2016年5月23日月曜日

Yumi's Profile

 My name is Yumi.  I am a student.  I am eleven years old.  I am in the fifth grade.  I attend Sakura Elementary School.
 
  My birthday is August 23rd.  I am a Virgo according to the Western zodiac.  
Virgo means 'virgin' in English.
I was born in 1991.  It was the year of the sheep according to the Chinese zodiac.

rat, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake
horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, pig

My blood type is O. My father is also type O.  But my mother is type A.  A person with blood type O is supposed to be outgoing.  But I am not so outgoing.  I am a rather shy girl.


  I am one meter 45 centimeters tall.  I am not very tall.  My eyesight is not so good.  When I was a first grader, my vision was perfect 20/20. It is getting poorer.  Now it is 20/40.  I wear contact lenses.  Sometimes I wear glasses.  
  I have good teeth.  I don't have any cavities. 

I brush my teeth four times a day; after every meal and before going to bed.

 We are a family of four; my father, my mother, my older brother and I.  I love my family.  We live in an apartment in Fuji City.  Our apartment has five rooms; a living-dining room, three bedrooms and a kitchen.  It is called mansion in Japanese.  It is on the third floor of a big apartment building. The apartment building has ten floors.  There are ten apartments on each floor.


  I like playing sports.  I play volleyball, table tennis, and badminton. Recently more and more girls like playing baseball. I don't play baseball.  I play softball in PE classes at school, though.


  In summer I like swimming.  I can swim the crawl, breaststroke and backstroke. I'm very good at the breaststroke.  I can swim two hundred meters with the breaststroke.  I'm not so good at the crawl or the backstroke.  I hope someday I can participate as a swimmer in the Summer Olympic Games.
  In winter I go skiing with my family.  I am not very good at skiing.  I like snowboarding better than skiing.  My father is a very good skier.  My mother is not so good at skiing.  My brother also likes snowboarding.


  I like watching pro baseball games on TV.  My brother doesn't like watching pro baseball games, but he likes watching the Inter-high school baseball games in Koshien during summer vacation.  My father often watches pro baseball games on TV.  His favorite team is the Orix Bluewave.  My favorite team is the Giants.  
 We girls don't sumo wrestle, but I like watching sumo on TV.  My favorite sumo wrestler is Miyabiyama.  I liked Wakanohana before.  But he retired in March, 2000.
  I like reading storybooks.  I can't read story- books in English.  I'd like to read storybooks in English someday soon.  I don't like reading comics very much, but I like reading Kenshui Natsuko (Intern Natsuko) and Otanko Nurse  (Nonchalant Nurse).  I want to be a doctor or a nurse in the future.  If I become a doctor, I want to be an eye surgeon and study how to cure nearsightedness.
  I can play the violin.  I started learning to play the violin when I was a first grader.  I attend violin lessons once a week on Saturdays.  I can also play the recorder.  I learned how to play the recorder in music class at school.  
  I like listening to music.  I have a good portable stereo.  It is a SONY CD/radio/cassette recorder.  I usually listen to music on CDs.  I seldom buy CDs, but I rent CDs at a CD rental shop in the neighborhood.  I often listen to music while I am doing my homework.  Sometimes I listen to FM radio programs in my bed before going to sleep.  My favorite kind of music is violin music and Japanese pop music.  I often record good FM radio programs with the cassette recorder on my portable stereo.


  I like watching movies on TV.  I seldom go to the movie theater.  My favorite kinds of movies are Disney animated movies.  Next month a new Disney animated movie will be shown in the movie theater in the next town.  I will ask my father to take me to see the movie.  I hope he will take me to the movie with my brother on a Sunday next month.


  I like cooking very much.  I often help my mother cook dinner.  I like every kind of vegetable, especially potatoes and eggplants.  


My favorite dish is croquette.  We can buy croquettes at supermarkets, but my mother never buys croquettes either at supermarkets or meat shops.  She is very good at making potato croquettes.  Everyone in my family likes her croquettes.  



Her curry rice is also very good.  It is not so spicy.  I don't like spicy curry.  But my brother likes spicy curry rice very much.  
  
 My mother often bakes cakes and cookies on weekends.  It's fun to help her bake cakes and cookies.  My brother and I eat cakes and cookies to our heart's content.  However, my father is careful not to eat her cakes or cookies too much. He doesn't want to get fat.  He wants to stay skinny.  



Koji's Profile

  My name is Koji.  I am a student.  I am twelve years old.  I am in the sixth grade.  I attend Sakura Elementary School.
 
  My birthday is July 22nd.  I am a Cancer according to the Western zodiac.  Cancer means crab in English.  That is why I like crabs.
  I was born in 1990.  It was the year of monkey according to the Chinese zodiac.  


  My blood type is AB.  I am the only one who has the blood type AB in my family.  My father's blood type is A.  My mother's blood type is B.
 That is why I have the blood type AB.


  I am one meter 60 centimeters tall.  I am the tallest boy in my class. I have perfect 20/20 vision.  I don't have to wear glasses.  


 We are a family of six; my grandfather, my grandmother, my father, my mother, my younger sister and I.  My grandparents are the parents of my mother.  My grandparents on my father's side live in the next town.  We often visit them.  I love my family.  


  We live in a two-story house in the countryside.
  My room is on the second floor.  I have my own TV set in my room.  I also have a good stereo system.  I watch TV and listen to music in my room.  
  There is also a family TV set in the living room.  My grandparents always watch TV in the  living room.  They like watching Mitokomon and Abarenbo Shogun.  Sometimes I join them and we watch those dramas together.  
  I never miss the telecast of the pro baseball games of the Dragons.  I have never been to the Nagoya Dome to cheer for the Dragons.  I will ask my father to take me to the Nagoya Dome during summer vacation.  


  At school I belong to the baseball club.  I am the pitcher and bat fourth.  Last year, when I was a fifth grader, I played first base and batted sixth.
  I am planning to join the baseball club when I enter junior high school.  Then I want to go to a high school that has a strong baseball team.
  I want to play in the Koshien Stadium.  I want to be a pro baseball player in the future.  


  My mother always tells me that the boys in our generation should be able to cook and share housework.  She always asks me to help her clear the table and do the dishes after dinner.  

 She has also taught me to cook a few dishes.  I can cook spaghetti, ramen and curry rice.  
  I clean my room with a vacuum cleaner.  I do my laundry.

After I play baseball, I wash my baseball uniform and socks.  I also wash my underwear, sweatshirt, sweatpants, and T-shirt.  
 It is very simple.  I just put in the dirty stuff in the washer.  Then I hang my washing out in the backyard.





  I like reading detective stories.  I don't like reading comics very much. On Sundays I often  go to the town library to borrow detective story- books.  Once I start reading detective stories, I can't stop. I often stay up late reading detective stories.  My mother doesn't like that.  When she finds that I am staying up past eleven, she comes up to my room and tells me to go to bed soon.  I don't like that.  However, on Saturday nights she allows me to stay up till twelve.
  I like playing video games.  I have a SONY PlayStation 2.  I don't have many video games.  Sometimes I borrow video games from my friends.  My friends often come to my house and we play video games together.  We can play DVDs on PlayStation 2.  
  We can rent DVDs at video rental shops. Last Sunday I rented a suspense movie and watched it with my friends.
  It was scary, but interesting.  American movies on DVDs have not only Japanese subtitles, but also English subtitles.  I think it is very useful for English learning.  I'd like to see lots of American movies on DVDs.
  We have a dog.  It is a male miniature dachshund.
 He is seven years old.  We bought him at a pet shop.  We named him Sebirth,  because we bought him on my seventh birthday.  'Se' stands for seven and 'birth' stands for birthday.  
  We keep him in the doghouse in the front yard.  There is a fence around the front yard.  He can't go out of the yard.  So he is not kept on leash.  
  When he was young, he was very active. He ran around in the yard.  Now he is getting old.  He sleeps in the doghouse most of the time.  He needs exercise.  It is my duty to take him for short walks around my house.  

When I come back from school, he runs up to me and wags his tail vigorously.
When a mail carrier or newspaper deliverer comes to my house, he barks at him or her.  But he is so tiny.  He is not threatening at all.  



   He is very clever.  When he was young, I trained him to do many things.  He sits down when I say, "Sit."  He lies down when I say,  "Down."  When I say, "Hand," he shakes hand with me.  He can fetch a ball I throw, and give it back to me.  When I give him food, he never eats it if I say, "Stay."   



I love Sebirth very much. I hope he will live for a long time.


2016年1月30日土曜日

One World Communication I Lesson 1 English as a Global Language

Lesson 1 English as a Global Language
Part 1

I have four English classes a week at school.  How many do you have?  I study English very hard, because I want to be an international actor in the future.
(韓国の Mi-ran さん)

We can study two foreign languages at school.  We can choose from many languages, such as English, German and French.  Many of us take English, because it's very useful in the European Union.
(イタリアの Lucia さん)

We have over 200 languages.  English is very important in our daily lives.  We cannot communicate with our classmates without English.  We study it as a subject.  We also study other subjects in English.
(ナイジェリアの Umaru さん)

Part 2
  About 1,400 years ago, English was a local language in Great Britain.  Only about 150,000 people spoke it.  In the 17th century, some British people moved to America and Canada, and later to Australia.  They started new lives in these countries.  Great Britain also made colonies in Asia an Africa.  As a result, English spread all over the world.
  Today over 1.5 billion people in the world use English.  About three-fourth of them are not native speakers.  English no longer belongs only to native speakers.

Part 3
  Now, English is a global language.  A lot of Japanese use English as a tool for communication in various fields of work overseas.  Movie stars, athletes and musicians speak English at interviews.  Business people speak English at meetings.
  You have many chances to use English even in Japan.  Every year, about 1,800 high school students come to study in Japan from overseas.  You can communicate with many of them in English.
  Don't worry if your English is not perfect.  Just try to express yourself with simple words, phrases and gestures.