Beginners II on 12/1/08

Number of students: 4
Summary: Finished Lesson 7, Introduction to Lesson 8 (short forms of verbs, adjectives, and Noun+be-verb (です) sentences).

(1) Dialogue of Lesson 7
- Listening comprehension
- Pronunciation practice & Roll Play
(2) Review Test - Planned, but couldn't carry it out because I forgot the material. I'll do it in the first class in the new semester (Jan. 12th)/

(3) Lesson 8: Short form of verbs, adjectives and noun+です sentences
- Please read the grammar explanation part of the Lesson 8 in the textbook Genki I for details.

(4) p.161 I-A exercise

Beginners II on 11/17/08

Number of students: 3
Summary: Review exercise of Lesson 7 (describing people, ～ています sentences etc.）

(1) Review exercise p.147 VII-A
(2) Review exercise p. 147 VII-B

Important Announcements
- There is no class next week (Nov. 24th)
Next week, unfortunatly I need to cancel the class due to my husband's schedule. (He will be away from town for a conference and I need to put our baby to sleep before 8pm as his routine, so I will do just the beginners' class until 7pm and then go home.)
- Our last class this semester is Dec. 1st. So that means that we have just one more lesson (Dec. 1st) in this year. I hope all of you can make it!

Beginners II on 11/10/08

Number of students: 4
Summary: Describing someone or something from your childhood (in the past), Describing people or things using two or more adjectives, and New grammar：「～に行きます」

(1) Exercise p.145-IV-B
(2) Exercise p.145-IV-C
*When you use more than two adjectives to describe something or someone, AND these adjectives are opposite in their meanings, you need to use the following sentence pattern: 「[adj 1]ですが、[adj 2]です。」
ex) わたしのせんせいは、やさしいですが、ときどききびしいです。
　　（My teacher is kind, but sometimes strict.)
Note that the form of the adjective before 「ですが」is, the dictionary form if い-adj., and the dictionary form without "な" if な-adj.

(3) New Grammar 「見に行（い）きます」「とりに帰（かえ）ります」「勉強（べんきょう）しに来ました」
　[Verb stem] +に行きます／に帰ります／に来ました
　How to get the verb stem of a certain verb
→　Make "～ます" form and then delete "ます".
ex) 見（み）る→　見（ます）→　見 is the verb stem. thus 見に行きます。

(4)Exercises p146 V-A, B

(5)New Grammar「～が＊人います」Counting people
(6) Exercise p146 VI

Next week, we are going to finish Lesson 7, after doing some review exercises and possibly a review test.
Pleasebring a photo of your family to the next class, as we want to do the exercise VII-B on p. 147.

Beginners II on 11/3/2008

Number of students: 5 (including a new student, Yufen. Welcome, Yufen!)
Summary: Lesson 7 てーform of Adjectives and Noun

(1) Review of the last class: Exercise p.143 II-B
How to call family members of other people's family and your own family

(2) New Grammar 　How to add/connect more than one adjectives or nouns in one sentence
い-adj てform 安い→安くて　　おいしい→おいしくて
な-adj てform　元気な→元気で　きれいな→きれいで
Noun+で 　日本人です　→　日本人で

ex.) みちこ先生は日本人で、女性（じょせい=a woman）で、髪（かみ）が黒（くろ）くて、しんせつで、やさしくて、元気な先生です。

(3) Exercise p.145-IV-A

Beginners II on 10/27/08

Number of students: 5 (all the students attended!)
Summary: Lesson 7: Expressions to Describe people

(1) Names of body parts such as あたま(head), め（eyes), etc.
(2) [人（ひと）]は[body part]が[adjective(description)]です
　ex.) ゲイブは背（せ）が高（たか）いです。= Gave is tall.
　　ルルは髪（かみ）が長（なが）いです。=Lulu has long hair.
(3) [人（ひと）]は[clothes]を着（き）ています。
　ex.) ゾランは黒（くろ）い服（ふく）を着ています。
(4) [人（ひと）]は[trousers, skirts, shoes, socks etc.]をはいています。
(5) [人（ひと）]は太（ふと）っています／やせています。
(6) Exercises p. 144-III-A, B and C
(7) [人（ひと）]はどこに住（す）んでいますか
　～ています form to describe the result of a change/continuous status, such as 「住んでいます」and「結婚（けっこん）しています」
(8) Exercise p. 143-II-A　

Beginners II on 10/20/2008

Yesterday we had 4 students; we finished Lesson 6 and started Lesson 7.

What we did yesterday are:
(1) Acting out the dialogue of Lesson 6 in pairs. It was fun! ;-)

(2) Introduction to Lesson 7: 「～ています」
「～ています」form has two different meanings depending on which verb is being used in that form.
For example:
ex 1: 私は本（ほん）を読（よ）んでいます。 I am reading a book right now.　読む belongs to Group 2 verbs.
ex 2: 私は結婚（けっこん）しています。　I am married. 　結婚する belongs to Group 3 verbs.

How to differentiate/identify which group (between Group 2 and Group 3) a certain verb belongs to is as follows:

If you can make a natural sentence using 「一時間」（いちじかん）（="for one hour"）with that verb, the verb belongs to Group 2.
Otherwise, it belongs to Group 3.
For example:
ex1: ○　私は一時間本を読んでいました。 I was reading a book for an hour.
ex2: ×　私は一時間死んでいました。 I was being dead for an hour....???

(3) Exercise p.142 A, B and C
The exercise C turned out to be hilarious!! Maybe we should do this again next week as a review of te-form :-)

(4) Review and Learning the expressions of how to call Family Members of your own family and other person's family
(textbook p. 149)

I noticed that most of you need to review/practice the te-form（てーform) again! Please find time and practice!!

Beginners II on 10/13/2008

We had 3 students yesterday, and we finished Lesson 6.
Next week we are going to start Lesson 7!

Please try to prepare for the new Lesson, by starting to learn new vocabulary and reading the grammar section.

I will try to send you some audio files for Lesson 7 by next week.

Intermediate on 10/6/08

We had 4 students today (Zoran couldn't make it after all!).

Today we did:
(1) Word quiz (new vocabulary in Lesson 6)
(2) ～ましょうか (Shall I ～？)
(3) Dialogue of Lesson 6

Homework
Try to memorize the Dialogues of Lesson 6.
I will ask you to act out the dialogues in pairs in next class.
You can also think about slightly different versions of each dialogue, and try to do it with your partner in an improvisation style!

Intermediate on 9/29/08

Today we had 5 students.

Today we did:
(1) Describing two activities using Te-form
ex.) 朝（あさ）起（お）きて、ジョギングをしました。

(2) ～から（adding explanation or reason to the preceding sentence)
ex.) 昨日（きのう）は大変（たいへん）でした。パソコンがこわれましたから。


Homework
As usual really... Review what we did today, Learn the new vocabulary of the Lesson 6, and Listen to the audio resource and practice pronunciation/speaking!

I probably will give you a quiz of new vocabulary of Lesson 6 next week. Be prepared!

Intermediate on 9/22

Today we had 7 students including 2 new students (welcome!).

Today we learned two different sentences using "te-form":
(1) "～てください” (asking someone to do something politely; a request sentence)

(2) "～てもいいですか" (asking a permission politely)
"～てはいけません" (giving no permission)
"～てもいいです" (giving a permission)

Homework:
(1) Start learning new vocabulary in Lesson 6.
(2) Use the most of the audio resources I sent you last week!

See you next week!