Wonderful Saturday at Butchart Gardens.

Hello from Victoria. This is Yuriko Uemura.

I'm really glad to participate in this program with wonderful peoples. We became to know each other and cooperating. This is my first experience in Canada. I never knew Canada is such a wonderful place. I'm so happy.

I felt better because we finished first week successfully anyway. Saturday is nice. We have time to prepare for next class.

Today, It was nice weather and we had a wonderful time. We went to Butchart Gardens in the afternoon by bus. We went with many teachers. There were Japanese teachers and Korean teachers. I met some teachers and had conversations. To become interactive is important. Don't be afraid!! We can learn many things from other participants.

 Butchart garden was nice place to visit. In the garden, there were many beautiful flowers. There was a concert stage and we can listen to music also. My favourite was rose garden. There were many roses.
Also, in the night, we watched fireworks. It was really nice.

  

  

Field Trip!

Hello. I'm Marina. I arrived at Uvic the day before yesterday.
I'm sorry to put everyone to so much trouble. I can't appreciate enough.
Thank you very much for everything.

Today is the second day for me. (Everyone is the fourth day.)
In the first period, Maj-britt taught us some warm-up activities, which "who am I ?" and "puzzle game" and we discuss interinsic and extrinsic motivation.
And also, she gave us an oppotunity for demonstrating ice-braking or warm-up activity. So we have to prepare it for our own activity.
In the second period, Marilyn taught us "Concept checking." It is a useful technique for someone who doesn't catch a word correctly.

After the class, we went to the government house in Victoria by bus.
There are a lot of beautiful flowers in the garden and interiors is very luxurious and lovely.
Lieutenant govener told us history and information about the house.
We also drank some coffee or tea and ate cookies and cakes in Maclure room and took some pictures with Korean teachers.
I am really happy to have a precious experience!

PIC PIC PIC PICCCC

Good day! This is Gatty.

We all are now in our cluster house, and enjoy our own time.

Though we have one of the biggest work, cooking dinner, let me go through the story today.

At first period, maj-britt taught us some useful warm-up activities in classroom as usual.

At the end of the period, we talked about motivation in language classroom.  We found that the course conducted by Prof Kagata during spring term made that comprehensible for us.

In the second period, we did poster presentation in front of our peer teachers.

Needless to say, it was the great opportunity to review what we already know, and also we were able to know some new terminologies and the concept from Marilyn's insightful comments.

After having lunch with buddies, education system conducted in BC was shown by Mr. Dave Pitre and Ms. Petra Eggert.

Though the number of students in BC has been declined, variety of pro-d is still satisfied and stable here in BC compared to the system in JPN.

Let me finally recommend that you buy frisbee in such a beautiful place here.

We felt refreshed to play that but I cannot already help keeping my muscle pain in.

That's all of our story today.

see you next time.

Live A Full Life

Second day of our classes. Before the classes, some students looked very sleepy because they struggled to do their homework which our teacher gave us until midnight. I and our roommates also tried to do it until late. So a little bit tired and sleepy. As one of the impressive content in the classes, Dr. Marliyn showed us a teaching method, "Silent Method." It was very interesting to be able to grasp the context only by using some colorful blocks. Anyway, at last, Marina could come here!! I'm really relieved to see her again. I hope we live a full life here more and more!!

Classes start

We started the day with a visit from Rob- one of the coordinators here. He kindly walked us to our classroom where we met Maj-Britt, our teacher for first period.  She taught us about "ice breakers" and "warm fuzzies."  We started off playing Tic-Tac-Toe Getting to know you.  In this activity you make a tic-tac-toe board and fill in each space with an answer to a question about you (which you decide).  Your students then continue to ask you questions which could be answered by one of the phrases you wrote in a space.  We then made our own and played in groups.  After that we made groups and discussed what we do and how we handle our first classes for the year.  It was a good opportunity to share opinions and receive advice from both college students and experienced teachers.  Class soon came to an end shortly thereafter in which we were again greeted by Rob.  This time he showed us a place to get coffee which we then brought to our next class.

Our next class was headed by Marilyn.  She is a very experienced teacher as well and has even lived and taught in Japan!  She shared with us her background and then it was our turn to do the same.  We then interviewed a classmate that we weren't familiar with and took turns introducing that partner in groups.  Following this, Marvelous Marilyn taught us a fun game for remembering names.  We finished with a discussion about the requirements for linguistic competence.

It was lunch time and today was a special day because we were treated to a welcome luncheon with our teachers and the coordinators of the program.  We enjoyed the delicious food and also took a group picture.

Classes ended with second period, but we weren't done yet.  Rob took us to get our student IDs and then showed us around campus a bit.  The weather was great, so we decided to take a trip downtown... maybe next time I will do my homework before I go out.

Arrival at Victoria!!

At last, I'm here, Victoria!! But I'm so exhausted because it was long flight. We left at Osaka at 2: 40 and arrived here at about 2: 30, so it took almost 1 day. Brought a big luggages, transferred many times, and had a little bit jet lag. I should go to bed soon for tomorrow. It is nice weather! Not too cold and not too hot even though it is chilly after evening. I want you to feel this great weather!! Anyway, new adventure begins now!!

Landing in Canada!

This is Satoshi Yamagata.  I'm in a cluster house in University of Victoria with my room members: Nao, Tomo-san, and Mishka.

After arriving at Vancouver air port, we felt that the air here is totally different from Jpn.

It's also different form my first experience abroad AUS.

Wind here is cool, but sunlight shines strongly on us.

That's why I was able to see that many sailing boat's enjoying the light breeze on the beautiful sea from a small window next to me during the flight.

The first person we met here was Prof. Rodger, the head of this program i think.

He  looked so warm that I felt he was as if my grand father.

Though small accident happened to me after going back to shopping, I hope it would be one of my unforgettable memories in this tour.

Be careful everyone, not to leave your key in your room.

Lastly, Kathy taught us a good news!

I still can't say, but Do not miss it.

I hope all of you enjoy tomorrow too.

bye-bye