Homework

• Read chapter 7 of “The Magician’s Nephew”.
• Answer the MCQs (download the PDF here): MN_MCQ_ch7
• Prepare your movie presentation
• Here is the presentation schedule as of Friday June 3rd: WS1_Presentation_schedule
• Using your notes from today’s presentations on “V for Vendetta” and “Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring”, write a short paragraph (4~6 sentences) for each presentation . You may need to do a little research before you write.
• Choose another book from the Easy Reading list, borrow it from the library and start reading. (Download the list here:  AS1_Easy_reading_library_list
  • Challenge – 15 books this semester!

Today’s class

1. Presentation “V for Vendetta” and “Lord of the Rings part 1”.
   1. Write some notes about the presentation content
   2. Give some written feedback to the presenters.
2. Checked answers to MCQ chapter 6.

Homework

• Read chapter 6 of “The Magician’s Nephew”.
• Answer the MCQs (download the PDF here):MN_MCQ_ch6
• Prepare your movie presentation
• Here is the presentation schedule as of Friday June 3rd: WS1_Presentation_schedule
• Using your notes from today’s presentation on “A Christmas Carol””, write a short paragraph (4~6 sentences) . You may need to do a little research before you write.
• Choose another book from the Easy Reading list, borrow it from the library and start reading. (Download the list here:  AS1_Easy_reading_library_list
  • Challenge – 15 books this semester!

Today’s class

1. Presentation by Ms. Sakaguchi and Sato on the movie “A Christmas Carol”.
   1. Write some notes about the presentation content
   2. Give some written feedback to the presenters.
2. Discussion of MCQs and student questions on chapter 5.

Homework

• Read chapter 4
• Answer the MCQs (download the PDF here): MN_MCQ_ch4
• Answer the 2 questions below and bring your answers to the next class:
  1. As this is an English class about a British fantasy story, what information do you want to hear from the presenters?
  2. How can a presentation be
     1. made more interesting?
     2. made easy to understand?
     3. organized so that the audience remembers the key points?
• Prepare your movie presentation
• Here is the presentation schedule as of Friday May 20th: WS1_Presentation_Schedule
• Choose a book from the book list, find it in the library (Easy Reading section), read it, and write a short report about it. Bring your report to the next class.
  • Download the list here (Excel file): AS1_Easy_reading_library_list
  • Choose an easy book for you.
  • Easy means you can understand most of it without a dictionary.
  • Using a dictionary is OK but if you are using the dictionary all the time, the book is probably too hard for you.

Today’s class

1. Presentation by Ms. Ito and Kawahara on the movie “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”.
   1. Write some notes about the presentation content
   2. Give some written feedback to the presenters.
2. Group discussions about the MCQs and individual questions about chapter 3.

Homework

• Read chapter 2.
• Answer the MCQs (download them here: MN_MCQ_ch2
• Prepare your movie presentation (next week: Ms. Goto and Hirota on the movie “Prince Caspian“).

Today’s class

1. Presentation on the movie “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by Ms. Aoki and Chatani.
   1. Write some notes about the presentation content
   2. Give some written feedback to the presenters.
2. Group discussions about difficult to understand passages in chapter 1.
   1. Give a score and some comment (good points, points to be improved) to the discussing team.

Homework

• Prepare your presentation about the movie assigned to you. Next week, Ms. Aoki and Chatani on “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” movie.
• Read and understand chapter 2. Quiz next week.

Today’s class

1. Movie list: checked the Japanese titles and whether the movie is available in the DWC library. (All are except 5 “The Sword in the Stone”, 8 “Animal Farm”  and 9 “V for Vendetta”)
2. Purposes of this class.
   1. To develop your thinking skills
   2. 
      1. First comes infomration, then
      2. understanding
      3. and later come applying and analysis
   3. Analysis means
      1. dividing something into parts, e.g. we can divide a story into beginning, middle and end. Where does the beginning end and the middle part begin? Chapter 2? 3?
      2. Then we can sort these parts, putting like with like.
         1. E.g., when you organize your clothes, you put like with like: all the socks together, all the dresses and skirts together, all the shirts together.
         2. We can divide a story into characters, places, themes. We can subdivide characters into good and bad.
   4. To develop your English skills
      1. listening – I will speak to you in English as much as possible
      2. reading – you will read both in class (intensively) and outside of class (extensively).
      3. speaking – discussion and presentations
      4. writing – summaries and long answers to essay-type questions. We will do this later this semester and more in the fall semester.
   5. Discussion
      1. In 2 groups of 11 students each.
      2. Group 1 discussed the homework MCQs 1~6.
      3. Group 2 listened and gave group 1 a score on the quality of their discussion.
      4. Group 2 discussed the homework MCQs 7~8 (we ran out of time).

Welcome to Sheffner’s AW class blog. This is a record of each week’s lesson, plus the homework. I may sometimes add related information or videos for you to watch or read. I will update this blog each Friday evening usually, and by Sunday evening at the latest.

NB:  Next class (week 4) will be in 2 weeks’ time, on May 6th.

Homework:

1. List of British fantasy movies (download the list here: Brit movie List
   1. Find the Japanese title and write it on the form
   2. Are these movies in the DWC library? Mark those movies with a check mark in the “library” column.
   3. Is there a book of this story? Mark those movies with a check mark in the “book?” column.
2. Read chapter 1 and answer the MCQs. (Download the MCQs document here: MN_MCQ_ch1
3. Leave a comment here about
   1. today’s class
   2. your questions and notes about paragraphs 1 and 2 of chapter 1.
   3. To leave a comment you must
      1. Click the words “Leave a comment” at the bottom of this post,
      2. type in your name (use your family name only for your privacy)
      3. type in your university email address (this is not public; only I can see this)

Today’s class

1. Introduction
   1. Hi, I’m Marc Sheffner, born in Britain, have French and English parents.
2. In this class, we will do lots of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
3. Interest survey (download it here and complete if you were absent): Interest survey
4. How to annotate a text:
   1. circle any vocabulary words you are unfamiliar with
   2. underline key phrases
   3. note anything that seems to you important or confusing
   4. write any questions you have about the text
5. Read paragraphs 1 and 2 of chapter 1 and annotate