Parent Newsletter Term 3 Week 6 2013 - Our Lady Of The Nativity: Fill & Download for Free

When I want to learn any language I would like to have a text and workbook which explains, as simple as possible, sentence structure, word functions and word order as well as any specific similarities or dissimilarities to the language spoken or understood by a reader of the text or workbook.In my way of thinking, anything we learn primarily takes us from what we know, to what we don’t know. Therefore being shown something new, by using what we already know or understand when we start learning that “new” thing speeds the process.I’ve seen textbooks of language learning which have been written with a lot of unessential vocabulary which are primarily linguistic terms which are not familiar to a learner. If the terms used are unfamiliar then a learner is placed in the predicament, problem, and discomfort of not understanding what is meant.When I first started teaching Japanese the only textbook available for my high school students was one which read like a doctoral dissertation by a linguist. In fact…. It was:Japanese: The Spoken Language - WikipediaThe many non-standard ways it presented Japanese to a westerner learning Japanese for example, was a stumbling block. I had a stumbling block growing up in a US Air Force family. Dialects: …. but I never really knew it was a stumbling block, because…. well, ….I have to digress to give a rundown on my backgroundI was born in Anchorage, Alaska. At the age of 18 months, my father and mother drove us from Anchorage to Charleston, South Carolina. I was in a Summer Bible school, about age 4–6, when we moved to Biloxi, Mississippi. I had learned two different Southern dialects by the age of 7, but still functioned primarily with the native dialect of my father’s (1950’s Utah/California dialect) and my mother’s (Pennsylvania dialect) which wasn’t too dissimilar from my fathers’, unless she wanted to make me laugh with Pennsylvania Dutch English style grammar like: “Run the stairs up and shut the window down” or “Throw mama from the train a kiss…which became a title for a film when I was about 37. (Throw Momma from the Train (1987) - IMDb)My reading skills were good and I would sometimes read out loud using dialects both those I heard where I lived, and those I heard on TV. This was due to my mother, Hazel Grace Peterson, born April 18, 1915 from the area of Greenwood / Juniata, Pennsylvania, who took over teaching me to read when I was in the 2nd grade. My mother had been forced to quit HS after her mother had died and she was forced to quit by her stepmother when her father had remarried. That lady stated bluntly that she would cook and clean but not raise another’s children. My mother therefore had to quit school to care for numerous brothers and sisters without the chance of completing her high school diploma until when I was ten years old.In that year of school year of 2nd grade, after my third and final change of schools due to redistricting in Biloxi, Mississippi, a teacher showed my mother the reading stars, of various colors, collected all year long by students and displayed on a bulletin board which sparkled with little tin stars of various colors.They stretched across dividing lines of colored yarn by student name, showing the number of books they’d read being grouped in yarn dividers of 5 books to make counting easier. The teacher told my mother that she personally would not be able to get me caught up to the class level. My mother’s oft repeated assessment of the teachers comment was that it was like ‘waving a red flag in front of a bull’. She bought little paper cups and small beans in a bag on our way home. For every cup of beans I filled by reading one full page per bean, I would get a 10 cent item at the store. For every ten cups I would get a larger item maybe 50 cents worth. I worked my way up to a metal Tonka Truck by which time I had not only surpassed all the other stars on the bulletin board, but had also exceeded the space on that display for all the stars I had earned. My favorite thing to be gifted became a book. My library is not as used now however as it once was.😞What a novel incentive way to get me reading, and it proved beneficial. From Biloxi we moved to Layton, Utah to stay with my sister who was 19 when we came from Alaska down the AlCan Highway to Charleston.That year in Utah, I was tested in 6th grade to determine my reading level and the test taker finally tossed aside his texts and charts because I had gone through them in mere minutes.I was handed an Encyclopedia Brittanica volume from a shelf there in the library, and I read easily without difficulty in either pronunciation or understanding. The test giver wrote my level as being at or above 12.5 Graded material - post high school/freshman college level.Therefore from that year in 1965, my continued education to HS graduation in 1971, 4 years in the US Army, one year of college at Weber State before becoming a missionary for two years in Japan, exposure to various texts and methods of learning Japanese and graduating with a degree in choral vocal music (BME - Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana ‘81), I managed sufficient skill to translate this difficult text. It had been used at Indiana University and was the ONLY JAPANESE TEXTBOOK available in Indiana to purchase for my classes at Frankfort High school, which the principal and guidance counselor desired me to teach.Japanese: The Spoken Language - WikipediaThis ultimately was in addition to my duties in teaching 3 choirs, ultimately 3 levels of Japanese,*becoming a relief teacher” to take over the learning disabled room on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s for one period, so that the full time teachers could have one class break*going to the middle school Monday, Wednesday and Friday to operate a choir class of the entire 120 students in 6th grade and no funds for music (we used a lot of lyric sheets and I taught basic vocal instruction in breath support, resonance in the mask of the face, and projection.”I was also a founding member, along with my wife Susan, of the Clinton County Civic Theater In 1988, an Actor and Music Director at the Red Barn Summer Stock Theater 1988 throughout 1995, having been acting/singing from my boy scout years, from 1966 up to the present.By 1995 I was worn out with all of what I was doing work wise with choirs and had contacted Harrison HS in Lafayette, Indiana to see if I could coordinate lesson plans with their district Japanese teacher about whom I knew nothing. I was invited to come meet with the principal with my wife being invited. We got there to discover the principals from both Tippecanoe County High Schools - Harrison AND McCutcheon, because they had lost their 4th Japanese Instructor in 4 years.I was offered the position on the spot. It took me two weeks to decide. I didn’t want to leave music. But I did, although not entirely because I HAVE continued to coach singers since before my graduation from IU in 1981, and continue doing so even now.{I also auditioned for the Indianapolis Opera for something musical to do myself, being given the opportunity to sing and perform.Indianapolis Opera Chorus 1998-2004 Seasons • 1998 - 1999 Season - The Barber of Seville, The Flying Dutchman, Macbeth • 1999 - 2000 Season –Tosca, Faust • 2000 – 2001 Season -Don Giovanni, Il Trovatore • 2001 – 2002 Season -Aida (High Priest), Samson & Delilah • 2002 – 2003 Season - La Traviata, *Die Fledermaus (Chorus, ballroom dancer & soloist), La bohème • 2003 – 2004 Season – Rigoletto • Indianapolis Opera Chorus 1998-2004 (14 major productions with roles in Der Fledermaus, Aida) This has been a long examination of what has cleared my head on learning languages with some facility in the ones I sing (descending order of ability - Japanese, German, Italian & Latin, French and Spanish.AND… at Frankfort High School in my last full year: 1995“directed 9 major stage productions including a play, a variety show, a musical, four choir concerts at the school, three major competitions for district and state vocal competitions, being the newsletter editor for the Association of Indiana Teachers of Japanese, was elected to be on the National Council of Japanese Language Teachers, chair of the contest committee, the newsletter editor for NCJLT, while still being the newsletter editor for the Association of Indiana Teachers of Japanese, ultimately elected as president of that organization to then have my tenure begin as keynote speaker as president of NCJLT 2000–2002 which was a co-sponsor to the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages in Boston for the 2000 year.”My last conference was in Salt Lake City 2002, having attended:2002 Salt Lake City, UT2001 Washington, DC2000 Boston, MA1999 Dallas, TX1998 Chicago, ILPast ConventionsConvention and Expo | ACTFLBy the 1990’s I had already ditched the Harz Jordan text and had created my own, making it as clear as possible in presenting Japanese as I described in the beginning many paragraphs above at the top:I titled it JAPANESE 747, designing it to be a brief but fairly concise explanation of Grammar, Vocabulary, Sentence Structure, and examples along with a verb wheel which I discovered in Kumagaya Japan, which was roughly designed by a missionary who left it behind for me to find.After retiring in 2013 from TSC, I was asked to come back to the Community Schools of Frankfort to teach a foreign language exploratory course with a 6 languages in middle school level text book. The principal who hired me retired in my first year and I taught one more year in those languages when the following principal decided foreign language was not something she wanted. I was there 2014 - 2016Since then I’ve also returned to a choir classroom for several months fall 2018 to January 2019 when that school had no choir teacher. Rather than remaining full time, I am currently happily back subbing at Frankfort High School once again, primarily for the choir director but also for other teachers at the high school as the district has need.After all of that background….Now I continue with my explanation of Japanese the Spoken Language, and my first four paragraphs above in the very beginning. All of this just to start over again and finally finish.When I want to learn any language I would like to have a text and workbook which explains, as simple as possible, sentence structure, word functions and word order as well as any specific similarities or dissimilarities to the languages spoken or understood by a reader of the text or workbook.In my way of thinking, anything we learn primarily takes us from what we know, to what we don’t know. Therefore being shown something new, by using what we already know or understand when we start learning that “new” thing, speeds the process.I’ve seen textbooks of language learning which have been written with a lot of unessential vocabulary - primarily linguistic terms - which are not familiar to a learner.If the terms used are unfamiliar then a learner is placed in the predicament, problem, and discomfort of not understanding what is meant.When I first started teaching Japanese the only textbook available for my high school students was one which read like a doctoral dissertation by a linguist.Which brings me back to:Japanese: The Spoken Language - Wikipedia“The textbook is controversial both among students of the language and among pedagogical researchers. Detractors of the textbook take issue with its usage of rōmaji, the complex grammatical explanations, the emphasis on memorization, and the relatively small number of vocabulary items (among other things). However, these same points are cited as strengths of the textbook by supporters. The approach is based on Jorden's decades of experience in teaching Japanese and pedagogical research, and was preceded by her 1960s textbook, Beginning Japanese, which JSL supersedes.Features EditBeyond the focus on the spoken language alone, the text has a number of unusual features.The text is centered around a sequence of dialogs and grammar drills, which are practiced and memorized, and detailed linguistic analysis of Japanese grammar. Vocabulary is taught in the context of these dialogs, rather than as isolated lists. This approach – dialogs and pattern practice – is heavily influenced by the audio-lingual method (ALM), which has since fallen out of favor, though the text is not strictly speaking an ALM text, providing grammar explanations rather than only memorization, for instance.The terminology is at times non-standard – for example, 形容動詞 are referred to as na-nominals, as they behave grammatically almost identically to 名詞 (nouns), which are clearly nominals. This choice has some support in Japanese scholarship, though traditionally these words are referred to as "na-adjectives" or "adjectival nouns". Similarly, the gender differences in spoken Japanese are referred to as blunt/gentle, rather than male/female.[1]Another example of grammatically correct but non-standard pedagogical choices is that Japanese adjectives are translated not to English adjectives, but to English predicates, as this is how they function grammatically in Japanese when not preceding a noun. For example, 小さい (chiisai) is translated as "is small", rather than simply "small". (For adjectives preceding a noun, this choice of translation would naturally be inaccurate.)The book is written exclusively in romaji, making no use of kana or kanji, though kana plus kanji text is available as supplementary texts. The form of romaji used is based closely on the Nihon-shikiform of romanization (which is often used in Japan), but which differs from Hepburn romanization, which is more commonly used in English-speaking countries. The romanization system attempts to follow the Japanese syllable structure to simplify grammatical relationships, rather than attempting to represent the sound. For example, ち is represented by "ti", as it falls into the たちつてと "t-" series, which is uniformly represented in JSL as ta/ti/tu/te/to, though ち is pronounced closer to English "chi" (as in "cheese"), rather than "ti" (as in "tee" or "tea"); in Hepburn these are represented as ta/chi/tsu/te/to, which are phonetically more suggestive (following standard English orthography), but obscure the Japanese syllable structure. In JSL, the text is intended only as a reference, not a guide to pronunciation, with the audio instead being the pronunciation guide.Another uncommon feature of the text is that it emphasizes Japanese pitch accent in the words, according to standard Japanese. Pitch varies across dialects, and is not taught in many textbooks, but is indicated in JSL and emphasized in instruction.”😲😦😶In using the:Japanese: The Spoken Language - Wikipediatextbook:I had to translate almost every paragraph for my students and ultimately began writing my own brief explanations with as much related information as possible to explain sentence structure, word types, verbs and verb conjugations, describing words such as adjectives, adverbs, and phrases with a connection to how we use those things in speaking the English language.This is where Japanese 747 started with being in a 1 or 1.5 inch binder, capable of being carried by a business professionals in their briefcase on a flight to Japan. I used it with Delco Electronics, Matsumoto Electric, SIA, Ivy Tech and IU Kokomo business classes from the mid 1990’s and continue to update, with my latest changes being made in October 2020.I’ve tried to keep the information specific, with a little humor here and there, and trying to come closer to a text and a workbook with simple, direct and yet comprehensive information in the similarities and the differences in the Japanese language compared to English, which also allows for some potential use by anyone speaking French, German, Italian or Spanish, who would have a basic grasp of English. The attempt is to quicken a students’ understand of the process.Everyone learns their own native language without any of that other than through exposure, which is called the “Mother Tongue Method” much like that of Dr. Shinichi Suzuki of Matsumoto, Japan who had a parent, usually a mother, who learned to play an instrument along with their child. Dr. Suzuki used that name to describe the method of learning how to play violins and stringed instruments or piano/keyboards by example. While living in Matsumoto I took part of my Monday preparation days to write letters in the auditorium of his Saino Kyoiku building (Talent Education) and was interested in his book which outlined his process of having a parent emulate the process of playing an instrument to make it more natural to children as young as age 1 or 2.As the language (of technique, fingerings, music scales and keys are mastered, the full body of music, in the same manner as for language, becomes more accessible and second nature.In language learning this has been called immersion but to my mind, immersion falls short of a system of learning unless it also includes & encompasses what a language speaker already knows, by having something which gives as precise a comparison between the two languages - one known and one new - explaining similarities and differences as completely as possible.The sounds of music, as in a language, has variances of notation and instrument design. These all can and do produce pleasure or displeasure, emotional contexts of varying sorts, bringing back related memories, relationships to situations, and generally what we desire which is “comfort”.The sounds of language varies by notation, the instrumental or vocals sounds used - which are vowels/consonants, and word order/grammar/syntax.If an instructional language text or workbook does not provide the similar and different comparisons in explanation of relationships between a known language and one being undertaken, no matter what language is being studied…then:“there will be less ability to gain fluency in any other languages. The texts and workbooks have failed to be effective”Unless the mother tongue/parental aspect of simplifying is used…. much as I had a mother who was bound and determined to make reading enjoyable to her child in 2nd grade, others simply do not tend to have enough simplicity. My mother’s plan did prove a 2nd grade teacher wrong. Catching a child, or adult for that matter, up to speed is possible by simply trying to keep things simple.MJP