Learning Centre

The highlight for the last session was not just the party with Japanese snacks but also to get certificates for our 10 week dedication. Each student was awarded a Japanese style certificate and we welcomed Ms Toran, PYP coordinator, and Ms Chiara Giani, Elective coordinator to proudly present our work and talk about our achievements during the course of sessions. 

Everyone seemed delighted to have enjoyed each others company and cooperation throughout.

Now, its time to say Good bye (for now, as I will be seeing some of you for the next term) and  big thank you for the encouragement and the support.

We completed our final task with calligraphy and that was writing our birthdates in Japanese. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the air, specially because we are nearing to the end of our first season. Celebrating the spirit of childhood, we welcomed yet another student visitor to the club, Nazia. She spoke about her childhood in Japan. It was interesting for the students to learn about her experiences during her stay in Japan. She introduced us to Japanese pop music, also known as J-pop, origami and schools in Japan.

Next week, the final week for our club. Other than the small party, the students are in for a surprise from me. I would like to encourage everyone to bring something small to share with the class and look for some eatables from Japan in your nearest supermarkets. Students are also encouraged to bring their manga/anime creation to present or show to the class.

As we are drawing near to the end of the our Japanese sessions, I am trying my best to make it special for my students. I happen to arrange for a surprise guest speaker this week. Daniella, is a fellow MYP 5 student, who went to Japan during summer 2016 to learn Japanese. She was delighted to share her experiences, in the form of a mini presentation with pictures and information about her course. Students were very happy to have an open discussion with her about various things in Japan.

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Along with it, I had students sharing their manga collection, in the form of books brought from home for class inspiration. Also, we spoke about literature as in books written with Japan as a theme. I am happy to see that students are encouraged to think beyond the class room and make connections to what they are reading. For example, Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo was brought to share with the class.

With all this and even more, we actually ran out of time to do calligraphy. I have given out blank sheets to practice Japanese numbers for our next weeks final calligraphy assignment, which is to write our birthdates in Japanese. We will continue to work on our manga drawings for which I have also distributed some samplers and prints in class.

Gradually, we plan to wrap up our sessions as we have just 2 weeks left. I plan to have a small party for our last week and will encourage students to look for some Japanese snacks in the local supermarket. I will bring a few along so that we can all share embracing the hygge in Denmark.

This week, we completed our numbers in Japanese. Students attempted to say out their telephone numbers in Japanese, which is, what I must say, "a challenge accepted and very well delivered!". Next, we watched another episode of animation and this week it was from comedy genre. Using this as an inspiration, students are encouraged to come up with their own manga sequence. Also, to add to our brainstorming, we thought and discussed housing in Japan. Topics like, food, clothing, housing etc. will help the students to create background scenario for their work. The class enjoyed watching a comparison between modern and traditional housing in Japan. We have had interactive sessions and everyone seems to enjoy sharing and learning from each others ideas.

In the coming weeks, we plan to continue our calligraphy work, till perfection!. Also, students are free to share their favorite anime with the class. This will give us an opportunity to explore different genres of anime. Students will also progressively work and complete their manga strips. We will also work on vocabulary build up, learning everyday verbs and adjectives in Japanese.

After the break, we started our work with anime and manga. We watched an episode of famous animation series in class. During the next sessions, we plan to watch different genres of animation so that the students can choose and start working on their creation. Manga creation template for the first draft has been given out and we would continue working and building on it.

We started learning Japanese numbers and practicing them in our tiny number booklets.
Learning numbers will serve as the base for our next calligraphic assignment. In the final sessions we are going to attempt number calligraphy writing out birthdays in Japanese!

Continuing with a lot of enthusiasm and interest, we plan to keep up the good work for the last few sessions. We have a lot to accomplish yet!

We have completed 5 weeks of learning and embracing the culture of Japan. To celebrate the good work up till now, we have set our calligraphy work on display in the canteen. Some students attempted calligraphy with brush and paints and it came out great.Students get to think more about creating and designing their manga characters during the autumn break. We will take it from there and begin watching some interesting animae clips to give more ideas to our thoughts.We have lots to do in the next 5 weeks. Please mark, there is no class on the 19th October (Autumn Break).I wish all of you a good week, if you are here, please enjoy the fall in Denmark and those who are traveling, have a safe one.

Last session, the students enjoyed a presentation on cultural variation between Japan and China, presented by Jacey. Jacey is from China and a fellow student at OEIS in MYP 2. We had a lively class discussion, and it was a pleasure to see the class in action.

Also, we worked on our calligraphy skills. I have tried to capture everyone this time as my proud calligraphy stars.

Coming week, we begin with the introduction to manga. I will be taking some manga books along for inspiration and will share some ideas too. Students are encouraged to brainstorm more ideas during the autumn break.

Japanese tea ceremony was the highlight of this week's session. It was a huge hit with our students who were thrilled and absolutely looking forward to the whole experience. From smelling the tea leaves, to brewing and finally tasting the authentic green tea, we created the spirit of Japan live among us! Alongside, we watched a video about Japanese tea ceremony, with all its grandeur and tradition.

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We continued with our calligraphic endeavors where the students attempted to write their names with katakana script. We are planning to master this skill with a constant approach, where each session we will devote 15-20 minutes.

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In coming weeks, I plan to arrange for guest speakers (our fellow students from OEIS) who will enrich our sessions about the cultural variations in the form of similarities and contrasts between Japan, Korea and China.

Highlight of last weeks session was calligraphy. The students were not only prepared but were actually looking forward to it. We worked around the basic foundation of calligraphy and will continue to work on every alternate week. Our aim is to be able to present one Chinese character: kanji through calligraphy or write our own name using Japanese syllables. I would love to save some of the best work of students for the final display.

This week we will continue our progress with vocabulary and explore the world of tea ceremony in Japan. I am planning to make arrangements for us to taste Japanese green tea during our session this week.

Also, we will start brainstorming ideas about manga or animae by looking into samples and books. I would encourage the students to come up with their plan after the autumn break.

It was a great start yesterday. Students were beaming with excitement and had so much to share. The class is a good mix of cultures with the just right number of students.

We began with greetings and brief self introduction in Japanese. Next we learnt about the scripts and practiced writing some characters. We watched a short cultural story to understand the values within the Japanese society.

Also, we exchanged views about creating and designing our own manga or animae. I was very impressed to see that students brought a small working notebook/diary and were taking notes. It's a pleasure to see students ready and so passionate about Japan.

Next week we will be starting calligraphy with marker. This is the first step for beginners. I would like to encourage students to bring bold tip black marker with them. Later we will switch over to paint and brush (once the students have understood the basics of writing strokes) for advanced lessons in calligraphy.

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Needless to say, I am already looking forward to our next session! I hope it's likewise for my students too.