About WW II

There is a website in Japan that I found while searching under "pikadon"
(the gitaigo/giongo for the Hiroshima A-bombing) with images from a book
by the same name. I don't have the reference at my fingertips, though.

And I have permission from the publisher to share a couple of pages of
extracts from Ulrich Straus' _The Anglish of Surrender_ giving the oral
history perspective of POW Japanese soldiers/sailors toward The Enemy.
Write me for a copy of the pages I scanned: wittevee@umich.edu

John K. Nelson's 1997 video, Rituals of Rememberance, (30 minutes) looks
at the commemorations around Japan in 1995 of the 50 year anniversary.
His 2005 (2006?) reexamination of Yasukuni Shrine, Spirits of the State, I
think it is titled, is good as well. It was reviewed in the AEMS (Asian
Educational Media Service, www.aems.uiuc.edu) newsletter about 12 months
ago and is archived there.

--Guven Witteveen, wittevee@umich.edu
Outreach Educator, University of Michigan
Center for Japanese Studies

=-=-= "Journey Nagasaki - The photographs of Yosuke Yamahata, August 10,
1945" ISBN: 0-87654-360-3 [suitable for 9th graders and older]

I strongly recommend this picture book to understand what happened in
Japan at the end of the WW II. People talked about Hiroshima a lot,
but Nagasaki was the one that totally made Japan surrender.

The descriptive texts were written in English and Japanese.
Those pictures are tough to look straight, but at the same time those
are so calm and quiet...
- m. morikawa

amazing photo + audio collage online, Tokyo visual impressions

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/special/tokyolovehello.aspx

This freshly released interactive essay has images and audio with the photographer's comments as well.
This captures a mix of emotions and eye-catchers upon first spending time there --focused on the exterior impressions rather than the local meanings and significances to the people going about their daily lives there.

school visitors from japan

[suggested preparation & activities]
Re: Students from Japan visiting the class room.
Posted by: "Matsuzaki, William" wmatsuzaki@stpaulsschool. [org]

Some things that have worked very well for me is to have my students come
up with a set of questionsin Japanese the night before and have them ask those questions when the
students come. I give them a participation point for each question asked
(middle school). Usually they ask about music and T.V.
and they learn about each other.

In terms of games, games like fly swatter, translation board game, etc or
anything that has some challenge for both students (some English to
Japanese or Japanese to English) have been good since
both sets of students have something they can learn from.

video on Japan online

Web Japan videos is http://web-japan.org/jvt/index.html

text to speech software (online)

http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/frameset.php?frame1=sptalk

Choose "Japanese" on the pull-down menu, then enter some Japanese.

For example, go to http://www.asahi.com/ and copy a sentence, then paste
it in.

Japanese Prefectures [geography game] using drag-and-drop interactivity (online)

Todoufuken Puzzle, http://earth.endless.ne.jp/users/yoshi216/tizu-top.htm

and from Andrea Shea,

http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sheaa/projects/flash/prefectures.html

with a similar one for major cities:
http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/sheaa/projects/flash/cities.html

romanization references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepburn_romanization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki [usages section, especially]

keigo guidelines released

[senseionline] Digest 2121

3a. guideline report regarding "Keigo"
"Shunko Muroya" smuroya@hotmail.com shunkomuroya Date: Thu Feb 1, 2007 8:54 pm ((PST))

Ｔｈｅ　Ｃｕｌｔｕｒａｌ　Ａｄｖｉｓｏｒｙ　Ｃｏｕｎｃｉｌ
(文化審議会) submitted a guideline report (答申) regarding "Keigo" to the Minister of Education,
reported all the major papers. Asahi article seems to be the most detailed one.
Here's the url: http://www.asahi.com/life/update/0202/006.html

February - seeking MN summer language camp teachers

Mori no Ike Job Opportunity

Since 1961, Concordia Language Villages has offered summer language and culture immersion programs for youth, ages 7-18, in northern Minnesota. The program hosts 11,000 participants annually at 14 different Language Villages. The Japanese Language Village, Mori no Ike, has been a leader in Japanese language and culture education since its inception in 1988. Days are filled with Japanese song, dance, theater, and food in a culturally authentic Village environment. Over 500 young people attend Mori no Ike for 1-, 2-, or 4- weeks every summer. The staff are proficient Japanese speakers who enjoy being outdoors and making language learning fun. About 30% are native speakers, the rest are Japanese speakers from around the world. We are accepting applications for an array of six-week summer positions for teachers or students of Japanese, ages 16 or older, through March 15. For more information on positions and contract dates, visit www.ConcordiaLanguageVillages.org. We hope you'll
join us for the fun in 2007!
_______________________________________
Kerstin M. Beyer (Sakura), Dean of Mori no Ike, Japanese Language Village

Concordia Language Villages Moorhead, Minnesota

beyer@cord.edu www.ConcordiaLanguageVillages.org

"Preparing young people for responsible citizenship in our global community"