Last Class - 6/16/2010

It was already our last class with Rab.

We watched a document about students trying to have the government to make the bill on weapon trade limitation more strict. I was astonished to see this documentary at many points.

The most thing that surprised me was that students younger than me were working on serious problems as an afterschool club. The support by a famous comedian (according to Rab) and TV group might have promoted more achievement, but I have never even tried to do something related to government or a well known organization. My activity has always stayed inside school. Watching this made me feel that the possibility of what I can do during my university life is infinte, and made me to have the feeling to try something bigger. It was like the one Rab showed us in April, of a skateboarder skating in a city, doing amazing movements.
I didn't like seeing the weapons, but some of them were funny.


Rab's classes gave me opportunity to see the outside world and be curious about the reality in the society. Critical thinking was also new and difficult to me, but once I started being critical against the media and other opinions, I felt that it was endless being critical. So I decided not to be super-critical so that I can trust people. I thought Rab's skill of critical thinking was extremely high that it was really hard to convince him! But it was stimulating to learn. Through all the classes in computer room, I strongly realized that pursuing to know the truth, collect information, and not to be controlled by the media were our responsibility as citizen. I would like keepthese feeling in mind and make use of them in myuniversity life and later on.

Thank you Rab for teaching us!
You taught me many things even though it was only three months.
I won't forget your positive attitude toward society and the world.

See you next Friday!

Class - 6/14/2010

We finally had a PWT on The Old Man and the Sea on Monday.
Even though it was predictable what would be asked in the test, questions or topics not handed out made me feel that it wasn't fair compared to the other sections. It also didn't prompt me to study and prepare for the test.
So, to be honest, I only had a vague image of the interpretation to this book, and when I wasn't either satisfied or unsatisfied. I was just happy that I finished the PWT.
But at least, I learned the attitude to try to guess what the story symbolizes when reading a literature. It was also a good opportunity to read such a famous literature in English.

If possible, I want to read and understand this book more deeply and discuss with CBs on the interpretations each had............

Class - 6/15/2010

It seemed a long time since our last normal class in normal rooms, probably because of yesterday's PWT which ended up not talking much in class.

Today, after running to Nogawa Park in PE, we had our second-to-last class with Rab.
I didn't know that we have already covered all things for this term!
So we did a groupwork called 'Meeting Simulation.'
In groups, we discussed about what we would take to an island tosurvive.

I didn't know the TV series of "Lost", but the work was really fun! We came up with ideas in variety.
The idea of 'Entertainment' was something natural, but what we couldn't think of something to include in the 12 items. My group first had 'music' as an entertainment, but because it uses electricity, we decided to have Tomoya and Natsuko play the music with the instruments of LAMBS!haha But realizing that it counts as one item, we changed to the opinion that singing is enough. One more thing. We were working on the 12th item and I said "Spirit to survive", and what Natsuko added to that was "Love"! It was funny:)

I can't believe that tomorrow is our last ELP class with Rab:(
But I'm also looking forward to visiting Rab's house in summer:)

Class - 6/11/2010

Today's class was in ILC.
This week went so fast! For me, the last time we had class there, which is last Friday, seems like yesterday.

Rab inroduced us five short films, each having some kind of important message to the viewer.
The first one was called 'The Story of Stuff'. This showed us the process of exploiting, producing, selling, consuming, and wasting of things we use in daily life and also the problems that occur in each stage. I didn't know how easy a ' country of consumers' was made by humans, that it did not star naturally at all. The woman was right that we humans have to stop this vicious circle, or "line" according to the narrator, and produce a new circle which is friendly to nature.

This movie was so easy to understand that I took notes of on the google docs. They are 'externalized costs' and 'perceived obsolescence'. Besides using chemicals and low quality stuff, cutting the payment for the workers is also a big issue to be focused on when considering the issue of things sold cheap. Who pays for me? I probably wouldn't forget this quote. I thought that the second one, perceived obsolescence, fit exactly to Japan, where people don't want to stand out, lose faces, and people wanting to caught up in (流行にのる).

We also watched other movies.
About people trying to save a chinese (tibet?) man from being executed by the chinese government, and about the workers who dig diamonds in a very poor and cruel working condition. It was very surprising to know that the case in China ended up in success! Each of these had a strong message that tried to encourage peopleto take some kind of action.
When we discussed in groups whether we would break a small law to save someone's life, the answers in our group reminded me of the discussion we did when we saw the demo movie last month. I think that many Japanese would move into action if everybody does it. I also thought that the motivation to do it would depend on how much the issue is related or important to you.


After that, we watched a parody of the movie, 'Matrix', 'The Meatrix'.
This focused on the problems of meat, showing how cruel for the animals and not goo for the humans the process of selling meat is.
This was comical and hilarious, but with serious theme, so it was kind of shocking, but it still didn't have a storng impact. It was a good opportunity to know these facts though because I still don't have the courage to watch Earthlings. After the final exams, however, I might watch it because I think it is our responsibility to know those things.


I felt that knowing all these knowledges is an obligation for humans and should be responsible about what we are actually doing to the environment and other living creatures.

Rab's classes make me know and face the facts happening in the world and also make me really think about the problems. It really stays in my mind. I can't believe that we only have three more classes with Rab:(:(

Class - 6/9/2010

We had another debate again yesterday in class.

The topic was on our essay. We were to attack one person in our group and he/she was to defend him/herself .

I've experienced a few debates in high school, of course in Japansese, but that time, I didn't receive the image that a debate was difficult. Yesterday, however, it seemed difficult for me, probably just a little because of the language, but mainly because I had only a small amount of information. I have a rough idea of the outline of my essay, but I haven't decided how I would set my thesis statement. I know that it's too behind when the due is the next Tuesday:(
Anyways, other people's opinions helped me to recognize the problems I have to improve my thesis statement and content.

I'm going to finish the Old Man today!

Class - 6/8/2010

It didn't rain today in the afternoon, so we had to run again in PE ;-;
well, I managed to run through the ICU campus and I like running better because we can show up in the class on time than we did when we had swimming:)


Today was again a discussion day!
I've read half way through the Old Man, but today's discussion was difficult for me especially about finding the political view of Hemingway. I'm always interested in politics, but I actually don't have that much knowledge. So it was hard to look for parts which showed or implied about Hemingway's political view. Also when we discussed and started a little debate on various types of interpretations and there were some good interpretations in our group, but I felt my lack of knowledge in history when Tomoaki mentioned something related to war. Rab introduced one way of interpreting, seeing the old man, the sea, and the shark each for countries, it also made me want to study world history of that time again.
Where did all my knowledge go when I used to be jukensei ?!?!

In discussions recently, even in the case I don't come up with an organized opinion, I try to open my mouth, which is the way American students do in class, according to Nisbett. Sometimes I feel my opinion a little bit organized through speaking in the group, and I think that when an argument occurs from those small comments, the discussion can be considered as a succesful one.


Now that I'm finished with my club activity, dinner, shower, and blog post, I'm going to finish reading the Old Man:)
only if I manage to do it before falling asleep....zzZZ

Class - 6/7/2010

Today was a discussion day.
At the beginning, we talked about the Old Man and the Sea and the author Hemingway.
From the discussion about Hemingway, one side of him as a hunter and the other as a conservationist,and whether those two are contradictory or not. Then the topic developed to the nature problems and social problems such as factory farming. It was amazing how the topic moved on from a person's biography to a big issue like the relationship and rights of human and other living objects.

When it came to the topic of food, I couldn't simply answer the question: 'Should we stop eating porks and beefs?' I got a new information about how the pigs and cows are raised and that the current amount of feeding stuff such as grains and wheats for one cow is enough to feed nine times as much people as one cow can. I was surprised to hear that and wondered why people still didn't refrain from or reduce the frequency to eat meat. One reason we came up with was that this information is not widely noticed by people. I think that even if people know the fact, it is difficult to move into action. People would prefer to receive what is worth for their work, and as for food, meat is often welcomed for its nutritious and tasty point. Therefore, the percentage people would stop eating meat is probably low. Since this is my point of view, I admire the ones who have clear-cut faith not to eat meat.

We also talked about how "green" Hemingway was as a conservationist. My group's answe was YES because he describes the sea in the book as an equal position to the old man, which is human. At least from this book, such as the expression of birdsand fish, we can see that his view towards the nature is equal to human.

Today's class made me consider many new things again.

After the class, I had tutorial with Rab and he showed me the "eco-house"!

I've seen many of those houses on TV and in commercials, but not in a real life!

I'm excited for the visit in the summer:)

6/4/2010

In the first period, we had our second PWT!
Preparation for the test seemed easier than the last one.
The test itself was also not so difficult, but there were a few questions I got confused, which I realized that one of them was wrong in today's class. Oh well, at least I got used to searching fallacies and oversimplifications more than before through this PWT. By the way, the classroom was too warm and I was half asleep! The atmosphere was like a summer afternoon, feeling the light breeze and taking a short nap.

In the afternoon, we had our class in the smaller mac room.
We were supposed to work on our essays, but I was still on the step of worrying about what to choose for the topic. I know that my essay is not coming along, but since my first essay, it has been difficult for me to choose a topic which is arguable, resources can be found mostly in English, and achievable. I was more interested in cultural difference, but I couldn't find the way to make that topic into an argumentative essay. I mean, it's not possible to declare that one culture is better than the other. So I was stuck.
On the other hand, the cultural differences between Asian countries were something I first wanted to focus on, so Rab advised me to set this as the topic and be kind of critic against the writing of Nisbett.
Now, I can start working on my essay, searching for evidences and start writing:)

I have to get busy until the tutorial I signed up for on Monday..............

Class - 5/31/2010

Uh oh, I realized that I have three blog posts I have to write(;-;)

In Monday's class, we worked mainly on politics and nationality.
Rab talked about election. The reality of types of people who vote, percentage, and how candidates get voted or not in the U.S.
In the election of 2008, it is true that Obama won the election for getting the most votes compared to other candidates. The number of the people who had rights to vote but did not vote to any of them, however, was more than the number of people who voted for Obama! This was surprising for me to know that the result might have appeared differently depending on those voters, and that the fact that there were so many people who were unsatisfied with all the candidates.

Then we moved on to the topic of elections in Japan.
My group's discussion ended up in these result for the reasons of people who do not vote:
1.There are no attractive, reliable, and suitable person to be elected.
2.The Japanese government is not trustworthy. People can not believe its plans such as manifestos because the image of them often failing to achieve the plans is strong.
3.People, we thought especially young people, are not interested in politics because they haven't felt that government's action directly changed their life. It can be also said that the government is too far from the citizens. I think that the fact that it is difficult to recognize the importance of one vote might be also the cause. Therefore, they don't get the meaning of voting, which leads to low voting rates.
There were other small reasons brought up,but they all related to indifference towards the government, it being undependable, and lack of person who fit to be elected.

After that was about nationality.
I think nationality should be proved abd admitted by people by an official paper instead of how people look. The case in Onsen and driving Rab mentioned was unbelievably rude, but somewhat understandable to hear as a case in Japan. I personally think Japanese people have a special view of seeing foreigners, especially for the people who do not look like Asians. When Japanese spot someone whose appearance differs from most of the Japanese, they would definitely say "Hey, there's 'Gaijin' !" Japanese seem to recognize foreigners as 'outside people' and feel as if they are not same 'people' , as it is so literally. If people are judged which nationality you probably belong to by how they look, what happens then in America, or other countries??There were suggestions in our discussion that it's because Japan had a 'sakoku' period and that the country itself is an island.
In spite of these or any of the reasons, Japanese should be more generous to foreigners, respect them, and judge by how they look because there are a lot of non-Japanese who love Japan, maybe more than a Japanese does!
What I wanted to say was that people should not judge by how one looks and nationality is something

Now I'm not sure about what I wrote, it might be unconnected to each other, but I have to go to bed now...zzZZ

Chapter 8 - Abd if the nature of thought is not everywhere the same?

Fnally the last chapter!!!
This chapter seemed a little confusing for me, especially How should people think? section.

In Teaching and Testing, Nisbett mentioned Heejubg Kim's explanation that holistic thought, compared to analytic thought, is less well suited to linguistic representation. I think this supports the presence of the Japanese phrase 'Kuuki Yomenai(空気よめない)' which represents that verbal language is not the only way of understanding others.

It is also observed that American students speak up in class and improve their understanding, but Asians are likely to keep silent in class, listening to others to fully understand the material rather than speaking.
Concerning the former, from my personal experience, classes in Germany are very similar to the ones in America because they also spoke most of the time in classes. I was surprised to see that at first and wondered why many classes took those forms, the teacher introducing materials and students discussing about it. I somehow assumed classes in Germany to be the ones like in Japan, so in the beginning, I thought that consulting dictionary step-by-step would make me understand slowly but a little about the class. In the actual class, however, students started speaking and for me, being unready to catch speaking German yet, it was impossible to understand even a bit! After all, I could not obtain the habit to benefit from speaking. I remained as a pure Japanese then.
In my opinion, the explanation of Kim is why our discussion time is quiet for a moment before someone leads off. Most of us probably need to ponder the ideas we developed in our minds. American students might be able to start discussing as soon as Rab submits questions.

Now finished reading all the eight chapters, I treat Nisbett's position as looking Easterners from a Westerner's side. I'm not sure about how well I have understood on this book............

Class - 5/28/2010

Rab was back and in the fifth period, we had three guests from Ritsumeikan University.
One of the guests was the prefessor who gave a lecture for us in our Language Education class (GE).

We first graded our own PWT as a second checker. As some of the others in CB notice in blog posts, I didn't think it a good way either because we students wrote what we thought was the best response to the questions in PWT. So when grading, it is less likely that we spot the mistakes because we believe that our answers are right. The grade will be more accurate when an ELP teacher grades as a seconperson. It wouldn't also make sense if a third check will be done anyways, when the previous two are too different. Students might be able to gain a little bit more than now if grading other's PWT, but for now, I don't agree with having student himself to grade as a second person.

In class, we also used a software called "Sentenceworks" to edit our essays. It found many of my grammar mistakes so in that way, it was useful. It did not, however, point out mistakes in the contents, so I expect "Criterion", the second software Rab had introduced, to do that part of work. After all, we are gunniea pigs!:)

Then Rab showed us several websites which articles were written through fewer filters, compared to other major media like CNN. I will try to check those pages, but not forget that it is not that there are no bias in those websites. The 'Unreasonable Man' catched my eye. Are there any politician in Japan like Ralph Nader??

At the end, we practiced making a presentation with Powerpoint on Google docs. Since I have learned how to use Powerpoint in high school, the system itself was not new to me, but to insert videos directly from YouTube and setting picture behind letters were surprising! Above all, not to put too many texts in a slide so that audience will listen to you was the most affective warning for me.

This weekend, I have tons of homeworks to getrid of:( :( :(..............

Chapter 7 - "Ce n'est pas logique" or "You've got a point there"?

This seventh chapter was mainly about being logical. According to Nisbett, Easterners are more likely to set logic aside, being often influenced by plausibility of conclusions, and Westerners tend to apply logical rules to ordinary events, being more capable of ignoring the plausibility of the conclusions.
Asians also prefer seeking compromise and accept propositions which contain contradiction, but Americans tend to avoid contradictions.

I don't have many things to comment about this chapter because there were only a few parts which I had a sympathy with.
I predict thatwhy Asians have the habit of compromise and could accept contradiction is because they were needed in order to maintain harmonious relationships in the belonging society.

At the end of this chapter, there was a short summary of what Nisebett has mentioned in the previous chapters. I finally have a few more to go=3=3

Class - 5/26/2010

Today, an ELP teacher ,Sylvan took place of Rab.
I hope Kiyo and his grandmother gets better soon.


It was about the advertisements of election campaigns in United States, linked with what we read in Birk & Birk, including slanting, selection, and changed words. Each side, John McCain and Barack Obama, included all these selection and above to show the opponent appear in unfavorable way, trying to control the voters not to vote for the opponent.
This was the first time for me to see these election campaign advertisements so they seemed just like other ads such as those of daily products. When we analyzed the ads focusing on assumptions, evidences, and fallacies, I was surprised in two different ways. One was that to realize there are so many tricks to inculcate images into viewers' minds. The other one was to see so obvious selected views contained in such public ads! The most shocking was that the Obama side used the fact that McCain does not have ability even to use computer as an example to show that he is old-fashioned, although it ascribes to his torture in vietnam war. I think it is morally questionable.

Anyways, today's class was as interesting as always like Rab's.
Later at night, I watched TV and somehow looked carefully into the contents (characters, colors, tone of voice, etc) in commercials to find what the advertiser is trying to convey through the commercial.

Who is the best student in CB???

ME!
I listen carefully to Rab and other students.
I participate positively in discussions.
I develop the most compared to how I was in the beginning of this semester.
I try hard to speak in English.
I write blog posts on every class.

The most point I want to emphasize is my attempt to catch up with others in CB.
I lived in the U.S. when I was eight and nine years old and went to school there. Since then, I had few opportunities to be exposed to English speaking environment. Therefore, the English I can speak, including the variations of vocabulary, stays at the level of nine year olds'. To improve my vocabulary, I'm really working on it by listening and reading carefully to what kind of words and phrases are used by others. Then I look for occasions to use those words or phrases. I believe that the variations of vocabulary I canuse would grow if I keep practicing using them.
I'm making efforts!





hum,
I've never said that I'm the best student in my life, so it's weird to write it on my blog, which made me list up only the truth and no lies........there's always exceptions in everything.........!

Class - 5/25/2010

Swimming is over now and we started running through ICU now in PE.
We'll probably be more on time for class than before, Rab!

In the beginning of today's class, the rest of CB, which includes me, did the P&D on topic of the next essay we will be working on.
I try to be confident, but when I stand in front of others, I tend to talk fast and with little vocabulary. I hope I get used to it by practicing in class. At ICU, I became not to be afraid of making mistakes:)

After the practice of P&D, we were split into groups and each group made a paragraph describing Rab's big black bag either positively or negatively. Then we connected and analyzed those paragraphs using Birk text.

The weather was so nice today, except that it was too warm!

Class - 5/24/2010

Sorry to be late to write about yesterday's class.

Today, we mainly discussed and gave advices to each other about the topics or research question we have prepared.
Half of the class also did a short P&D on our second essay topic.

It was SO difficult to decide a topic this time beacuse of two reasons.
One is because I've learned how important role choosing a topic plays in writing an essay.
I have to be very careful when deciding my research question.
The second reason is that writing an essay which covers all 5As and which resources are mostly in English was difficult for the themes I chose for this time: cross cultural communication.
I mean, it's possible to list or introduce problems that occur between people from different cultural backgrounds, but it was not easy for me to make it argumentive, having 'should be' in my thesis statement, on such a topic about cultural problems.
So I have a topic chosen, but I might change it........

It's already end of May!
The time went slow during spring vacation after I graduated from high school, but now time flies, as the saying goes!

Chapter 6 - The world made up of nouns or verbs?

This chapter mainly talked about the differences in perception of the world; Easterners are inclined to consider relationships between objects and Westerners tend to categorize objects based on rules.

There were many experiments introduced, but the results and analysis were more unconvincing than the ones in previous chapters. In the first two experiments, my response was similar to how Chinese and Korean participants answered, but for the last two, it was the other way around. I thought the result could turn out in a different way depending on who you ask the questions.
Moreover, as I keep on reading, I noticed that 'Asian Americans' are often mentioned in experiments. All the time, Nisbett reports that the result of Asian Americans lies between Easterners and Westerners, but in my opinion, the result would be more to the Westerners' side. Asian Americans are people whose ancestors come from Asian countries. They themselves, however, grow up in American environment, receive education in Western way, and can mostly speak fluent English, based on my personal experience. So I think that their answer should be more similar to the ones of Westerners. Nisbett should refer more about the Asian Americans he had experimented on.

The section that interested me the most was 'Is it the language that does the job?'
"East Asian languages are highly contextual."(157) was convincing as for Japanese because there are 同音異義語　and these words require the context of sentences. In English, on the other hand, there must be a subject even in the sentence "It is raining."(157) Truly, there iwould be no subject when you describe the same situation in Japanese! When I read this part I totally sympathized with Nisbett, opposed to how I disagreed in the beginning part of this chapter.

After reading six chapters now, I wonder from what other aspects Nisbett is going to analyze the differences of how Westerners and Easterners think....

I still have two chapters to read(;o;)..................

Class - 5/21/2010

Today started with PWT.
I actually woke up the second earliest time in the morning since my arrive at the dormitory in ICU. I was already satisfied that I made it on time fot the test!
The test itself wasn't that difficult since we had time and question sheets to prepare.
Thanks to Yuji and those of CBs who commented in the google doc, I could organize my ideas and see if they were not too off the point.
I wonder when we get the test back graded.


Today's class started with an exciting news of having BBQ and fun by Rab's!
Then we looked at many kinds of stereograms on the internet.
At my house in Yokohama, there is a book called 'Magical Eyes's, howing stereograms to train your eyes and better your eyesight. Although I couldn't manage to see 3D when I have tried this book before, I could see clearly today in class. It was amazing how the figures popped out of the background.

We also watched a girl turning around but the direction differs among individuals.
I most saw her turning clockwise, which means I'm more creative than logical, according to Rab.
I understood that this one related to Fisher text and about perception, but coud not how the other stereograms related to the topic:(
After discussing a little about Fisher, another thing was assigned: choose a topic for our second essay.
huh.........
I'll choose the topic carefully this time.
For now, I'm thinking of doing something related to cross cultural communication.
I hope I find something interesting and also which matches the 5As over this weekend......

Anyways, enjoy your weekend!

Class - 5/19/2010

We learned about P&D today.
Threee important factors for a good P&D and the contents of delivering ways were not especially new, but seemed very difficult to do it all at the same time.
The most difficult one was to make eye contacts for five seconds with each of our group members. It was not embarassing, but not to look up when I tried to remember something was a
difficult point for me.
Rab showing us bad examples of presenting was so funny.
I like the way Rab actually takes action and shows us instead of just teaching in words because those examples are impressive and stay in mind.
In the part where we tried to come up with topics Rab would be impossible to present, it was surprising how Rab finished presentinfg confidently, not showing the audience that he has no idea of baseball.

Anyways, overall thing I felt was that I neededmore practice before P&D will be actually assigned in class..........

I noticed that besides lectures and presentations, daily classes, both ELP and non ELP, take the form of P&D so I have familiar models to look for in my daily life.

Class - 5/18/2010

I feel a little bit better than yesterday, but still I didn't swim today.

The beginning of today's class, I was frightened to see Rab being angry for the first time!
which was actually not true.
It really sounded like Rab was upset about how we are late for the class and the essay submitting! I mean it was so natural thing to happen in schools I have went to, that teachers get angry to students, so I had no doubts that Rab might be joking.
I didn't notice Rab winking at all, but it had a strong impression to remember 'non-verbal communication'. How Rab links a daily situation and the topic of the day is always admiring.

After that was our second psychology test.
We drew pictures referring to what Rab said and afterwards, 'what represented what' was announced.

My response to the question 'which is more accurate, yesterday's or today's test?' would be 'Yesterday.'
First, we had to draw and for a person like me who is not good at drawing (or can not express by drawings), it was not a fair way to test. There might be, on the other hand, people who can express their feelings better by drawings. So personally saying, yesterday's test was more accurate. The ones to list five adjectives about my favorite color and favorite animal were actually eighty percent acceptable! Tomoya, who sat beside me also agreed with my results:)

By the way, I realized that I still have three chapters to read for the Nisbett assginment:(
Sorry to be late, Rab.......

Class - 5/17/2010

I have a cold:((((
Probably because of lack of sleep.
Everyone, don't forget to take enough rest!

First thing we did today in class was some worksheets to improve the quality of words and phrases we use in our academic writings. Personally, the paraphrasal verbs was what I really need to work on, so it was a good opportunity.
The psychology test was fun and it was interesting to me that 'the white room' question indicated how you think toward death because white can make you think about heaven for people in Europe especially Catholics. What surprised me was that this psychology test had a relation to what we are reading in Nisbett for the reasons above.

I feel not well now, so this will it for today.........

Class - 5/12/2010

Fallacy.

This was also a word I've heard of for the first time in ICU.
I've lived for 18 years and there are still A LOT of new things to get to know since this April. I'm enjoying my life here at ICU:)
Okay, back to the class review.
We read LBH, learned about fallacies and how to recognize them. I was surprised to see that there were names for each types of fallacies and that we need to be able to distinguish them in those names in PWT.

Then we moved on to a handout with an article titled "Deletion of English from Entrance Exams Urged". This article, I couldn't believe that this was actually published because it was full of fallacies, included assumptions, and not supported by enough convincing evidences. The argument jumped from one topic to another without supplying enough arguments for each topic. Or it could be said that the article had the fallacy called 'Red Herring'.
Even besides these elementary errors, I disagree with the writer in many reasons. One of them is that taking English out of entrance exams does not make students like English. It would most likely be that it just urge the students to focus more on the other subjects and not study English.

After this article, we learned how to think logically, using deductive and inductive thinking.


A good news from Rab!
We have one more day to improve our essays.
As I read the announcement, however, I thought, 'wait, can I just trust Rab and accept this?'
I'm now being suspicious, going beyond critical thinking!

The retreat is already just four hours away now....
For the next two days, let's forget about our homeworks and have fun!

Class - 5/11/2010

Sorry for being late for the class again!
I still don't know why we have an ELP class right after swimming, but we girls are trying hard to be on time, Rab!

Today's class was fun.
It was a practice to examine whether written assumptions were argumentative or not and to find assumptions from some of the actual incidents that happened between different cultures. Although I thought that you need to get used to finding assumptions, but I realized something today. That is background information is required to see assumptions. Of course ther are topics which are easy to examine, but some topics, like the ones we did today and couldn't find out until Rab explained, can only be noticed when you have adequate knowledge. In most of the works we did today, differences of religion and tradition were the keypoints to notice the causes of the problems. Basic information about countries was also required. I realized that this is something before getting used to searching for assumptions. Having background information wast one very basic of this process!

Class - 5/10/2010

No Assumption ⇒ Minimize Assumption

This is the impression I got from today's class.
As Rab explained about writing essays in the beginnning of this semester, I thought that searching for assumptions is difficult and it is almost impossible to exclude them when writing, that it would go on and on. Today, however, I learned that there could be valid assumptions depending on who the reader is. Is the readers have some kind of common idea, then you can take that as an assumption.
Reading through the Little Brown Handbook, I noticed many sections being introduced for us to write better paragraphs in better design, which I didn't notice.
Oh, and I really thank Rab for giving us a delay of editing our own essays! I'd like to at least add my name and ID on the top. .:)

Tomorrow is the day we have swimming and RCA in a row.
I'll try to be on time!

Chapter 5

Half way through this book!

In chapter five, Nisbett mentioned that Westerners focus on the personality of the object rather than situation and Easterners focus on context and situational factors.

The topic that interested me the most was on page 127. It explained the diffrence between the ways of how the Japanese and American schools and college students and their teachers deal with historical events. The result was that 'How ' questions are often asked in Japanese school and 'Why' questions frequentlyin American classrooms. This point caught my eyes after discussing in our Friday's class about the attitudes of Japanese toward demonstrations. According to this study introduced by Nisbett, in Japan, there are fewer opportunities to ask 'Why' question already from elementary school. Students acquire that kind of education and they would be satisfied when just 'How' questions are solved. Curiosity might be suppressed, or not that extremely, but not prompted, and they also might not know one can pursue to under something without sparing oneself. Therefore, Japaneseareoften said to be passive, and defensive because they will not be aggressive, eager to know about something that stirred the curiosity. To connect this view to the discussion about demonstration, low level of curiosity and lack of a habit of lookingfor answers could be related to the Japanese passiveness toward demonstrations compared to other countries. This is what I felt for the first reading this chapter.
Another thing I have predicted concerns the part where it says '....Asians regard them as moremalleable.'(120) I agree to this and moreover, it probably is because Asians tend to care about the social relations and try to minimize friction with others. They are naturally trained who to do so unconsciously. As the chapters go on, this book gets more interesting. I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter for the first time.....

Class - 5/7/2010

There were two things we did in class yesterday.

The first one was practice PWT test.
There were not enough time for me to think and write, but also preparation.
I strongly felt that in those kinds of tests, the form you write matters, but the most important thing is what you write as answers to the questions. Since the questions which will be given at the next PWT are already announced, I should read and understand the texts more thoroughly and lightly make summarize my ideas.
Were there anyone who had enough time yesterday?!

After the test, we watched a documentary film called "This is what democracy looks like". The violent scenes were shocking especially when I saw that it was the police who were doing tear sprays and threatning the protestors. Protestors resisting the police, shouting 'The whole world is watching' and gathering tightly to each other was also impressive. The film also showed how corporations have powers to control the media, to decide what to broadcast.
This topic interested me, so I looked up in the Internet about this protest in Seattle. This protest was in 1999 so it was not easy to find various types of the actual articles written at that time, but there were many websites and blogs making comments about it. The most recent news concerning this protest was that in 2007, a film called 'Battle in Seattle' came out. Through this mini-research, I've also found a volunteer organization where they voluntary collect information and publish articles, focusing also on the facts that mainstream medias don't broadcast. Until Rab introduced this film, I've never considered that deeply about how the media is controlled by sponsors and short discussion in groups made me rethink. Japanese programs, especially news programs, seem to provide entertainment topics rather than politic or worldwide state of affairs probably in order to improve audience ratings. That means, information we get to know is already an outcome of the corporations' choices. Therefore, I decided to check various sources about one news or occurance. It is responsibility of individuals to not to acquire biased information.

Yesterday's class really made me think about many things somehow.
The education of 'critical thinking' is influencing me already......

Chapter 4 - "Eyes in back of your head" or "Keep your eye on the ball"?

This chapter was mainly about the differences between the Easterners and Westerners, how they literally see the world. Nisbett explains that Easterners have a holistic view, focusing on relationships of all the substances in the environment and the Westerners tend to see the world analytic, focusing on objects and their attributes separately from the environment.
The experiment by Taka Masuda was the one which attracted me the most. Actually, I've already heard of this exactly the same experiment two or three years ago and it led me to become interested in differences of points of views among several cultures. It's really interesting how perspective of a person differs depending on the environment he is raised, but reading the example of an American father and son made me think that it could almost be the nature part which affects someone's aspect because the difference was noticeable even for the infants according to the experiment by Imae and Gentner. This recalled the class in the beginning of this term when we discussed about nature or nurture which our perspectives are consisted of.

In the third chapter, I found a definition Nisbett introduced about Easterners' tendencies, but one sentence he has mentioned in this chapter was a very satisfactory explanation. "In Japan,....you learn from an early age.... to make sure that what you do doesn't impinge on the pleasure or convenience of others." I think that many Japanese, including me, are sometimes caring too much about others and that makes someone to hold back his opinion or expression. It means that those thoughtful feeling deprives positive effects we can have on each other! I woudn't say to lose those sensitivity, but to appeal more of what you expect to the environment. Moderate adjustment and control should make the society a comfortable place.

Overall, this chapter was more interesting to read than the three and promoted me to read the next one:)

By the way, today is already the LAST day of Golden Week!!!!!!!! Clases are going to start tomorrow(;o;) I'm looking forward to see everyone in CB and hear what they did in the last five days....:)

Chapter 3 - Living together vs. Going alone

I'm a little behind,,,I have to catch up(;o;)

The third chapter focused on a comparison from a perspective of achieving harmony within the social relationship as Asians or preferring individual action as Westerners. This chapter was quite easier to read than the previous two chapters, probably because of the familiar examples.
As I kept on reading, I got the impression that Nisbett started to place weight more on presenting examples of the Asian side, showing his position is the Western side. I couldn't notice Nisbett's biased opinion in the first two chapters, but for now, I think he is seeing things based on a viewpoint of how Asians play his part in achieving collective ends with in the society is a bit odd. I also felt that Nisbett probably estimates that there would be more "Westerners" for the readers of this book. Nisbett does not assert, but I felt his position most clearly for the first time.

His writing, however, becomes more convincing with all those various examples given. I agree to some of the examples such as in-group and out-group relationships, how answers to the question "Tell me about yourself" differ, and how mothers treat their children differently. The most interesting notion to me was where it says "Americans ...tended to describe themselves as 'I am what I am '.....When describing themselves, Asians make reference to social roles.... "(53) I was surprised to see how often I fit the Asian examples and description Nisbett has listed.

Although he notes "None of these generalizations apply to all members of their respective groups, of course."(77) , I feel a little, little hostile when he mentions about Japan as if he knows everything about Japan. Okay, at least, he does numerous researches, so I accept.

Another thing I didn't agree with Nisbett' writing was that according to his "Asian" friend, "you don't thank people for carrying out their obligations in her country. "(49) In a text at an entrance examination of another university I've read, it introduced how in India, you don't thank people if a give-and-take relation was formed. The text continued that there are often Japanese who feel unpleasant when they don't be thanked after giving something to the people in India. Because this text gave me a new point of view that time, I do not agree about this part in Nisbett's writing.



I had more to think about after reading this chapter, but now I have to start reading the fourth chapter.....!

Class - 4/30/2010

I had no time to write a post about the last class(;-;)

On Friday we checked each other's essays in groups.
Since I knew I wouldn't have much time to edit my essay after the classes on Friday because of an overnight orientaton meeting, I tried to finish as much as I could.
Yet I received many corrections from my group. There were suggestions about the contents which would make my essay a better one if reflected. Including the advices from tutorial with Rab, I revised my essay. It was hard because I knew it would be better if I fixed it, but to do so, I needed more time and resources. About two hours after the class had finished, I decided to submit the way it was then.
I learned A LOT from writing my first essay. It requires hard work but this is why I came to ICU, so I'm going to overcome this ELP!
I really thank all of you in CB for helping me until and from now on:)

4/28/2010

Worksheets!
Today I felt like I was back to high school because it has been a while to work on worksheets in class. It made me realize again how practices are important besides understanding the method.

By the way, I had tutorial today with Rab for the first time. Since my topic is about English education, Rab gave me very useful advices for me to make my essay a stronger one by getting at the weak point of an existing method.
I've started improving my essay, but it takes time X(

I wish for all of us good luck writing our essays.....

4/27/2010

It was rainy again today.
I think there's too many rainy days since our entrance ceremony.

Anyways, I liked today's group work on the PWT worksheet because I felt cooperating with each other. I also was anxious to read the Meiland text again because I already forgot some of the parts. Rab's advice to choose the questions which require less memorizing information was very useful in case we won't be allowed to bring in our ELP Reader to PWT.

4/26/2010

Today was Sayako's birthday!
It's always nice to celebrate birthdays.

In the class, we discussed about our essays and talking to someone made my opinion more clear. The question Rab asked, how school, teachers, and classes should be was interesting because I realized then that conditions I've expected before entering ICU was actually here now. I've just got to use it!
It was also the first time to use the LBH. I first didn't feel like opening it since it's a thick book, but after Rab's explanation about it, I started to like it because there are exact information I look for.
Using the tips there, I still have to work on my essay draft.........

Chapter 2:The Social Origins of Mind

In the second chapter, Nisbett tried to search for what makes the Westerners and Easterners think so differently. He presented a schematic model one of his own idea and one with his Chinese American student's. I've sympathized more with the latter rather than the former because the outside process is indispensable for the inner process.

The parts Nisbett examined the connections between each process was interesting. Although it always turned out to be that the relationship with the social outside world is the account of the different points of view, it made sense and was easy to understand for me.

The "field dependent" explanation was a little bit different from other parts because it focused just on the types of people and not country differences. But the difference expressed here was environment one which leads to the comparison the author is now working on. Thinking along this route was convincing to me.


"I've had an experience similar to this!"
This is what I felt when I finished reading this chapter, and I think I'm not the only one who has had this experience in the section CB. It was during the 10 months I've stayed in Germany as an exchange student. There were events with exchange students from other countries and sometimes we had discussions. A girl from the US insisted her opinion, eager to persuade others. A boy from China, on the pther hand, tried to gather the suggestions each of us made. This is exactly what Nisbett introduced as the Middle Way!


Okay, I've done reading two chapters, but it is still difficult to care about looking for how the writing is biased. To do this, I need more time and experience:( The only good thing is that I'm now used to facing technical terms......

Chapter 1: Syllogism and the Tao

I finally started to write about the chapter.
Before reading this book,The Geography of Thought, I tried to do the 3Bs and found out that the author, Richard E. Nisbett publishes some other books also about the differnces of views between Westerners and Asians. The idea of the author was not new to me because I've already heard of these topics.

In the first chapter, the author compares ancient Greek and China. He asserts that the Greeks have a strong sense of personal agency, which individualism comes in the first place in their life. To the contrary, what is important in China is harmony, being one part of the community more than one individual. The following section "Science and Mathematics" was a little bit confusing for me.

I don't doubt that Nisbett introducing China as an example of East Asians, but the Greeks as an example of Westerners. I agree to the former because I thought the part "Chinese... to minimize friction others"(pp.5) is depicting something similar to cases in Japan such as "to sense the atmosphere not to stand out." As for Westereners, however, I believe it is not justified to explain the cultural differences in cognition because there are many countries (which means various cultures) to represent.

Finishing the first chapter, it was difficult for me to see the bias Nisbett has. So I would like to
keep on trying through reading the continuing parts of this book.
By the way, Taoism and the original definition of the word "school"(pp.4) interested me the most: the freedom to pursue knowledge. I felt that I should appreciate the freedom I have now:)

Class 4/20/2010

For yesterday's homework, I have decided my essay topic and came to class today.
In class, Rab talked about the points you need to care about and the process of writing an essay.
The five points starting with A (Argumentative, Academic, Achievable, Access, and Attractive) were understandable, but the next thing Rab (and Meiland in the text) mentioned was the most difficult thing today. It was that you should be careful that no assumptions lie behind your writings. Considering all these points to decide the research question made it hard for our group to discuss about our ideas we've brought today. I'm sure I have to rethink about my research question again........

Besides these problems, I found out a new tip.
Everytime I read essays or reports, I wondered why the writer's research goes smooth along his thinkings. But Rab's advice that you can decide the thesis statement while or after researching, which means you don't need to stick to your answer you've set in the beginning and can change when needed, made it easier for me to start reconsidering on my research.

I'll try my best start working on my essay without complaining because it should be a lot easier than what the bicycler we saw on YouTube does.

Class 4/21/2010

Today we didn't have much time to discuss our reasearch topics, but instead we learned about writing an essay. Since I have never learned how and the basic rules to write an academic essay before coming to ICU, I was thinking that it would be too formal to get bored reading and also difficult to write. Even though I had such images, Rab's detailed explanation was easy to understand, with the banana and Toyota examples. I learned two important things. One thing is that each part in paragraphs has its role and reasons, which was also written in Meiland text. Second thing is that you need to catch the reader's attention also in an academic essay, without caring about grammer rules because the reader, especially the teacher, gets uninterested if the title and introduction are not eye-catching.


When we start writing our first essays, I will try to write following the notes I took today in class.
But first of all, I need to rethink and decide my research question.......

In the class on Thursday, I have learned many new things.
Posting comments on my own blog, taking short videos with the camera on the computer,
and editing the paragraphs of each other with a partner.

I first thought that looking for mistakes woukd be difficult, but the basic information about how to write a paragraph, such as "Rule 3" , helped me a lot. After the class, I wondered why there were no classes like this in high school, writing essays or short paragraphs and have them checked by a third person other than the teacher, because it helps both the writer and the editor to learn about paragraph structure. I have also noticed that you exclude some obvious informations for your paragraph unconsciously which can be easily spotted by other person.

And at the end of the class on Thursday, I've resolved not to say "I can't do this" for ELP assignments, seeing the YouTube video of the bicycler:)

From the first video, I learned that you can create one perfect music even if each part plays different music as long as each of the content is a good one and the creator has a skill to gather them in a good balance.

The second video was made from pieces singing one same music, but because they were gathered unbalanced, the video didn't sound like one song.

Hello:)