Japanese I assume) the planets in our galaxy are named after the elements.
Monday = Getsu yoobi (Moon) (Getsu = moon)
Tuesday = Ka yoobi (Fire/Mars)
Wednesday = Sui yoobi (Water/Mercury)
Thursday = Moku yoobi (Wood / Jupiter)
Friday = Kin yoobi (Gold / Venus)
Saturday = Do yoobi (Soil / Saturn)
Sunday = Nichi yoobi (Sun / Sun)

How do you remember the seven days?
After we watched the slides Kayoko prepared, she told me to chant "Getsu, Ka, Sui, Moku, Kin, Do, Nichi" in a rhythm. She said that was how Japanese children were taught. However, I told her to memorize the first word in sequence only helped me with the sounds but not the meanings. In fact, I think it would be too slow to chant the words and count which one is which.

I told her how I memorized the meaning. It was not that difficult for me since I've already know all the Kanji characters. It was like playing a matching game. I just had to match the correct element/planet to the corresponding day.

I used a naturalistic approach. I did not try to memorize any of it, but I noticed how Wednesday really stood out because the fonts were blue (like water) on the slides. I read a book called " Wednesday is Blue (in Chinese)," before. (The book is translated from English; it's original name is "Born on a Blue Day"). Wednesday is about the middle of the week. So I just remembered the middle is blue, is water, and is Wednesday.

The rest just followed. Monday was moon because the slide was yellow.
Tuesday was fire because the slide was red.
Thursday was wood, because wood comes slow.
Friday was hard to remember because it was gold, yet it was hard to associate gold with Friday. I guess I could make up a connection between gold and TGIF: both makes people excited.
Saturday was soil. Saturday was kind of outdoor, hence soil fitted the image.
Sunday had the "Sun." Self-explanatory and easy.

That was how I remembered the seven days of the week. Kayoko sensei (teacher) complimented me, said I had good strategy.

Review / Practice On My Own

Repetition, Drilling, Large amount of input/output

During Lesson 3, Kayoko would teach me the material once, practice several times, and then started to show me ways to make sentences or questions with it. She would have me practice the material over and over again. Then she would change it a little bit, and have me practice over and over again. I had been a quick learner and did not consider there was the need for such repetition. However, when I tried to review the materials on my own, I really appreciated the effect it had. It made reviewing much easier. Because of the drilling we had during the session for days of the month (we watched the video twice, and Kayoko went over with me several times too), I was able to recite the rap from the youtube video without watching it again on my own!

Metacognitive Learning: Making Connection between Languages

Articulation : Japanese vs Cantonese 

I was practicing the irregular days of the month rap, and my boyfriend told me that he found 4,Yokka, and 8, Yooka sounded very similar. He could not distinguish them. 

I totally did not notice how similar Yokka and Yooka were last time when I had the class (Lesson3).

That day I basically pronounced the two words by the sounds and rhythm I remembered from the rap (video). 

A few days later, I suddenly made a connection of the way 4 was spelled (in Romaji) "Yokka" to Cantonese. I know that in Cantonese, there are a lot of "k" sound and "t" sound at the end of a syllable, such as in the name of a famous movie star, Chow Yun Fat. We don't really pronounce that "t" but only form our mouths into the position of pronouncing "t". 

I then realized that maybe it's not "Yo-kka" but "Yok-ka," and that was why Kayoko kept telling me there needed to be a pause between the "yok" and the "ka."

It was so complicated, but I was glad I figured it out. However, I still felt that I could not distinguish between yokka and yooka. To me I felt that the "yoo" sound in yooka, demostrate a fourth-tone quality. That was how I remembered it although I did not know whether my pronunciation had been correct or not.

Visual Aids - Rap on Youtube

 Japanese Rap for Days of the Month (Irregular ones only)

I watched this in my 3rd Japanese Lesson. This one is...really something. Several strength it exhibited were:

1. It's a powerful visual aid. The fact that it is created by non-native Japanese speaker who are speaking fluent Japanese was very inspiring and motivating.
   
   
2. It's also a very good conversation-generator. We were chit-chatting about how creepy the girl was, how good their Japanese was, how perfect the rhythm for days of the month was...etc.
   
   
3. It creates a fun atmosphere in the classroom. It relaxes the teacher and students, and helps build the bonds between teachers and students.
   
   
4. It helps the students to drill and memorize the irregular days of the month.
   
   
5. It makes a hard and boring topic easy and interesting. The days of the month that are irregular are: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 20th, and 24th (so basically that's what they are rapping; it doesn't sound so cool in English, but it sounds so cool in Japanese. That's cultural difference right there! Haha). It's a lot, and can really overwhelm students, but if you try to memorize it in terms of a rap then it is not long at all, and it's kind of cool.

Lesson 3 (Kayoko)

December 30, 2010

Finally I got to have another lesson with Kayoko. We reviewed the numbers and counting, and then had several lessons on months and days of the month, how to ask “when is your birthday?”, and how to address other people’s family members, and how to address my own family members.

  

In English there are only two ways to count: either one, two, three,…or first, second, third… However, in Japanese there are many different ways for counting. Counting dates is different from counting people, and counting people is different from counting hamburgers. At first I was shocked to hear there are so many different counting “systems,” and thought it is really weird because neither in English nor in Chinese have I encountered similar things. Nevertheless when I reflect on it after a while, I realize that Japanese’s complicated counting systems were probably influenced by Chinese. Kayoko told me that it is said that you can tell whether a person truly knows Japanese well by assessing whether this person have mastered the counting system. This saying reminded me that in Chinese it is said that the hardest aspect of Chinese to master is the measure-words. 

10 pgs of handouts at once!

Materials

I received 10 pages of handouts just today! I liked to take home so many references because I wanted to learn more during the class session, yet it was impossible to remember everything. I really appreciated all the handouts Kayoko photocopied for me free of charge, and they were very helpful when I studied them on my own.

Visual aid and a fun class 

Kayoko seemed to have a video clip for EVERY topic we covered. Short clips were a good way to provide a different stimulation to keep students from boredom. The youtube video she showed me this time was about two Australians speaking Japanese in a rap beat Rhythm. 

My other journal entry talks about it, Visual Aid.

Student's Background/Mindset

My teacher asked me several times what rule or pattern do I notice. For example, when talking about the days of the month, there were 13 days that were unlike the rest and had to be said differently. Kayoko asked me what rule I notice.  I noticed myself thinking of linguistic rules because of my linguistic background. In this case, the teacher's question was perceived differently to the listener's ears. In real life, we often encounter such miscommunication situations where the speaker and listener are using the same word but have a somewhat different definition in mind (or refers to different things, or evoke different frames) without realizing it. We do not usually reflect on our definition of a word, not to mention to double check it with another person's definition. We usually think a definition is absolute, but sometimes it can be helpful to be aware of this possible cause of miscommunication.

Feedback

Recasts
"Day" is "nichi" when counting the days of the week (except the irregular ones). However, when it was used in a sentence or question, I somehow pronounced it as "niji." My teacher, Kayoko, noticed and corrected me once, "nichi". I repeated again, "nichi." A few minutes later, I encountered this word in a long sentence, and I still said "niji." This time Kayoko did not explicitly correct me, but she just said, "nichi" after me. Immediately I noticed that I made a mistake, and corrected myself, "nichi," I said. Then Kayoko looked at me, and said, "recast was one of my favorite." It was interesting learning from my fellow colleague exactly because of moments like this! Haha.

Thinking as a language teacher

When I taught at Henry Street High School, I did not have a textbook I could go by.
Therefore there was no set way of teaching a phrase. When I learned that in Japanese they don't say "When is your birthday?" but "What month, what day is your birthday?" (Actually to be more exact, it was "birthday, what month, what day?"  


This triggered me to think, how do Chinese people ask “when is your birthday?” 
I thought of four possible ways:


Ni shenme shihou shengri?             Ni ji yue ji hao shengri?
[You what time birthday (is)?]      [You what month what day bday?]


 Ni shengri shenme shihou?              Ni shengri shi ji yue ji hao?
[Your birthday (is) what time?]       [Your birthday is what time?]

But which one should I teach?
I still don't know.
How can I figure this out?
I don't know the answer to that question either
How come our Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language program did not teach us this?
I don't know.

Lesson On My Own - 1

Lesson On My Own - Individual Lesson 1

Dec. 4, 2010

Online Resource: Nihongo o Narau http://www.learn-japanese.info/colors.html

For my first individual lesson, I decided to start with Colors for several reasons. This topic could stand independently from other lessons. This vocabulary would be very useful in my Togei Kyoshitsu pottery class. Also this topic looked very easy when I researched for lessons online.

I printed out the vocabulary list from the website Nihongo o Narau, looked it over and attempted to read the English spelling (Romaji) for the sounds, and then looked for an audio aid to help me with the pronunciation

This is what I found:

I liked this one because it provided Hiragana/ Katakana characters next to the Kanji, which I already know them all, because they are the same as Chinese characters.

The Challenge
It was not hard to learn the colors. It was not hard to learn how to ask "What color is it?" It was frustrating because I felt that I still could not carry a conversation in Japanese. I tried to imagine myself using these words in Togei Kyoshitsu, pottery class, and there were just not enough sentence I knew that I could use.

Maybe I should learn how to say, " This color is pretty." I thought it could be a useful sentence, however, I have no teacher to ask. That is always the downside of learning on one's own, because one has no teacher to ask. I did not use Google Translate because I did not trust it.

I began to feel frustrated often. I had this frustration because I felt a lot of time had elapsed since I officially started to learn. Frustration occurs because there is expectation. I wanted to speak Japanese, and I felt that I still could not. I began to feel that I was not going anywhere with these lessons -- not enough for me to know Japanese. I began to feel frustrated because I realized how difficult it was and how much longer it might take for me to master it. "Why do I want to master it? What for?" I asked myself. Then I fell into this unsureness of why I was doing this. I started to question my motivation.

All these somewhat negative thoughts were very minor. They were not serious enough to make me depressed or lose interests in learning. However, they did triggered me to think.

Thinking as a FL teacher
I taught Mandarin Chinese at Henry Street High School on lower east side. Unlike my fellow Mandarin teachers, I had a student population of mostly minority students,
students with low economic status,
students with many other family, financial, and community issues,
students who were not motivated, and did not have a reason to learn Mandarin!

Learning Japanese made me realize how difficult it is to learn a foreign language. I still don't know how to motivate my students, but I had been thinking of what I want to tell them.

I want to tell them not to set their goal as "to learn Mandarin," but to see "how similar and different Mandarin is from American English." I will ask them to draw a vann diagram. I will encourage them to find linguistic evidences of how people from these two cultures think differently. I will tell them that by learning Mandarin now, it will help expand their ability to learn any other language, to think analytically, and will make them smarter.

I don't know if it will make any sense to them, but I think that's what I will say.


Review On My Own
Dec. 11, 2010
When it was time to review, I stared at the sheet I printed out. I tried to focus on eye-balling and reading each items. I did not understand what the point of studying was if I felt I knew each items on the page. I then copied down the Hiragana once, trying to memorize them, and then quizzed myself on the vocabulary and question. I felt I was not very creative in thinking of ways to study better. I wished I could have myself doing all these different practices like what Kayoko would do with me.

I thought about my students from Henry Street High School, where I taught Mandarin for three months. I imagined my students were like this too when I taught them colors in Mandarin Chinese. Did they feel like they did not know how to study? How can I help them?

Japanese Song - Nagaiaida

Dec. 4, 2010

This is a Japanese song that I've heard a long time ago. I used to memorize it's lyrics by using English spelling for the sounds. Now I can actually read the Hiragana part of the lyrics! (Lyrics are from this website.) Also, this video is a Karaoke-version, which has lyrics on screen, and the part sang will be highlighted. It is great for practicing and studying Hiragana.

長い間待たせてごめん
Nagai aida matasete gomen
また急に仕事が入った
Mata kyuu ni shigoto ga haitta
いつも一緒にいられなくて
Itsumo isshoni irarenakute
寂しい思いをさせたね
Sabishii omoi wo saseta ne

I'm sorry for making you wait for a long time
Work cropped up suddenly again
Always not able to be together
I know I've made you think lonely thoughts

逢えない時 受話器からきこえる
Aenai toki juwaki kara kikoeru
君の声がかすれてる
Kimi no koe ga kasureteru
久しぶりに逢った時の
Hisashiburi ni atta toki no
君の笑顔が胸をさらってゆく
Kimi no eigao ga mune wo sarate yuku

When I can't meet you
I can hear your voice crack over the phone
And when we meet after a long time
Your smile carries my heart away

気づいたのあなたがこんなに 胸の中にいること
Kizuita no anata ga konnna ni mune no naka ni iru koto
愛してる まさかねそんな事言えない
Aishiteru masaka ne sonna koto ienai

I've noticed the way you are inside my heart
But I can't bring myself to say things like "I love you"

あなたのその言葉だけを信じて
Anata no sono kotoba dake wo shinjite
今日まで待っていた私
Kyou made matteita watashi
笑顔だけは 忘れないように
Eigao dake wa wasurenai youni
あなたの側にいたいから
Anata no soba ni itai kara

Trusting only your word
I've been waiting till this day
I'll try not to forget only your smile
Because I want to be by your side

笑ってるあなたの側では 素直になれるの
Waratteru anata no soba de wa sunao ni nareruno
愛してる でもまさかねそんな事言えない
Aishiteru demo masaka ne sonna koto ienai

I can be frank when I am beside you when you are smiling
I love you, but I'm unable to say something like that!

気づいたのあなたがこんなに 胸の中にいること
Kizuita no anata ga konna ni mune no naka ni iru koto
愛してる まさかねそんな事言えない
Aishiteru masaka ne sonna koto ienai

I've noticed the way you are inside my heart
But I can't bring myself to say things like "I love you"

笑ってるあなたの側では 素直になれるの
Waratteru anata no soba de wa sunao ni nareruno
愛してる でもまさかねそんな事言えない
Aishiteru demo masaka ne sonna koto ienai

I can be frank when I am beside you when you are smiling
I love you, but I'm unable to say something like that!

気づいたのあなたがこんなに 胸の中にいること
Kizuita no anata ga konna ni mune no naka ni iru koto
愛してる まさかねそんな事言えない
Aishiteru demo masaka ne sonna koto ienai

I've noticed the way you are inside my heart
But I can't bring myself to say things like "I love you"

笑ってるあなたの側では 素直になれるの
Waratteru anata no soba de wa sunao ni nareruno
愛してる でもまさかねそんな事言えない
Aishiteru demo masaka ne sonna koto ienai

I can be frank when I am beside you when you are smiling
I love you, but I'm unable to say something like that!

Japanese Greeting Song

Dec. 4, 2010

Kayoko introduced this song to me in our first lesson, and I've searched several others on youtube. It's interesting to see how Japanese teach their kids.

I've used this for my review sessions, but my dilemma was that I hate it when the song is stuck in my mind! That is why I usually only listen to the part that I don't know how to say, such as "Ojamashimasu (at 1'47'')."

Lesson 2 (Sophia)

November 6, 2010
After I had my first lesson with Kayoko, she has been extremely busy and couldn't teach me. Luckily I found another classmate, Sophia, who is also a Japanese teacher, to teach me. In this meeting with Sophia sensai (teacher), we sat at a tea house for almost 3 hours. We covered 4 major grammar rules in Japanese, and three lessons: numbers and counting, asking how much an object is, and self-introduction (school, grade, nationality).

Delayed Start
It has been another three weeks and half passed since my first Japanese lesson, because my Japanese teacher declared that she was too busy to teach me. Finally I found another classmate who is also Japanese, and is pursuing the career of a Japanese language teacher willing to teach me. I promised to treat her lunch and we agreed to have one class after lunch. Similar to last time, this delay made me very guilty of not being productive and very eager to learn.

Materials
The material was a problem for me this time. I did not expect this when we planed to have our lesson at a tea house. Last time Kayoko prepared materials for me when I got there, and she used her printer to photocopy more handouts for me when needed. However, this time there is no photocopy machine near the tea house and we only have one reference book that Sophia brought.

Thinking as a language teacher
Compare to the first lesson with Kayoko, I did not do this as much as last time. Some possible reasons were: (1). The tea house was very noisy, and I used up all my mental resource in concentrating; (2). I am more tensed, because I am not as close to Sophia as I am to Kayoko; (3). The lessons were more difficult, especially the grammar part, and again used up all my mental resources.

Teacher’s attitude
Sophia made me feel anxious, worry that she does not want to do this with me because she spent a lot of time looking at her cell phone and sometimes texting.
Sophia also did not ask me to practice like Kayoko did. Kayoko basically taught me like one of her high school students, hence she asked me to practice reading, writing, speaking, and listening, and would even quiz me sometimes. However, Sophia’s mindset was like tutoring someone who wants to learn Japanese, and she would answer any questions I had, correct my mistakes, but would not ask me to drill and practice.

Feedback
Kayoko was impressed with my ability to learn Japanese, but Sophia was not. She did not give much compliment either. She did mention that we covered in one lesson what she would normally take multiple lessons to cover. I felt contented to hear her say that. On the other hand, the lack of feedback in general was like a negative feedback to me.

Learning Strategy
My strategy was actually “not trying to remember” the rules this time. My expectation of myself was just “know” these grammar rules exist, and not “memorize” them at all.

This allows me to be free from frustration and disappointment, and also gives me familiarity the next time I encounter these grammar rules again. In other words, since my goal is to “not learn them this time but next time,” I already achieve my goal this time, and the next time I encounter any of them, it will be like a bonus, “I’ve seen this before!” and makes it easier to learn.

What I want to do next
I started to feel overwhelmed by the grammar. Japanese became more challenging than I thought it would be. I did not want to learn grammar at all, but it was unavoidable. At the end I asked Sophia some vocabulary for colors. I plan to use them along with “how much is this?” the next time I go to the Japanese pottery place.

Togei Kyoshitsu

Togei Kyoshitsu (website)

September 17, 2010

I. Taiken Class 
My friend and I took a Taiken (trail) class together. We did Tebineri (hand building), and made two projects each. Our sensai (teacher) was Risa, or sometimes I see her name spelled as Lisa. I asked her which one was her name, she smiled and said "doesn't matter." I thought it's interesting because in Japanese there is no L sound, and their R sounds similar to the "L" sound in English, and I guess that is why Risa is Lisa.

Working on my tulip cup
(although originally it was supposed to be a
Fire Hydrant cup)

I enjoyed the class very much. I do not know how Japanese pottery is different from American pottery, but when I was kneeding, coiling, scraping the clay repetitively, I felt it was like a meditation to me, very calming and soothing.

Risa speaks Japanese too, and she taught us some of the technique's name in Japanese. However it was very hard to remember what she said without seeing the sounds being spelled out in English or Japanese, especially since we also have to work on the clay! The experience was really one of a kind. It was great and I loved it.

Thinking as a FL teacher
It is very difficult to teach or incorporate culture in foreign language teaching. I think culture and motivation share a "direct proportional" relationship, namely the more exposure to a FL culture, the better the students will be motivated and as a result, learn the target language better.

II.
Glaze (Part II)
Oct. 15, 2010
The color dye for clays are very different from the color they appear. For example, to make the clay green, you'll have to dip into the this liquid dye that appears to be maroon color, and navy blue becomes light green.

This class gave me the idea that I can learn the vocabulary for colors in Japanese and will be able to use them here in the Togei Class!

III. 
Pick Up projects
Oct. 29, 2010
I hoped to learn some vocabulary for colors on my own but found it very hard to squeeze it into my busy schedule. I visited Togei Kyoshitsu today and Risa was not there. I talked to her mom in Japanese, showed her the Japanese newspaper I got from the supermarket, and she was very nice to teach me some words on there. Some of them were Katakana characters, which I haven't learned. I only learned the 50 Hiragana characters so far and planed to stay focus on them for now, because I don't want to confuse myself with another 50 different symbols for the same sounds. I believe it will be easier for me to absorb the 50 Katakana characters once I know the Hiragana characters by heart.

Lesson 1

Lesson 1  いち －　My first Japanese learning Journal

Oct 11, 2010.

4pm to 7pm

Delayed Start

Today I finally set out to go to Kayoko's apt in Astoria for my first Japanese lesson.

We should have begun two weeks ago, but the first two times was canceled because of the weather, her eye-infection, and our busy schedules. So with the delayed of start, I feel an extra sense of eagerness of wanting to learn, which is a plus to my motivation.

The Material

Our lesson begin with learning the first couple ones of the Hiragana (a system of Japanese character writing). Kayoko gave me some really superb material (see attached). The materials has the character, a drawing, character-tracing section, character-writing section, and several examples of Japanese words/phrases which show (and prove) how the words are used in Japanese.

The drawing really is the best part, because the picture makes a connection of the sound, the character shapes, and meaning. For example, there is a character that looks like a "<". And the drawing shows a bird with its beak wide open, which forms the shape of a "<". That character is pronounced as "ku" in Japanese, so under the drawing there's a line explaining the picture as, "the chicken says 'koo-koo'" or something similar to that. 

Thinking as a teacher again

I was thinking in my mind that time how can I develop something like this for my students for studying the zhuyin symbols that are used in Taiwan for learning Mandarin. A lot of people don't prefer to teach non-native Mandarin students pinyin, which is the system used in China, because pinyin uses alphabets as symbols, and students' pre-knowledge about how those symbols should sound often affect their pronunciation. However, when students learn the Zhuyin symbols used in Taiwan, some of them feel this helps them to say the sounds better. So this is just a record of my mind switched from being a student to being an instructor.

Student having a different priority list of what should be learnt first

I also notice that for a student like me, I have a strong sense of what I want to learn. It can be a double blade knife because on the good side, I will metacognitively learn the stuff I want to learn. On the other hand, if I think the material is not something I want to learn, then I feel less interested. I am like judging a book by its cover, which can be bad. For example, when Kayoko wanted me to trace the Hiragana characters, I felt that there is no need for me to trace them, because "I can do it." I feel it is very easy to write those characters since writing them evokes the same knowledge and skill frame of writing Chinese characters, I thought. I feel such "subjective-ness" may bring negative effect if it's too over.

Teacher(Kayoko)'s politeness

My teacher is also my classmate, my friend, and a very humble person. As a result, she'd asks, "Can I show you a video?" when she wants to show me a video. I am very grateful of this. I think this makes myself to be consciously remind myself to show her the same courtesy that she has shown me.

Positive Feedback from the teacher

The first lesson was relatively easy for me because I have some familiarity with greetings in Japanese, and with the sounds and writing system. Therefore I felt very little or no frustration, and even when I cannot learn something right away, my teacher still shows that she is highly pleased with my effort, and this creates a very positive cycle of learning. I decided to put more effort and want to try to learn more, and learn quicker. I think I am, for the first time, a very ambitious students (unlike the type of students I have been...)

In terms of Learning, especially Metacognitive Learning

Just as a side note, I was telling my friend how being Metacognitive is like to be mindful in Buddhism.

I am a very metacognitive person, because I like to think for the purpose of everything.

Learning language is usually fun to me because it involves a lot of analysis, decoding, and re-construct.

Knowing 2.5 languages (Taiwanese, Mandarin, English) definitely helps a lot in learning another language, especially since Japanese is very closely related to Taiwanese and Mandarin.

For example, I learned the word "blue" yesterday. And in Japanese, the same color word is used differently in the following two types of sentences.

The house is blue.

It is a blue house.

In English the word blue remains the same whether it is in front of or after the word "house," however, in Mandarin, the usage would be different, we need to say blue-"de" house, adding a modifier to the word blue. It turns out that in Japanese it is also the same, and I was very delighted to make a connection between this and the structure in Chinese. This way I do not waste time in feeling frustrated and wonders why they are different.

I've read it somewhere before saying that bilingual students often learns that names of things are not definite. Taco can mean a type of food in Spanish yet it means octopus in Japanese. This helps them to be flexible and learn quickly. I think it is because they don't waste energy and mental power in frustration and in wondering why/how they are different, therefore they can dedicate all energy in accepting a new idea more quickly, like a stream flowing with gently with no rocks as obstacles.

What I want to try next

I am also taking Togei (Ceramics) class from a Japanese ceramic artist/teacher. I want to learn sentences that I can talk to my Togei teacher and carry out a conversation. So perhaps some words I want to learn first are color words, good, beautiful, I like what you have done... etc.

I also want to ask Kayoko to use all Japanese when she teaches me...

I am not sure if the above two things can be achieved, but I will certainly talk to my sensei (teacher) about them.

Introduction

As I was envision how my project will look in my mind, I encountered a dilemma.
I was not sure whether I should sort my journals by chronological order or by reflection categories.
Hence I thought of an online blog, which would allow multiple labels, and each label can be a category. Furthermore, by clicking on a label, journals will be re-sorted and it will list only the ones that have that particular label selected.

Also, another plus for using an online blog was being able to include many of the youtube videos I watched.
On the right column of this blog, all journal entries are sort in two ways: chronological order and by labels. In the long run, I thought the labels would be helpful for my own future reference.