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?