art exchange 2013 - elementary & middle schools

In a few weeks my town hosts an annual art exhibit: the USA children's artwork from fall 2012 is paired with summer 2012 artwork from our sister city in Shiga-ken. Then we sent art to Japan for display in their town library in summer 2013. Among Michigan's sister city interchange of student art, this is the biggest. A small sample of the artwork from elementary grades 1-6 and a few pieces from middle school are online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=HE4TABaj2Fg
Other years are recounted at http://mishigan.blogspot.com

clearance: Japanese Teachers' NET

http://www.japaneseteachers.net/ will end service on February 28 with collected resources 

to migrate over to a colleague's site, http://www.japteach.com

This process may take many weeks, so the quickest way to browse and save materials from J.T.net is to visit before the Feb. 28 closure date.

fun online media links (updates)

thanks to Sachiko R. for this:

The media links page on the Fun Japanese website is divided into the following categories: TV, newspapers, radio, magazines, videos, web-based sites, facebook and twitter, and blogs. http://www.members.shaw.ca/renovich/funjapanese/

<> The NHK for School site has clips (1-2 minutes) with clearly pronounced Japanese that might be useful for a starting point of a discussion.
<> Fuji TV has an especially large section on games in the Fujiterebi*Puranettsu section.  Older cultural games are still available on the website at
http://www.fujitv.co.jp/game/land/index.html  (Click on Seasons)
<> The children's newspapers have furigana to help with the kanji.  Yomiuri Kodomono News Weekly seems to have a short manga with each article that could be used as a visual aid.
<> NHK Radio News lets you choose between different speeds to build your listening skills. The NHK News Web has the written version so that you can listen and read at the same time. (Though the intonation on the NHK News Web stories seem a little bit off, or is that just my perception?)
<> Brad Kremer's "Hayaku: A Time Lapse Journey through Japan" is highly recommended.
<> The Japan Forum's Click Nippon website has been renewed with the current focus on fashion in Japan.

U.S.A. high school students to Japan - J.E.T.

...application for the 2013 JET Memorial Invitation Program for U.S. High School Students, please make sure to have your candidate registered by then.

There are three important dates for this program:

1. February 8th, 2013 (5pm Eastern Time): Applicants, through their Japanese language teacher, must sign up for the 2013 National Japanese Exam (NJE) organized by AATJ. If you are not a member of AATJ, you will need to become a member first and there is a $40 membership fee. The 2013 test is required for applying to JET-MIP.

2. March 1st through April 10th, 2013: Teacher must administer the online exam to the candidate and then print out their scores.

3. April 17th, 2013: JET-MIP applications, including NJE scores and transcript, must be mailed by the applicant's Japanese language teacher to JFLA by this date (NO FAXES or EMAILS).

For more information, please visit the 2013 JET-MIP page and if you have any further questions, please contact the program coordinator below.
http://www.jflalc.org/jle-jet-mip.html

Thomas Lin
2013 JET-MIP Coordinator
5700 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 100
Los Angeles, CA 90036
323-761-7510x109/105