Blog #8: End of Writing 1!

For your final blog of this semester, you will write about two topics:

1) Write 200 words on what you learned in writing class this semester, and how exactly your writing improved. Give details!

2) Write 100 words on how you want to improve your writing next semester. What do you want to learn about? How do you want to improve your writing and vocabulary? Again, give as many details as you can.

**Finally, I want to thank you all for being such wonderful students, and for trying so hard this year! Your hard work and efforts have paid off, and your English skills have greatly improved! I hope that you can keep your motivation up and continue to strengthen your English as you move into the future. Remember, the main reason for learning English isn't to pass a test, or to get credits for a course, but to improve your lives, expand your perspective of the world, and to increase the opportunities you will have in the future. Keep it up!**

Blog #7: Spring Vacation

For your seventh blog topic, please write 200 words about your plans for Spring Vacation (February & March). What will you do? Where will you go? Be sure to write lots of details, and continue to practice writing good paragraphs with what you have learned in Writing Class this semester.

Blog # 6: FREE TOPIC!

For this week's blog, please write 200 words on any topic you like! Make sure to follow the rules of paragraph writing, and provide lots of details.

Blog # 5: If I could have dinner with one person...

For your 5th blog topic, please write 200 words about someone you would like to have dinner with. This person can be anyone, alive or dead, famous or just a normal person. Please write details about why you would choose this person, and what you would like to talk to them about. You can even write about where and what you would eat! Be creative!

If I could have dinner with anyone in the history of mankind, I would choose a man named Sir Ken Robinson. He is a British "educationalist," or person who thinks about ways to improve our current educational systems. Sir Ken Robinson has many unique, ground-breaking ideas for how we can change and update our education systems as we head into future generations. His three main points for improving education are: encouraging individualism, fostering creativity and curiosity, and moving away from standardized tests.

Because I love Japanese food very much, I would take Sir Ken to a local izakaya, where we could eat delicious Japanese food and also have a few drinks! This would be a great setting to have a fun conversation about education in Japan. I believe a lot of his ideas could be used to greatly improved education in Japan, so while we had dinner, I would ask him about how the educational system here can place less importance on entrance exams, and focus more on helping Japanese students to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which I believe are very important things that we need heading into the future.

I think that Japan's strong focus on entrance exams has a negative effect on education, especially English learning. This is because students must study very hard and memorize many things that will appear on the tests, but often forsake important parts of learning a language: communication and discussion skills, creating and sharing opinions, and general interaction with people. As entrance exams often deal with grammar translation questions, these other English skills aren't focused on as much in schools, which is a problem. I also think that while entrance exams are important, they only measure a certain type of intelligence, and don't do a very good job of assessing creativity, communication skills, and other things that aren't tested on the exams. So, I would like to ask Ken Robinson what he thinks would be a good alternative solution to the current system.

If you would like to hear about some of Sir Ken Robinson's ideas, check out this great animated movie below!