February 1st, 2008

1. Watch the Powerpoint presentation. Write a summary of the key points (in Japanese or English) on your blog.

It presented how we can maintain our blogs effectively so that any visitors easily understand what is written. We can make our blogs understandable by, for example, using different colored fonts, putting links to the relevant website, and avoiding spelling or grammatical mistakes by using MS word when writing a draft.

2. What is the purpose, objective, of a newspaper company?

Its purpose is to deliver any facts relevant to ordinary people's lives fast and accurately. It delivers daily information about crimes, politics, sports, daily life, and entertainment to ordinary people who subscribe to it, or buy it at a newsstand. We can get general information of not only one's areas of interests but also outside of the one's interests. As reading over it, we might find interesting information by chance.

3. What is the purpose, objective, of a television company?

In terms of delivering news reports, the quickness is the advantage. Television broadcasting can report a crime scene or a political event as soon as the event occurs. Also they can provide moving pictures and the voices of the center players, which printed media can't do.

4. What is the purpose, objective of Yahoo! or Google?

By using so-called "web search engine", such as Yahoo! or Google, we can gather necessary information by typing the relevant word or expression. We could go further and further to follow the linked information. It's like a trip to the Internet world.
Also, both of them provide Internet tools, such as map service, blog service, social net communication service, mail service and so on. As more people use the tools, the company became more popular among people and can get more advertisers.

5. The purpose of all the above is to make money. That is the purpose of all these businesses. How do they make money? By getting as many readers or viewers ("eyeballs") as possible. If their purpose is to get as many readers or viewers or "eyeballs" as possible, then what kind of news will they publish? Give 2 or 3 examples. What kind of news will they not publish? Give 2 or 3 examples.

They might publish sensational news, such as murder scenes, war scenes, which people can't help but see it. Or they might not publish news with which the advertisers wouldn't be pleased, for example, news that turns the tables for the rival of the advertisers. Also news that only a few people are interested in wouldn't be published.

6. Find a news article in English that interests you, and write about it on your blog. Write a summary of the article, then your thoughts about it, and any interesting English words or expressions or grammar you learned from reading this.

Summary:
I found an interesting article on Daily Yomiuri Online, titled "Charismatic teacher shares insights". It tells about an famous and excellent English language teacher, Goro Tajiri, who used to teach in public middle schools and now is a professor at the Institute of Foreign Language Education and Research, Kansai University. It features his seminars where he gives hints on teaching English language at middle schools effectively.

My thoughts:
I've seen him on several TV programs and liked him very much. I liked him not only because of his excellent skills on teaching but also his enthusiasm and full of love towards his students. I myself also teach music. So I know the difficulty of teaching. It'd be very tough to give motivation to learn things even if the teacher tried to do it hard. However, once the students get motivation for anything, they start to learn things passionately! As for me, my motivation to learn English is that I want to communicate people in the world, and my motivation to teach music is that I want to see full of happiness on people's faces when they truly enjoy music! I want to be both a good learner and a good teacher by following his way of teaching!

New words and expressions:
be a prelude to something = If an event is a prelude to a more important event, it happens just before it and often makes people expect it. 何かの前兆/先導となる
eg: Idealists saw the revolution as a prelude to a better world and a richer life.

spur (on) to (do) something = to encourage someone to try harder in order to succeed. 激励する、刺激する
eg: Her difficult childhood spurred her on to succeed.

P.S. Mr. Tajiri has his own website called "田尻悟郎のWebsite Workshop". You can read his ideas in Japanese!

7. Read your classmates' blogs and comment on them on your own blog.

I read several blogs and want to comment on DARK NIGHTMARE's blog!
She chose an article "Democratic pair hold key debate" on BBC.

I'm very interested in this presidential election, too! In fact, I was astonished to know John Edwards' dropping out just before the debate. I'd been predicting he might be going to win in the end because he seemed the securest option for the majority of Democrats, white and male. Now the Democratic nominee race has become much more interesting. We might be witnessing one of the most historical moment in the United States. In other words, we might see the first woman President or the first black President. In either case, how exciting!!


8. Make sure your blog posts are all up to date. February 8th is the last class! I will use your blog posts to decide your final grade, so make sure your blog posts look great! Impress me!!