Looking back on the program

Hello. Fall is getting closer.

I'm still a undergraduate student so I will write about my experience as a perspective from student. 

 What I want to say most is that I had good experience in this program. I was so motivated and encouraged by teachers and participants. I think experience in Canada had huge positive impact for me. I met many peoples and talked each other. I felt difficulty to speak what I am thinking in English but I tried to talk. It was good for me.


In first week, I felt I'm not be able to understand the class because  all of the class was English although it's natural. But I understood it is important to get used to this. And, if I didn't understand, I could ask to teachers and other participants. From Maj-Britt's and Marilyn's class, I learned a lot of ideas and methods to teach. It was new to me. I thought we need to connect theory and idea to teach. And, by doing microteaching, I could try my teaching plan. It was difficult to make a teaching plan, but I experienced. It is possible to use when we become a teacher.
 And one more thing. I liked the style of lesson. We had discussions many times. By  talking each other, we knew ideas and experiences of others. There were many discussion than I thought. I think it was quite good for me because I'm not good at make my own opinion and show to others. I think few class have deep discussion in Japan. It was good point, too. 

In Maj-Britt's lesson

In Marilyn's lesson

 

 From afternoon workshops, I got knowledge about many things. There were many kind of workshops. Introduction to Library,Teaching system in Canada, brain-based learning, music(drumming, visiting high school), arts, Sign Language.  etc. Each of them were excellent and we could enjoy.

Picture books introduction at library

Sign Language

Art workshop

visiting high school

 And, of course there were many good things besides the class. I don't know pictures are good or not.But, I'll show you some pictures.

downtown

festival at downtown

inner harbor

Bench ( I found at walking course)

Walking course

making and having dinner with peers

With my cluster house members

At farewell dinner.

  
  I have too many good memory, so I could not introduce all. Victoria is beautiful place and I enjoyed so much. I want to say thank you to all. 
 Let's meet at online education.

Yuriko Uemura 

Back to Normal

Hello, this is Nao (Naoaki Nishimura).

It has passed about one week since I came back to Japan. Now it is September! I really feel time goes on earlier.

As the program in UVic, I learned a lot of things from marvelous teachers and good fellows in this program. Before going to UVic, I was anxious about whether I could learn so many things and catch up the classes or not even though I was not good at speaking and listening, but everyone was so kind to me. Also, the teachers explained the methods and strategies to us easily. After morning classes, I learned the different culture and educational system in BC compared to Japan in the workshops. That was very good experience for me and I got interest in the culture and the system.

Also I tried new thing in this program; it was “cooking.” I’ve never tried cooking by myself. When even I studied abroad about one year, there was a cafeteria for all meals. So I didn’t have to cook by myself. My mother or someone always made a meal for me, but in this case, I had to do it by my own though my roommates were good at cooking. I was not sure if the dish I made was good taste for them, but I could cook. I learned how to cook in my cluster house as much as I studied teaching English in the classes.

I never forget the moments when we spent studying together in UVic. I try to work for my thesis, career, and enhancement for English proficiency while making full use of what I learned there.

Finally, I’d like to say thank you so much for everyone. I may not have been able to achieve well without their helps. I’m grateful to them for supporting me a lot. I hope we can share and help together for online work. 

Final Thoughts - Mishka

Well, it was a quick three weeks.  We learned and experienced a lot in such a short time, I’m afraid I might forget it all!  Luckily I now have a binder full of notes and handouts on everything we covered, so I should be ok.  It really did go by in a flash though, so I think it’s important to sum up the experience and share with you how I felt about it.

Everything at UVic was so well planned and executed, and the atmosphere so positive that it made learning a real pleasure.  The morning courses were abounding with a balance of both theoretical and practical information.  Concepts like personalizing and localizing, concept checking, eliciting, and the three learning types (Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic), were invaluable.  Ideas like the vocabulary book, travel fair, book club and so on were of notable practical value; such activities were duly creative and well designed so that we could go back and put them to use right away.  I’ve got so many ideas now.

In addition to the studying we did, we also had chances to put our ideas to work in micro-teaching.  I enjoyed micro-teaching because it gave us a chance to try something new and get feedback from our classmates and teachers.  Micro-teachings were also short (10min.) so if something went awry it wasn’t such a big deal.  It was fun being someone else's student too.

Afternoons were also fun and educational.  Not as intensive as the morning and not necessarily language-based, they were still extremely relevant and useful to my future as a teacher.  With the afternoon programs we had a chance to either relate the BC system to that of Japan, or to see how a different discipline operates and think of its relevance to our own.  Afternoon workshops gave us a glimpse of something new, and a taste of the life in Victoria.

The last factor that made this trip a particularly beneficial one was the participants.  We had a nice mix of grad students, undergrads, and in-service teachers in our group.  Everyone was respectful of one another and open to the advice that others had to give.  It was a real pleasure getting to know everyone and learning together/from each other.  I hope to continue this relationship as we continue to the online portion of the program.

To conclude, it was a well organized program, rich in content, with excellent teachers, staff, and participants.   We enjoyed every day in the comfortable beauty of Victoria, BC where the environment was ripe for learning.  I recommend anyone considering the program to not let the opportunity pass by. 

We'll be sure to keep the momentum going in the online portion.
 

Goodbye UVic, Hello jet lag

We woke up early i ... No sorry, we didn't sleep at all Friday night.  My roommates and I stayed up all night to get ready for the big trip, enjoy our last night together, and perhaps have a better circadian rhythm by the time we got home.  We packed, talked, drank, ate snacks, and cleaned up the cluster house.

At 6:00 am we were getting on the shuttle bus to the airport.  Roger and Daisuke had come to collect keys and left over food items, and also wish us goodbye.  We were all nervous because our bags were a lot heavier than when we arrived.  Gatty and I had bought a luggage scale at Wal*mart on Wednesday, and we we all took turns weighing our suitcases.  We were all close to the limit and couldn't be at ease until we completed check-in. Just a little while later we were all relieved and waiting to board.

We were leaving as a much closer group than one we had arrived as.  Over three weeks we had gotten to know each other pretty well and formed a community.  Teachers, grad students, and undergrads were all supportive and respective of each other.  I'm not sure if we were just lucky, but we worked quite well together and it was a little sad to see that come to an end.  I hope we can all stay connected as we return to work and studying.

We all slept a lot on the way back, and despite the scheduled 6 hour layover in Vancouver, all flights went without a hitch.  20-something hours later and we're home!

We received so many left overs from the HATO group, we had to use them all!

shuttle bus

The last day of lesson August 23rd

We had a good time from Maj-Britt and Marilyn on Friday.  Maj-Britt taught us how to do outside activity and Marilyn gave us good opportunity of looking back on our life of Victoria through "Way of Council" activity.

After that, we spent the time each other. Some of them went to the downtown for getting the souvenior to friends, and others tried to pack their huge luggage as soon as possible. In my case, I went to the downtown and walked around there to memorise the beautiful scene and take pictures a lot. 

In the evening, women's group went to the downtown for having a good dinner, on the other hand, men's group had a fabulous dinner in our great cluster house. Our wonderful chefs, Nao, Gatty and Mishka made a specific last dinner. It tasted so yummy!!

Thank you so much.

Class and Farewell dinner.

Hello. This is Yuriko Uemura.
Today was a special day to everyone.

In the morning we had Maj-Britt Class and Marlyin's class.
In Maj-Britt class, we discussed group projects. We talked about advantages and also, disadvantages.
And we shared some experiences. I thought we can do some Group project in Japan and it will be good for students.

In Marilyn's class, We did microteaching. And we had a wonderful guest from university.

Mari's microteaching.
Her class was about reading. We read sentences about India and we made a poster. We can use alphabet as a title but we should try to make a graph and pictures to explain information about India.

Marina's micoroteaching.
Her target was 'must'. We did a King game. Also, she had a sentence in case student didn't have ideas.

Kaori's microteaching. She brought some example of brochure and she asked about country that you want to go. She showed a model. She wants to go Australia to see kangaroo. After that We searched where we want to go in brochure.

It was good to know other people's idea.
It is difficult to think  elicit, Personalize & Localize, Model, Visual Auditory Kinesthetic, Concept check, all of things but it is good to try.

Anyway, we did it.

In the afternoon, we had  Farewelldinner at tower Harbour Towers. (hotel in downtown.)
Time goes fly. I cannot believe we almost finished a program. Though, we have one more day and distance education. My English is so poor, but I was so motivated by everyone.
The view from balcony was so great. And we had a wonderful dinner with teachers.
We looked back on a whole of program and said thank you to all. Teacher gave us certifications.
I'm happy.

The First Day of Our Micro-Teaching

Hello. This is Marina.

Maj-Britt told us an interesting activity "Parlour Games". The teacher gives students some cards. Each card has the rule of the game. At first, One of the members in each group read an instruction written on the sheet, and then after they understand the rule, they will begin the game. The teacher will see whether the students can undertand the rules or not.

"Parlour Games"

In Marilyn's class, we did microteaching. Today's presenters were Atsuko, Nao, Yuriko, Tomomi, Gatty, Yukari, Mary and Tomo. They all did their lessons very well! In addition, we discussed their works together.   

Tomomi's presentation



Nao's Presentation

Yuriko's Presentation

Atsuko's Presentation

Today's afternoon lesson was about song. Mr. Culham is a good instrutor! He is really good at attracting students. We did some excersises with songs and sang many songs. That was really exciting. We learned that songs can be good activities for learners and some musical instruments will be used as good items in teaching, especially, pronunciation, intonation and so on.

Singing :)

  

Lovely Gatty ♪

 Using many kind of musical instrument

I played this one!

Thank you for teaching. See you tomorrow!

Learning Sign Language

Hello,

This is Naoaki Nishimura.

TEFL Program in Canada is almost done. We try not to regret as much as possible in every day.

As usual in Maj-Britt’s class, we discussed the textbook for teaching language continuing from yesterday. There are many activities and practices that are considered including four competences (Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Listening) only in one page in the textbook. However, sometimes, the aims of them are obscure. We need to consider which practice is better for students or not. Also, she taught us teaching reading. As one of impressive things in the reading session, the method “Jigsaw Reading” was very useful and interesting. By giving different passages to each group, they can share their ideas with each other and help themselves to build up the comprehension.

In Marilyn’s class, she talked about “Universal Design for Learning.” In this activity, there are four stages: think, share, negotiate, and show. First, we have to read a passage. After that, we share the main points of the passage with each group and negotiate with your group about which one is main points. Then, we show each main point to other groups. Actually, she demonstrated this activity in the class. Also, we learned and played “Puzzle game.”

In afternoon workshop, we learnt ESL sign language from Prof. Jeff. Even if we don’t know much about sign language, he taught us the sign language from alphabet. After that, we tried to express a sentence used in usual conversation while using and applying the sign language. I learned Japanese sign language a little bit when I had practicum for a school for deaf students, but ESL sign language is easier to grasp the meaning and motion for me because the symbol of alphabet and the motion which word implies are embodied in the sign language.

Some of the fellows have microteaching in Marilyn’s class tomorrow. It includes me, but I’ll try to make full use of what I learned here!!

Universal Design for Learning

Our group's ideas

Puzzle Game

We made it!

ESL Sign Language Learning

Practicing!!