Discussion movie in ASP class

I recorded the discussion movie in ASP class. I had discussion with other 2 students.

ASP class at the 2nd period in 6/11 Fri.

We discussed about what items are needed in this situation.

SITUATION
The government have decided to have our group spend rest life living in the uninhabited island. In the island, there is enough water and food, and the climate is comfortable. We can choose 12 items to bring. The following list shows what I choose. Also I give reasons.

LIST
1. some types of knives - cooking, making disses, killing animals

2. a lot of matches - making fire
3. an axe - chopping tree
4. books about plants - looking into how to eat plants, how to make medicine from plants
5. fishing pole - getting food, making fun
6. some clothes
7. tarpaulin - making a tent, collecting rain, protecting ourselves from cold weather
8. lamp
9. light
10. a drum can - taking bath(making fun)
11. books about how to make fun - making fun
12. a very long rope - making house, catching animals

The list is not according to an extent of importance.

ARW Blogging Assignment 6

The most useful approach to use in critically analyzing The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway is Santiago as the Archetypal Hero. A hero always fights with someone who is like another hero or who is completely antagonist. In this story, the former is the big fish and the latter is the shark. Also heroes finally success in everything even though they have heavy handicap. They overcome their handicap with great effort. In addition, heroes are perfect in their personal. The old man has all these elements, so I think he is written as archetypal hero.

Presentation about Meiland in ASP class

It is movie of presentation. Please watch this movie and give me comments.

My speaking is very awkward, but I spoke as hard as I could. Please try to listen to it as hard as you can.

ASP class at the second period in 6/4 Fri.

Today, we have class at Bakayama. Everyone was happy to hear that!

We practiced P&D about Meiland using some slides. I made presentation about difference between high school and college. I read my note many times, so rab said "Eye contact!" and members of our group also realized my false. I think when I make presentation, it is better for me to speak without any notes or with very very simple note.
Four people, including me, of our group made presentation about similar topic of Meiland, but all of us made so different slides and speech that I could learn how to give good presentation.

ASP class at the second period in 5/28 Fri.

I practiced presentation and discussion(P&D) in a group of 5 members. We made presentation and discussed about Meiland because we have already read, thought about, discussed in class and tested. However, it was very difficult because I forgot about the content of Meiland and I left my ELP reader in my house.
Presentation was very difficult. I had to speak in English but I must haven't read anything. I have to say not only body of the presentation but also say about my background and have a Q&A time. Usually, someone asked question and I had to answer then. It was very effective practice to speak English, but I couldn't feel comfortable this time. On the other hand, discussion was so exciting that the time for discussing was too short. Everyone had idea and there were many different opinion. It was helpful to understand about Meiland well.
We couldn't finish that practice, so we continue to practice P&D next class.

ASP class at the 1st period in 5/25 Tue.

We learned about how to use google presentation and we made a short presentation and presented. I did that in pair.

The title of our presentation was "Dolphin - A fish that are in the novel "The Old Man and the Sea". We put 2 pictures and 1 movie in the slides for presentation. Movies that are used in presentation should be for less than 2 minutes because showing very long movie and speaking for short is not presentation. We gave presentation according to what we learned last ASP class. It was difficult but it may be very effective practice of speaking in English.
I also listened to other person's presentation. Different students made presentation about different things, so it was interesting and I could know about the topics others presented though the presentations were very short and imperfect.

ARW Blogging Assignment 5

The main characters in Old Man and the Sea are Santiago, a fisherman and Manolin, a boy who helps him.

Three adjectives that describe Santiago are old, confident and patient.

Why I think "old" describes the old man is that he has blotches of the skin cancer the sun brings and deep-creased old scars from handling heavy fish on the cord, and he gets up very early because of his age.

Why I think "confident" describes the old man is that is very old, but he has cheerful and undefeated eyes and whenever the boy says he wants to go to the sea with old man, he rejects because he is unlucky but the boy is lucky now. He goes to the sea alone.

Why I think "patient" describes the old man is that he continue to fish for 84 days even though he could't get any fishes. Also when other fishermen make fun of him, he doesn't care about it.

Three adjectives that describe Manolin are considerate, partly adult and partly childish.

Why I think "considerate" describes the boy is that he always helps the old man to prepare for going to the sea, gets some food for the old man and says he can go to the sea with the old man.

Why I think "partly adult" describes the boy is that he goes through a fiction with the old man every day even though he knows everything. In addition, when he is gave something by other persons, he can thank neatly to them.

Why I think "partly childish" describes the boy is that when the old man reject his requirement, he excuse by saying he must obey his father because he is children. Moreover, he wants to go to the sea with Santiago because he loves the old man and has faith to him, and he may not understand so well how dangerous going to the sea on the unlucky Santiago's boat.

ASP class at the second period in 5/21 Fri

Rab taught to us how to make good presentation. To make good presentation, we have to think about following elements.

A. Content(Information)
We need to include high quantity and high quality information.

B. Structure(Order)
We need to make presentation according to this order.
1. Greetings
2. Thank audience
3. Self introduction - name/background
4. Topic introduction - theme/topic
5. Outline - how many sections, how many questions.....etc
6. BODY
7. summary + conclusion
8. Q & A time
9. Thank you for listening
It is very important that there some connection between background and topic, that name is
establishing credibility.

C. Delivery
We need to have eye contacts with audience. A presenter have to see each person's eyes
randomly for 5 seconds.
We must not read something!! →If presenter read something, the presentation is boring.


I had presentation and discussion(P & D) about The Old Man And The Sea in ARW class and I tried to make good presentation. It was very difficult because I got tense and I had to finish my presentation within 5 minutes. I have AASP in autumn and winter term, so I need more practice.

ARW Blogging Assignment 3

The pieces of information I found in sources to use to support my thesis and topic sentence ideas for Essay 2 are as follows.

The supporting piece of evidence that I found for body paragraph 1 is a paraphrase from "YAHOO!JAPAN Chiebukuro" (http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1112776611?fr=rcmd_chie_detail). Corporate recruiters think that if people who employed the company lied about their personal record or ability in their interview, it would be turned out because of inconsistent and they must have trouble in their work. In one company, someone who lies about a curriculum vitae is unemployed. The another supporting piece of evidence that I found for body paragraph 1 is a paraphrase from "Japan Times online"(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20070718a2.html). I'm going to use an article about bankruptcy of Meat Hope Company.

The supporting piece of evidence that I found for body paragraph 2 is a paraphrase from "Lies! Lies!! Lies!!!: The Psychology of Deceit" by Charles V. Ford, who is studies psychology. I read its translation, the title in Japan is "うそつき―うそと自己欺まんの心理学" and translator's name is Hideaki Mori. This book was published by Soshisha in 2002.

The supporting piece of evidence that I found for body paragraph 3 is a paraphrase from "The history of food companies' disguises(食品会社　偽装の歴史）"(http://www.news88.net/giso/100/103/). I will use an article about an inside denunciation. Internal informers are admired and it is written as bad thing that companies pursue profit excessively. I also quote from "The Daily Collegian online"(http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/1988/09/09-15-88tdc/09-15-88dnews-10.asp) or "How to do things .com"(http://www.howtodothings.com/business/a4654-how-to-encourage-employee-loyalty.html). I'm going to quotation about employee loyalty.
The another supporting piece of evidence that I found for body paragraph 3 is a paraphrase from "Japan Times online"(http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20071029a7.html). I will use an article about scandal in food industry. In this article the incidents written very critically, for example, using the strong word "scandal" or giving an interview to a person who doesn't have confidence in the company.

ASP class at the first period in 5/11 Tue.

We discussed about the desert survival problem in class.
The situation: We are group of 5-8 people. The plane caught fire and we were left there with following 15 items.
torch(4 battery size), jack knife, sectional air map of crash area, plastic rain coat(large size), magnetic compass, bandage kit with gauze, 45 calibre pistol(loaded), parachute(red and white), bottle of salt tablets(1,000), 1 little of water per person, book entitled Edible Animals of the Desert, 2 pairs of sunglasses per person, 2 quarts of 180 proof Vodka, 1 over coat per person, cosmetic mirror

I ranked these items and then, discussed and ranked them in group. Finally, we checked true ranking that was given by the expert and gave point to our own ranking. The higher the point is, the more we are likely to die. My point was 77 and point of my group was 84, so my group members and I must die under that situation.

I was most surprised that bottle of salt tablets is the least important thing because when I take hard exercise I sweat and want water and salt. However, according to the expert's answer, "With dehydration and loss of water, blood salinity increases. Without lots of extra water the salt tablets would require body water to get rid of the increased salinity. The effect would be like drinking sea water." I strongly agreed to the explain.

ASP class at the second period in 5/7 Fri.

In the sea there is a long mine. 12 people are in the mine, then an earthquake has occurred and they are left there. We, five people, should help them using only one long rope. Who we should rescue first? Or in what order we should rescue them?

We discussed about on what standards we decide who is should helped earlier. Considering the person's ability or condition, for example whether he or she is strong, have disease or can swim well. Considering how the people contribute to their family or community how they put them trouble is also important. However, our group think these standards are subjective, so perhaps the judging is biased. The conclusion of our group is that considering only the person's age is best because it is fair.

In Japan, if we are faced to that situation, old people, young children and people who have serious disease, that is weaker people, may be rescued first, and then women are rescued. I think it is a little strange. If only weak people are helped and their family who take care of them die, the weak people can't live without trouble. There are stronger women than men and both are necessary for society.

This question is very difficult to have answers. I think considering only ages is the best way now because if use only standard, we can help quickly and can rescue many lives.

ASP assiginment:Speech about discussion

ASP class at the first period in 4/27 Tue.

We discussed the two topics in group:
"What should we do when someone don't speak in discussion? Is electric shocker right?"
Everyone in my group said electric shocker was wrong for following reasons.
・Most important thing is thinking and speaking. Only speaking is not enough in good discussion.
・Speaking actively is needed, so being forced to speak is wrong.
・It is expensive and bad for health.
Then, we agreed with the idea that what should we do is calling name of and asking question to who don't speak.

"In Japan, women account for 50% of population, but they account for few percent of members of the government. Why is it and should it be improve?"
We thought about the three reasons.
・In Japan, it was not until 1945 that women got the right to vote, so the past years are not enough time to women join the government.
→However, in Europe women got the right to vote in 1940s, too, but many women are members of government.
・Many Japanese people, both men and women, think that working in the government is the role that men should have and a woman who wants to join the government is too aggressive.
→I think it should be changed and now it is may changing. The number of women who work in companies as executives is increasing, so I think the same phenomena will happen in the government.
・The system to support mothers are still not enough in Japan. Many people think rearing children is role of only women.
→It is serious problem. Men can be absent from work to rear their children, but they don't know well the system or their companies give a pressure to them.

Good Discussion And Bad Discussion(ASP assignment)

I watched the movie that show what good discussion is and what not is.
In the movie of bad discussion some of the girls didn't concentrate(playing with them hair, not looking at who was speaking) or interrupted during another was saying opinions and then a serious quarrel broke out. However, there was also who couldn't say anything.
On the other hand, in the movie of good discussion everyone look at who was speaking, listened to other person's idea until stopping saying and sometimes nodded.There was a good leader, who gave everyone chances to say something in order. Moreover, if someone wanted to oppose they were polite, for example, saying "Of course it's right, but I think ~."
Until watched these movies, I thought that for good discussion having own opinion firmly and speaking about it actively is most important, but now I think what most important is not hurting other persons feelings, in other words, being polite even when I can't agree with other person's ideas. Discussion is not a verbal conflict, so it's goal is not criticizing others but generating new good ideas by cooperating with other persons.

ARW Blogging Assignment 2

The thesis statement I've chosen for essay 1 is the following:
Group work is very helpful in developing other academic skills because in group work students can acquire good communication skill, improve their speaking skill and motivate themselves.

ASP class at the second period in 4/25 Fri.

In the class, we got divided into five groups and discussed the following topics:
"What is a good discussion and what is bad discussion?"
"Japan should start teaching English(Language) from the beginning of Elementary school every day."
"The age of consent/adulthood should be 18(or other age) in Japan."

I felt it was very difficult to have a good discussion in English, but perhaps I couldn't do that in Japanese. Only expressing my opinion and listening to other people saying are not enough.We have to be able to summarize the contents of the discussion.If new opinions are made by sharing everyone's opinion, it's the best discussion. I must practice more!

The age of adulthood in Japan is 20 now.When we are 20, we are allowed to smoke and drink alcohol but we have to pay tax and pension.I think 18 is more appropriate and high school should be regarded as compulsory education because most Japanese people now go to high school and they graduate at 18.In Japan, going to high school isn't duty but little junior high school students are going not to enter high school.Similarly, many high school student take it for granted that they go to college.I actually was one of them. However, not so few students get jobs and work being independence after high school. Under the situation, people who are 18 or 19 can't feel equally they are responsible to communities they are in.

ARW Blogging Assignment 1

How do "good" college teachers present information?"

According to Meiland, a "good" college teacher presents information in the following way.Good college teachers present some information, in the sense of "what is currently believed." But in college, material is presented not as something to be believed on the basis of authority but as something to be believed because such belief is rationally justified and can be rationally defended.Thus, college teachers are concerned to present and examine the basis on which this information is or should be believed.
I agree with former idea because critical thinking free students, or even teachers from stereotypes. However, I don't agree with latter idea because if college teacher show how this information should be believed, for students it becomes newly something to be believed on the basis of authority.Students have to think what is information that should be believed by themselves.