The written document can be downloaded here, from the front page of fajapanese.ning.com
Friday, May 22, 2009
Last Week of Senior Exhibit-- written document.
All right. Finally done with my senior year, and as far as I am aware, my Senior Exhibit. I would say as far as I am concerned, but I am still willing and eager to help anyone and everyone learn Japanese who would like my help. That might not be happening at the moment, though.
Last week was pretty much the final week of the Senior Exhibit process... sad. But a lot happened. First, on the Tuesday of that week (busy as ever with the process and school) every senior set up for part of a Senior Exhibit Fair held for Fredericksburg Academy juniors and parents of juniors and seniors, as well as anyone else interested. I actually met two other people who were able to had lived in Japan and one parent was able to speak some Japanese which took me a while to answer. I believe she was rusty after several years, and I was rusty after a couple months of not using Japanese other than infrequently in the class. It took me a few moments to collect my thoughts and answer. I mostly answered questions and tried to get around to some friends' exhibit presentations. But I was more or less occupied at my table.
Towards the end of the week camewhat I thought was a rather difficult part of my exhibit, the Written Document. I had decided to create a guidebook giving some short information about basic Japanese. Honestly, I planned to make it more in depth than I did, but there was a good reason I had to stop. I thought that over 20 pages was a pretty decent length, more than a lot of people would want to read. And the thing is I really included a lot of basic grammar information that would be very useful and vocabulary that is useful as well.
I would like to talk about what it was like making the document. For the most part, it was very tedious!!!! I cannot stress how much more effort it takes to communicate complicated knowledge than to understand it-- at least from my end. How come when it's considered to be a vice to be selfish and talk only about oneself (and the easier thing to do) it's so much harder to communicate with teaching about one's own topic? I found it a lot easier to take the complicated information in. Enough complaining though. Anyone who reads it might even who knows Japanese (I don't think I made any mistakes but a Japanese person would know!) might at least find it impressive that I sat down and typed it in Japanese and English Romaji characters. It's no big deal if you do it all the time, but personally it was extremely tedious. To keep switching back and forth. (If you want to know what it is like, it's very easy to google how to enter east asian languages such as Japanese with your keyboard... and it might as well be an exhibit in itself.)
Really the most difficult part was having to explain everything carefully, accurately, and using the correct terminology. I couldn't make mistakes if this was the final part of my exhibit and I definitely couldn't afford to explain things poorly, or the document would just be useless.
Ulimately, it's designed to give people a small understaning of Japanese, and won't be helpful beyond the very basics (of course the "basics" in Japanese-- such as the order of sentences as well as the writing system are complex). Its main purpose was to give people an edge in learning and teach people how to study it themselves. By people... I mean whoever wants to read it. Maybe nobody, but I'll keep it with me and who knows, I might use it in the future or use it to explain something to someone else. I'll keep it with me for a little while. And I'm trying to figure out the best way to upload the file or the text; that should be here in juuuuuuust a moment.
And now that my senior exhibit (and my high school year) is over, I am tempted to just leave the post here and go about my day and whatnot, but I should really talk about the final impact of my senior exhibit.
Let me explain something. Many other seniors' exhibits may have been focused around service and helping others. I did choose to teach and my heart was in it, but at the same time this was not my original goal. My original goal was self-improvement; my plans to help others (that I have) are really part of a much more elaborate project not directly related to this, but I felt like I needed to learn Japanese to prove something to myself. No, I don't know Japanese. I'm not fluent, and I expect I won't be in the next year and a half (yes, maybe after that. I am planning on moving fast.) But I learned more than I really thought possible in January of 2008 when I started this. I did so much by working on my own and truly that has been the greatest reward. I feel like I have explained everything about the impact of what I have done already. My blogs have really told you the greater impact of what I have done. I have gotten a few students interested in Japanese, but mostly this has been about self-growth. This was important to me, and I tried to have what I called success. I succeeded in all the areas that were most important to me, and I did everything I could to keep my club up as well. I know that I can't be a perfect teacher or (先生) today as I am still very much and I mean very much a student (学生) (the second kanji in each of the two Japanese words in parentheses are the same because the words have similar meaning... just saying). Anyway just writing system of the Japanese language as you can kind of see is enormous! (over 5,000 kanji that are considered "vital" to the individual Japanese person. Sooooo excited to learn them...)
So hey! At least I am planning on going forth with studying Japanese. And I am not sure I would have done this if I did not study it now. I plan on making the Japanese language and perhaps foreign language and general an integrated part of my life. And for anyone who reads this and has any questions, feel free to ask. If my newest post isn't more than several months old by that time (it's probably going to happen) I'll definitely try to get back to you. And even so. I guess that's everything I have to say now about my Senior Exhibit. It's been a good experience. Time to get that guide up!
Last week was pretty much the final week of the Senior Exhibit process... sad. But a lot happened. First, on the Tuesday of that week (busy as ever with the process and school) every senior set up for part of a Senior Exhibit Fair held for Fredericksburg Academy juniors and parents of juniors and seniors, as well as anyone else interested. I actually met two other people who were able to had lived in Japan and one parent was able to speak some Japanese which took me a while to answer. I believe she was rusty after several years, and I was rusty after a couple months of not using Japanese other than infrequently in the class. It took me a few moments to collect my thoughts and answer. I mostly answered questions and tried to get around to some friends' exhibit presentations. But I was more or less occupied at my table.
Towards the end of the week camewhat I thought was a rather difficult part of my exhibit, the Written Document. I had decided to create a guidebook giving some short information about basic Japanese. Honestly, I planned to make it more in depth than I did, but there was a good reason I had to stop. I thought that over 20 pages was a pretty decent length, more than a lot of people would want to read. And the thing is I really included a lot of basic grammar information that would be very useful and vocabulary that is useful as well.
I would like to talk about what it was like making the document. For the most part, it was very tedious!!!! I cannot stress how much more effort it takes to communicate complicated knowledge than to understand it-- at least from my end. How come when it's considered to be a vice to be selfish and talk only about oneself (and the easier thing to do) it's so much harder to communicate with teaching about one's own topic? I found it a lot easier to take the complicated information in. Enough complaining though. Anyone who reads it might even who knows Japanese (I don't think I made any mistakes but a Japanese person would know!) might at least find it impressive that I sat down and typed it in Japanese and English Romaji characters. It's no big deal if you do it all the time, but personally it was extremely tedious. To keep switching back and forth. (If you want to know what it is like, it's very easy to google how to enter east asian languages such as Japanese with your keyboard... and it might as well be an exhibit in itself.)
Really the most difficult part was having to explain everything carefully, accurately, and using the correct terminology. I couldn't make mistakes if this was the final part of my exhibit and I definitely couldn't afford to explain things poorly, or the document would just be useless.
Ulimately, it's designed to give people a small understaning of Japanese, and won't be helpful beyond the very basics (of course the "basics" in Japanese-- such as the order of sentences as well as the writing system are complex). Its main purpose was to give people an edge in learning and teach people how to study it themselves. By people... I mean whoever wants to read it. Maybe nobody, but I'll keep it with me and who knows, I might use it in the future or use it to explain something to someone else. I'll keep it with me for a little while. And I'm trying to figure out the best way to upload the file or the text; that should be here in juuuuuuust a moment.
And now that my senior exhibit (and my high school year) is over, I am tempted to just leave the post here and go about my day and whatnot, but I should really talk about the final impact of my senior exhibit.
Let me explain something. Many other seniors' exhibits may have been focused around service and helping others. I did choose to teach and my heart was in it, but at the same time this was not my original goal. My original goal was self-improvement; my plans to help others (that I have) are really part of a much more elaborate project not directly related to this, but I felt like I needed to learn Japanese to prove something to myself. No, I don't know Japanese. I'm not fluent, and I expect I won't be in the next year and a half (yes, maybe after that. I am planning on moving fast.) But I learned more than I really thought possible in January of 2008 when I started this. I did so much by working on my own and truly that has been the greatest reward. I feel like I have explained everything about the impact of what I have done already. My blogs have really told you the greater impact of what I have done. I have gotten a few students interested in Japanese, but mostly this has been about self-growth. This was important to me, and I tried to have what I called success. I succeeded in all the areas that were most important to me, and I did everything I could to keep my club up as well. I know that I can't be a perfect teacher or (先生) today as I am still very much and I mean very much a student (学生) (the second kanji in each of the two Japanese words in parentheses are the same because the words have similar meaning... just saying). Anyway just writing system of the Japanese language as you can kind of see is enormous! (over 5,000 kanji that are considered "vital" to the individual Japanese person. Sooooo excited to learn them...)
So hey! At least I am planning on going forth with studying Japanese. And I am not sure I would have done this if I did not study it now. I plan on making the Japanese language and perhaps foreign language and general an integrated part of my life. And for anyone who reads this and has any questions, feel free to ask. If my newest post isn't more than several months old by that time (it's probably going to happen) I'll definitely try to get back to you. And even so. I guess that's everything I have to say now about my Senior Exhibit. It's been a good experience. Time to get that guide up!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Senior Exhibit Presentations (Uploaded after written) (Practice and Final)
April 29, 2009
I finally gave my Senior Exhibit Presentation this week, and I think it went well. While there are many significant things about the presentation to talk about, such as the preparation, anticipation, and the presentation itself, what is most significant to me is the fact that it is actually completed and out of the way. As soon as it was over, I felt as an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I first gave my practice rehearsal several days before Spring Break. I presented it to Mr. Eckerson, Ms. Blashford, and Ms. Garcia. To be perfectly honest, I hadn't practiced before, and I think that this presentation was what I was most nervous about. I hadn't presented it in any way before. I knew where I was going and was organized only in the construction of my powerpoint. First: What my topic was, why I chose it; Second: The Process, what I did for my learning activity, what I took from that; Third: The teaching (as well as what I feel went wrong and what could have been done to improve things). I actually got cut off in the middle of the third. I spent a long time talking about some of the pointless things, and this was my feedback from the teachers, merely as I recall:
1) I was kind of disorganized. Yes, this goes along with my manner of speech, but I could have re-worked it in a better way. At the same time, I hadn't prepared too much so I didn't think it would show up in the final and was pretty sure I could fix it.
2) What would have worked best was talking more about the teaching and my work with Japanese in the club/classroom. I had a lot to say about that, and didn't get the chance. I knew this had to be changed.
3) I should make things less dry and talk less about Japanese and try to get people more involved with what they can do. I had an activity, but it was a little bit complicated. I should make it easier to understand and clearly explain everything. (Ironically, I never managed to do this yet in the classroom.
4) I should probably show some auditory Japanese. That's something all people would like to hear so they could get a feel for the language. I didn't have anything in the presentation yet, and I knew from the advice I got that this would help.
5) My confidence, however, was great. And I spoke well. Thank goodness I didn't have to practice a thousand times to get that right. I just had to prepare a little bit better.
Ultimately, during spring break I made a few changes to my presentation outside of the powerpoint and I planned to change that before I actually presented. My presentation was three days after break. Unfortunately, one bad thing occurred. The day after my practice presentation, I had to wipe the hard drive of my computer and re-start with a new installation of windows. I had a lot of my data backed up (I thought my powerpoint, the bulk of my presentation, was included)
So... the day before my Senior Exhibit (luckily you would not have known if you were in the audience, I re-did my entire powerpoint. I actually re-ordered everything. This did ONE good thing for me and ONE good thing only. It forced me to re-organize from scratch, which was helpful. It caused way too much worrying though. Luckily, in just two hours, I was able to make a presentation I was completely satisified with. I was half-asleep, and put on a terribly formal-looking suit before I walked out the door and had to change into something more appropriate. I was now prepared, but was completely nervous anyway because of all the work I just had to do.
I set up for my presentation early though that day. Everything went well. My audience members, students and teachers, entered the room and I gave everyone a copy of a worksheet I had made just to show what some of learning Japanese is like. I passed around all of my books that I had used and notes I had taken at Japanese Language Academy which included my half-page-or-so essay in Japanese. I had all my learning materials with me and a computer now for the first time presenting without spyware projecting what I wanted projected on the screen. I added a trailer in Japanese from the (I think it is 2003) movie ピンポン (Ping Pong). That was entertaining I think. I had to keep the audience interested too. I don't think I made too many mistakes except for the fact that I wanted to show that earlier in the presentation. I also showed the website I worked on to help teach the class (fajapanese.ning.com) which never really got off the ground that well for many reasons I talked about in the previous blog. Although I had challenges I think my presentation was successful because I analyzed them completely and talked about what I would have done with more resources including time, and what I took from this experience. I didn't have too many questions I hope because I explained everything so well in the first place (I hope I hope!). All in all, it was kind of enjoyable to present everything now that I had done it too. It made me very happy. And Andrew was the only person to actually form sentences correctly via the teaching worksheet I made (go Andrew! He has proved his intelligence for sure-- which was really just following directions, I thought, but no one else could do it. So again, he gets my props here). That's all I have to say. That afternoon I took off my jacket and relaxed realizing that my presentation was done. It was a good day.
I finally gave my Senior Exhibit Presentation this week, and I think it went well. While there are many significant things about the presentation to talk about, such as the preparation, anticipation, and the presentation itself, what is most significant to me is the fact that it is actually completed and out of the way. As soon as it was over, I felt as an enormous weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
I first gave my practice rehearsal several days before Spring Break. I presented it to Mr. Eckerson, Ms. Blashford, and Ms. Garcia. To be perfectly honest, I hadn't practiced before, and I think that this presentation was what I was most nervous about. I hadn't presented it in any way before. I knew where I was going and was organized only in the construction of my powerpoint. First: What my topic was, why I chose it; Second: The Process, what I did for my learning activity, what I took from that; Third: The teaching (as well as what I feel went wrong and what could have been done to improve things). I actually got cut off in the middle of the third. I spent a long time talking about some of the pointless things, and this was my feedback from the teachers, merely as I recall:
1) I was kind of disorganized. Yes, this goes along with my manner of speech, but I could have re-worked it in a better way. At the same time, I hadn't prepared too much so I didn't think it would show up in the final and was pretty sure I could fix it.
2) What would have worked best was talking more about the teaching and my work with Japanese in the club/classroom. I had a lot to say about that, and didn't get the chance. I knew this had to be changed.
3) I should make things less dry and talk less about Japanese and try to get people more involved with what they can do. I had an activity, but it was a little bit complicated. I should make it easier to understand and clearly explain everything. (Ironically, I never managed to do this yet in the classroom.
4) I should probably show some auditory Japanese. That's something all people would like to hear so they could get a feel for the language. I didn't have anything in the presentation yet, and I knew from the advice I got that this would help.
5) My confidence, however, was great. And I spoke well. Thank goodness I didn't have to practice a thousand times to get that right. I just had to prepare a little bit better.
Ultimately, during spring break I made a few changes to my presentation outside of the powerpoint and I planned to change that before I actually presented. My presentation was three days after break. Unfortunately, one bad thing occurred. The day after my practice presentation, I had to wipe the hard drive of my computer and re-start with a new installation of windows. I had a lot of my data backed up (I thought my powerpoint, the bulk of my presentation, was included)
So... the day before my Senior Exhibit (luckily you would not have known if you were in the audience, I re-did my entire powerpoint. I actually re-ordered everything. This did ONE good thing for me and ONE good thing only. It forced me to re-organize from scratch, which was helpful. It caused way too much worrying though. Luckily, in just two hours, I was able to make a presentation I was completely satisified with. I was half-asleep, and put on a terribly formal-looking suit before I walked out the door and had to change into something more appropriate. I was now prepared, but was completely nervous anyway because of all the work I just had to do.
I set up for my presentation early though that day. Everything went well. My audience members, students and teachers, entered the room and I gave everyone a copy of a worksheet I had made just to show what some of learning Japanese is like. I passed around all of my books that I had used and notes I had taken at Japanese Language Academy which included my half-page-or-so essay in Japanese. I had all my learning materials with me and a computer now for the first time presenting without spyware projecting what I wanted projected on the screen. I added a trailer in Japanese from the (I think it is 2003) movie ピンポン (Ping Pong). That was entertaining I think. I had to keep the audience interested too. I don't think I made too many mistakes except for the fact that I wanted to show that earlier in the presentation. I also showed the website I worked on to help teach the class (fajapanese.ning.com) which never really got off the ground that well for many reasons I talked about in the previous blog. Although I had challenges I think my presentation was successful because I analyzed them completely and talked about what I would have done with more resources including time, and what I took from this experience. I didn't have too many questions I hope because I explained everything so well in the first place (I hope I hope!). All in all, it was kind of enjoyable to present everything now that I had done it too. It made me very happy. And Andrew was the only person to actually form sentences correctly via the teaching worksheet I made (go Andrew! He has proved his intelligence for sure-- which was really just following directions, I thought, but no one else could do it. So again, he gets my props here). That's all I have to say. That afternoon I took off my jacket and relaxed realizing that my presentation was done. It was a good day.
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