Archive for November 2004
ESS debate
On November 20th and 21th, an ESS Debate Meeting was held at Ritumeikan University in Shiga Prefecture. Only freshmen were allowed to join it. Many universities participated in this meeting, and I was surprised to learn that there are a lot of debaters at other universities.
The topic of the meeting was "should the Japanese government oblige every full-time worker to take child-care leave?"
Let me explain the debating rules. One team consists of two students, and five people participate in a debate game: there are two teams of two students coming from the same university and there is one judge. The two teams have to argue the affirmative side and negative side of the topic, respectively. The two sides debate the topic and then the judge decides which team is the winner.
There are four freshmen, including me, in Mie University's debate section, so we could make two groups. In two days, I did six games. The result is ... my team won four games! I was very happy about the result, particularly since I couldn't win during the first meeting in October.
Through this meeting, I managed to improve my English skills and came to realize that debate is interesting. Preparation for debate games is very hard but I'll keep on doing it. On December 11th and 12th, we'll participate in the third meeting.
Lastly, I want to say that ESS is lots of fun!
Imitators or New Generation?
Asian Kung-Fu Generation is reputed to be one of the greatest Japanese "new generation" Rock bands. They sang "I want to be connected with you," and attracted a huge fan base. Their work is praised by many music critics who admire both the lyrics, which have literary sensibilities, and the straight music.
A short while ago, the band released their second album named Solfa, and some critics observed that the songs had become less hard and more "pop" in feeling. I think this is partly true, because the album contains some music which has a pop feeling. But I think they also became stronger in their spirit.
Yet they are reputed to be imitators of Number Girl.
I feel there's a conflict in perceptions.
How can they both be "imitators" and members of the "new generation"? To be sure, the vocalist, Masahimi Gotoh, admits that he was inspired by the music of Number Girl, and Asian Kung-Fu Generation also have a song named "N.G.S.", which means Number Girl Symdrome. But I think they established their own identity and their music is quite different from Number Girl.
Many bands (not only bands) are reputed to be "imitators of X," even if their music is great and they have their own identity. Maybe people should be a bit more careful when they label artists.
Mie University Festival 2004
A few photos.
Photo project
I mentioned earlier that I was going to sign up a group of students to the photo sharing site Flickr.
They're there now.
During the last two weeks or so, they've been busy uploading photos taken with their cell phone cameras and discussing these images amongst themselves in English. The photo project gallery page here on Tawawa displays everyone's most recent upload and provides easy access to all the other photos.
Obviously, this isn't a photography class; this is about the conversations that can evolve around the images posted and about English as a medium of actual communication. Some students have already ventured beyond the immediate group of their classmates and they are communicating with some of the thousands of users that Flickr has worldwide.
Which is great.
I don't want to lock my students into a "distance learning" course. Instead, I'm trying to give them access to the conversations conducted out here on the Internet. To me, photos seem as good a starting point as any, and Flickr as good and delightful a community as the best of them.
So this project is meant to be open: if you want to talk to my students, sign up for a free Flickr account and fire away!
Bonus link: Yukiko's photos on Flickr.