Beginners Class on 4/13/09

Yesterday was our 10th class in Spring Semester 2009, and the 5th session of Lesson 4.
Number of students: 7
Summary: Review exercises of Lesson 4 and finished the Lesson 4.
(1) Dialogue of Lesson 4 (pp. 72-73) pronunciation practice & role play
(2) Review Exercise p.92 VII-A & B
(3) Free conversation exercise (using the Dialogue II on p. 72 as a base)

Notice:
I am intending to continue this class in Fall Semester (from September), and I am planning to give a review test (on Lesson 4) at the first class in September. I hope you will keep studying Japanese and reviewing what we studied during this semester over the summer break.

Have a nice summer holiday!

Beginners I on 3/30/2009

Yesterday's class was the 9th class of the Spring term 2009, and the 4th session of Lesson 4. We had 10 students.
Summary: We studied how to use the special particle「も」, which adds the meaning of "also/too" to particles like 「は」「を」「が」「に」「で」, and started summary excercises of the Lesson 4.

(1)「も」
＊The most important thing to remember is to
replace「は」「を」「が」 with 「も」
and to add 「も」to 「に」「で」(so they become 「にも」「でも」）.
Please read the grammar explantaion on p81 of the textbook.

Exercises:
(1) p90 VI-A
(2) p91 VI-B
(3) Review exercise p92 VII-A
(4) Listening comprehension of the dialogue of Lesson 4 (pp72-73)
(5) We also looked at the useful expressions on p95.

Homework:
Review and practice the grammar, vocabulary and exercises of the Lesson 4.
I am going to give you a short review test of Lesson 4 next week.
The class next week will be our last class in this semester, and I am meaning to round up and finish the Lesson 4 in the class.

Beginners I on 3/23/2009

The class yesterday was our 8th class in the Spring semester, and the 3rd session of Lesson 4. We had 9 students.

Summary: Past tense of 「～ます」（＝「～ました」「～じゃありませんでした」

Exercises:
(1) p.88-p.89 IV-A, B, C, D, and E
* How to ask yes/no questions using the past tense of 「ます」
* How to ask what/when/where questions with the past tense
(2) p.90 V
* Talking about something in the past with frequency adverbs

Homework:
- Continue the katakana practice (i.e. write タチツテト／ナニヌネノ／ハヒフヘホ on a sheet of paper and submit it to me in the next class). If you haven't done アイウエオ／カキクケコ／サシスセソ yet, start from there.
*If you are already fairly confident about reading and writing of katakanas, you don't have to do this homework.

Beginners Class I on 3/9/2009

Yesterday was our 7th class in Spring Semester 2009 and we had 9 students.
Summary: Lesson 4 (the third session)
(1) More expressions for locations (such as: ～のうえ(on the ～）、～のした(under the ～）、～のよこ(next to ～）etc.)

(2) the past tense of the verb 「～です」: ～でした／～じゃありませんでした

Exercises:
(1) p.85 II-B, II-C (pair work/game)
(2) p. 86 III-A, III-B

Homework:
For those who haven't mastered katakanas yet: Write アイウエオ／カキクケコ／サシスセソ (ア-line, カ-line and サ-line) x 5 times on a sheet of paper and submit it to me in the next class. (And then the week after the next class, you can write タ-line, ナ-line and ハ-line x 5 times, and then the week after that class マ-line, ヤ-line, ラ-line, and ワ-line.)

Beginners I on 3/2/2009

We had 12 students today, the 6th class in the Spring Semester 2009.
Summary: The 2nd session of Lesson 4.
(1) [Time] に [plan, schedule, etc.]があります。
→ How to talk about a plan or a schedule.
[Time] に 何（なに）がありますか。= What do you have on ～？
　　ex.) 月曜日（げつようび）に日本語のクラスがあります。

(2) [Name of a place, or Name of a building] はどこですか。
　　[thing(s)/person(s)]はどこですか。 = Where is the [place/thing/person]?
　　ex.) 病院（びょういん）はどこですか。(=Where is the hospital?)

(3) Vocabulary and expressions of location
　　～の前（まえ）＝ in front of ～
　　～のうしろ＝ behind ～
　　～のとなり＝ next to ～
　　～と‥‥の間（あいだ）＝between ～ and ‥‥

Exercises
(1) p.84 I-C and D
(2) p.85 II-A
(3) Dialogue I on p. 72 (practice pronunciation)

Beginners I on 2/23/2009

2/23/2009 was the 5th class of the Spring Semester 2009, and we had 8 students yesterday.

Summary:First lesson of the Lesson 4 of Genki I: 「[things]があります」「[person(s)/animal(s)]がいます」, and 「[place]に[things]があります」「[place]に[person(s)/animal(s)がいます」

Note that you need to always use 「が」for this sentence format, not 「は」.
＊Compare it to the one we have learned previously: 「わたしはがくせいです。」(=I am a student.)「このかばんは5000円です。」 (=This bag is 5000 yen.)
Whereas, in the new sentence format to talk about the existence of things/persons and locations of things/persons, 「かばんがあります。」(=There is a bag.) and 「この町[まち]に大学[だいがく]があります。」(=There is a university in this town.)

Exercises we did:
(1) Review exercise of Lesson 3 (homework) - presentation of each student
(2) p. 83-I-A
(3) p. 83-I-B

Homework:
I have noticed that there are quite a few students who haven't really mastered the markers (sentence particles) such as は、が、を、に、で.
I strongly suggest you study hard and master them now, not later than now. We will learn more particles later and it is REALLY IMPORTANT that you can use them smoothly and understand them without any difficulty. Sentence Particles are one of the most important features in Japanese language, and it is critical for you to learn and master each of them as soon as you learn them. If you can use markers/particles smoothly, your Japanese become very fluent, but if you don't, you suffer from faltering way of speech. From my own experience, in any language learning, it is very important that you can speak as smoothly as possible (note: this means that you can speak without stopping too many times, and doesn't necessarily mean that you have to speak without mistakes) to have real conversations with native speakers. So, this is the time for you to take it seriously and make real efforts, if you haven't yet!!

Beginners I on 2/16/09

Today we had 11 students including 1 new student.
Summary:Finished Lesson 3. We mostly spent our time on review exercises and practicing the main dialogue of Lesson 3 on pp. 54-55.

Exercises:
(1) p.70 Review exercise A
(2) p.71 Review Exercise C
(3) Dialogue on pp.54-55 --- Listening Comprehension
(4) Dialogue --- Pronunciation Practice
(5) Dialogue --- Role Play (in pairs)
(6) p.71 Review Exercise D

Homework:
(1) Review Exercise B on p.70 --- each student is to make a presentation to class next week
(2) Read the Grammar explanation on p.77-78 (Grammar Item 1) of Lesson 4, Genki I.
(3) Start learning vocabulary of Lesson 4 on pp. 74-75

Beginners on 2/9/2009

Today we had 13 students.
Summary: Lesson 3 (continued from the previous lessons)
1) Verb Conjugation 「～ます」「～ません」(continued from the previous classes)
2) How to ask someone about his/her daily routines or schedules（「～時[じ]に～ますか = What time do you ～？）
3) How to make a suggestion to someone（「～ませんか」=Why don't we　～?)

　Exercises:
1) p68 II-A　「～時に～ますか」
2) p68 II-B　「～時ごろ（に）～ますか」
3) p69 III-A 「～ませんか」
4) p69 III-B 「はい、いいですね。」「うーん、ちょっと…」
5) p70 IV 「まいにち／よく／ときどき～ます」「あまり／ぜんぜん～ません」

Beginners on 2/2/2009

Yesterday we had 13 students including 2 new students.
Summary: We spent most of the time on doing exercises of verb conjugation （みるーみますーみません、よむーよみますーよみませんetc.）and the usages of particles (=markers), such as topic marker（は）, place marker（で）, time marker（に）, and direction marker（に）.

Exercises:
(1) Practice of verb conjugations using handmade cards
(2) Textbook p.65 I-B (c)
(3) Textbook p.66 I-C

Homework:
(1)Review what we did in the class and practice verb conjugations.

(2)Study vocabulary of Lesson 3 (on pages 56-57 of the textbook) to prepare a word quizzes next week.

Extra:
I posted an article about a few exceptional use of hiraganas for some sentence particles [=markers], such as "は" and　"を". Please see the post below.

Beginners I on 1/26/09

Yesterday we had 19 students including 9 new students.
It turned out to be quite a "dense" class I thought, because I attempted to do so many things in one class - from each student's self-introduction to hastily going over what I taught in the Beginners class in the last semester and to reviewing the verb conjugation (which was the subject of our last couple of classes in the last semester).
So I hope you didn't get totally overwhelmed, or frustrated not being able to do enough actual speaking exercises yesterday!
I assure you that, from next class on, things will be less condensed and you can do more actual exercises.

Summary of the class: Review of the last semester, especially focusing on the verb conjugations of polite form (～ます／～ません）, and markers (particles) such as topic marker（は）, object marker（を）, place marker（で）, and time marker（に）

Exercises we did:
(1) p.65 I-A
(2) p.65 I-B (but with different set of verbs and situations, using my hand-made cards)

Homework:
For those who found it difficult to follow the class yesterday, PLEASE REVIEW and make efforts to CATCH UP!! If you have any questions in the course of your learning, you are always welcome to ask me questions via emails.