Long time no post!

     We learned about the basic structure of good academic writing pieces. It was almost the first time for me to learn the very basic, as when I moved to Dubai, it was already Gr.4, which was probably after everyone finished learning, or was in the process of learning them. It gave me a chill on my back when I realized that I was writing my papers without thinking about them so deeply. I will make sure to keep these in mind from today and on. One thing I was most surprised with was the rule of 3. After learning them, I was thinking of the reason why I hadn't noticed them for the whole time I had been using English. In my opinion, I thought it is interesting that we can become better in English field by utilizing the fact from the psychology field. In addition to this rule, I also thought academic word list is very useful. My biggest problem right now is the lack of academic vocabularies. By knowing that there is a list as such, I can probably take them into consideration when I am writing essays. Throughout this lesson, I was able to remind myself the importance of basic, in order to improve the skill even further. The knowledge we gain in class is huge and is very useful but I wished that the lesson speed was a little slower. Since there are not only the computer work but also the English lesson while I am encountering problems with the computer, some instructions are missed while I try to get back on track. It is almost like you are running in a group, and even when you fall, no one stops for you, so even after you stand up, the group is far ahead already. It may be a little different if the teacher can take a few moments at the end of class, that summarizes what we did in the class so that even if by any chance someone missed something, they can at least go and ask in order to get everything sorted.

     On Tuesday 8th, we learned about how electronic devices are used in primary schools. We watched a video of those children (around Gr.3-4)'s work. They were utilizing technology in their learning to make it more efficient. Although a lot of the classmates looked very surprised by this fact, which did not move my feelings much, probably because I used to be like those children, where we fully activate the benefits of electronic devices. The devices I had used was not as high-level as drones but, I still had to complete a wide range of work altogether. When we looked at the low rate of electronic devices taken into education curriculum, this freaked me out. This basically clarified to us that Japanese education is behind the world's standard as MEDC. It even made me feel the urge of Japanese government renewing the education style. From my personal point of view, I find Japanese people unflexible with new ideas and changes, and I believe that this is the main reason why Japan is staying at this rank. I also thought that if the government does not try to approach electronic device based lessons, it will only make it difficult for children of next generation. Even speaking from my own experiences, I find paperwork inefficient. Rather than handwriting an essay, and handing them into the teacher face to face, it is much faster to type them (which allows you to edit easily) and hand it into the teacher by uploading or sending them, as that does not limit the time. When I moved to Dubai, all of my classmates were making ppt with videos and pictures and animations etc, when I did not even know how to shift the initial of my name and space a bar in between my name, at the same age. Since AI and such robots are improving little by little, when it reaches a satisfactory level, humans will need to be able to control the gadgets. However, if there is less number of people who can utilize computer fully, Japan will not be able to contribute to the creation of new technology. I believe that our future is dependent on electronic devices. I am strongly hoping to continue using electronic wares such as computers in daily lessons.

     We also tried commenting on other people's blogs. Reading someone's writing piece and commenting on them made me get strange feelings. By doing this work, I thought that this work is full of learning. I can learn both from negative points and positive points. Especially from the mistakes, it will allow you to stop making the same mistakes as them, which is the shortcut to improve English skills. Until today, I used to get comments on my blog from teachers mainly, not my classmates. By changing the point of view, there are more points I can take into consideration in order to improve my writing skills. I found these interactive activities very fun to do because there is a world behind each bunch of text which I have never stepped into - a world of the writer. I found this work very effective for improving English and looking at a thing from different perspectives.