Vol.2 Ginga

Do you often reflect upon your learning? Do you keep a journal, evaluate your past successes and failures, observe how your peers may be learning, or share your learning experience with others? Activities like these will help you become a purposeful and self-directed learner and enable you to obtain maximum benefit from this textbook that features six project-based chapters. This unit consists of two chapters and they are designed with facilitating reflective thinking and activities in mind.

In Chapter1, you will write and deliver a “back-to-school” speech. During the course you will monitor your progress, be engaged in peer reading and practice, and have reflective session after your speech. In Chapter 2, you will design and conduct group review sessions on your prior studies of Japanese. Working in groups you will check if activities and exercises you have made will work well in your session and will make adjustments as you see fit.

By the end of the unit we hope reflection will become an integral part of your learning.

The Japanese word for environment is 環境. The two kanji characters comprising this word, 環 and 境 represent “ring/circle” and “boundary/condition” respectively. 環境 is therefore etymologically similar to its English counterpart, as the word, environment, also represents a state of being surrounded or being “in the circle.” So the environment is everything that surrounds us and we interact with in our daily life. In the next two chapters you will turn your attention to two things that comprise your immediate surroundings: your town and your school.

In Chapter 3, you will learn how to construct paragraphs and write about your hometown including its weather. In Chapter 4, you will create a photo book introducing your school and featuring those facilities and buildings that have some particular significance to you. During the course you will learn how to develop logical and cohesive paragraphs and accumulate a good deal of useful words and expressions for describing your environment. This will prepare you to deal with some of more global issues and concerns relating to our environment in our later units.

You must be quite familiar with your hometown and your school. Let’s give another look at them at this time and think about how to showcase them effectively in Japanese.