DENNIS L.
Comments
The summer assignments would be perfect if they could help us with kanji.
These assignments were what we do for hw except that the kanji is replaced
with the dark side. The websites also were helpful, but some of the websites
were mind boggling for me. I think the assignments you created are the
most that you can do for us online.
HUY D.
Part III
This summer, the Japanese program hit a milestone by having assignments over the summer. It was a great opportunity that wehad this to keep close ties with our studies and our sensee. It kept us fresh and kept us aware that we did have something to worry about
besides the next summer block party. Believe it or not, I sometimes
felt that the material shouldíve been longer and a bit more strenuous because
this is an incoming Japanese 3 class. I liked the websites that were provided
to us almost weekly. They ranged from on-line kanjidictionaries to daily
Japanese news and were pretty "cool". I liked everything about the summer
assignments. So I really canít say anything that could be changed except
for the length of the assignments. I suggest for next year, expanding the
SAs to four parts. The fourth part would have to be a paragraph about anything,
however they must use a certain page of grammar and vocabulary. This could
be used so that instead of different sentences, all of the sentences would
be able to tie together which takes more time and skill. All in all, I
think the SAs are a runaway success!
ANTHU D.
art 3
To make the summer assignments more effective, I
think you need to make sure that the students are
actually doing the plain forms seriously and trying to
do it without help from the reader or of any help.
Also, at home they can use their reader. It can help
them but sometimes, the students may do it to get
finished with it. You should make sure students are
really trying their best without using reader if
possible.
ALEX T.
Part III
One thing that I enjoyed most while doing the summer assignments was
doing Part I. Before I began to do this section, I thought it wouldnít
help me because all you have to do was remember, but I realized later that
some words are not that easy to figure out, such as kiru, iku, or engei.
Although this helps me a little, I think that the section that most improves
my Japanese writing and reading was the sentences, translating from Japanese
to English, and English to Japanese. Therefore, I think that it would be
a good idea to have more of those.
AMANDA T.
Part 3:
The constant verb breakdowns got tiresome for me. I think maybe sentances
could also incorporate putting the verbs into plain, past, and negative forms without
becoming a chore. If you had any problems with people who didnâ?™t know where to get NJ Star or whatever, maybe you could choose alternate websites that donâ?™t need a Japanese text viewer?
EDWIN V.
Comments about HW
At first I thought the summer HW would be a waste of time. But now I
realize that without it I probably would not have remembered anything.
But the summer HW is weak on Kanji practice. I still hope I can remember
them before school starts. That one picture site with the Kanji was weak
and I could barely understand any of it. The other sites were pretty good
sites.
MINDY L.
Part III:
At first, the thought of having Japanese homework over the summer annoyed
me. My first reaction to it was, I already dealt enough of it this yearâ?|I
should get a break from it. After two completed assignments, it became a
routine for me and not so much of a hassle. It got me to remembering the time
I entered Japanese 2 weak. Japanese homework over the summer got negative
responses from the students naturally. We wouldn't be true students if we
didn't complain. However, in the end, I speak on my behalf when I say I think
I benefited from it. So, I admit that Japanese homework over the summer was a
good idea and should carry on. Reviewing the plain forms, I am now very confident in that area. I am now able to do it and remember how to do it, since I practiced it every week. Grammar review was good because it made me go over it again. Sometimes, I
felt part 3 of the assignments didn't benefit me, especially in assignment 5
with the kanji memory learning devices. I didn't understand it at all. In
assignment 8, I didn't quite like translating the passage because it has
kanji and grammar we hadn't covered, making it difficult. In assignment 2, I
thought the instant messaging was good because it forced me to carry a
conversation in Japanese. In assignment 3, I really liked taking the quizzes
because it helped me to study. In assignment 4, the online dictionaries were
useful, although they didn't always help me. Sometimes, it was difficult to
use it, but I suppose that natural. In assignment 6, I liked reading the
cultural aspect of Japan, which would be useful if I ever wanted to travel to
Japan.
KATHRYN B.
PART THREE
The summer assignments were helpful, especially with the plain form
break down. I feel like that is one of my strongest points now, after completing
so many charts. What I do need, is a stronger vocabulary. I donít think
there were that many activities that helped to extend my vocab or keeping
up with the old ones.
CLARE C.
Part 3:
I think the Summer Assignments went very well, even though we had to
write in hiragana which I didn't mind too much. I enjoyed sending homework
through the internet because it definitely saves paper and it's so much
faster. However, since your recent accident with losing all the student's
final assignment due to Hotmail had happened, there are always minor defects
in it. I think this idea can go on till next year so incoming juniors can
have fun too. (Hah) Perhaps Japanese 4 could have it also.
TYLER R.
Part 3
Good:
THU T.
Part 3:
I think this is a good way for me to review my Japanese, it really helped.
Before I had a really hard time with my plain forms. I think you should keep
it up. My goal for this coming year is to get better grades than what I had last
year, especially in Japanese =)
QUYNH D.
Part Three
HmmÖ No comments. I actually had fun doing the homeworks. Mostly the ones where its free write, I get to go over the grammer summeries and get use to using it.
TONY Q.
PART 3: Feedback
It was good practice. I think doing more cultural stuff in the summer
would benefit us more. Writing about a Japanese article was quite enjoyable.
Kanji Practice was long and tedious work, but the site was fun in a way.
I have my plain forms down with all that practice. I once had a dream about
plain formsÖ It scared me a bit, and I wondered why I was dreaming of plain
forms but at least that means I know it. I think more kanji practice is
required because thatís one area I feel Iím still weak at, although I have
learned a little bit more then I knew before. Donít tell anyone I said
this, but maybe a day where we meet in the summer like once at the beginning
of July, or middle of August hold a testing day, where people have to come
to either of those days and take a miniquiz. I think the pressure of studying
for a test really helps people get it down. I think after Japanese 2, you
learn that cramming isnít the way to go withJapanese.
DAN D.
1) Dont have parts of an assignment that require Japanese text.
--------------------
LEONORA S.
Part 3
The amount of time given for each assignment was reasonable and the
internet made it more convenient. I improved the most on plain forms which
is probably because of the part 1 of the assignment. The reviews over the
grammar patterns and vocab were good, too. **Thankx Mr. Hall for taking
time from your vacation to help us prepare for next year!
TINA T.
Part 3:
I believe the summer work was a particularly bright idea; it kept us well in tact with our Japanese. I have heard stories about how Japanese 3 is the toughest class, due to the amount of work given, pressed in such a short period of time, so good preparation is essential. Some of my friends who were in last yearís Jap 3 class did believe that if they had this training (to push them to do work over their summer), then they would have been MUCH more prepared. As for critiquing the homework material itself, I believe you assigned very useful work. I got more acquainted with various Japanese sites; they were pretty interesting. I think Iíd have wanted to work more with situations and vocabulary [nouns] though (like direct vocab and translations, other than just utilizing them in sentences, since itís not too easy to squeeze off-topic vocabulary words together). I found that in part one, Iíd run out and reuse the same verb and adj. vocabulary words, while I couldnít get enough of the nouns down. But I guess when school starts and we have our Kanji/vocab section on each homework assignment, this weakpoint will be made up. =) Kanji will be refreshed too since we couldnít work much with those online.
WILLIAM N.
comments
Okay, it is good to have any kind of work in the first place over the summer because one can easily forgot all the stuff they learn over the year, like my chemistry. Boy
did I forget everything. The verb conjugations was good for a couple
of weeks, but then it kinda got dull after the 6th week. Its nice to have
it in there, but I would suggest other alternatives for the first part
for those people who feel like they had the dark side down real good. I
had to say I was somewhat angry when I got my work back as late for only
being a minute late, now I know thatís still late, but under the circumstances
of the files being over 100k, latency, server response and network congestion,
it does take time to upload and send the work. I know thatís cutting it
close but the work was finished before <?xml:namespace prefix = st1
ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />midnight. Other suggestions
on future assignments: maybe some more stuff on situations, websites perhaps?
Also, how about including some nifty Japanese culture facts or some funny
or cool websites? Hehe this is to keep the students anticipated on getting
next weeks Japanese hw =). Well anyways other than that, the work was a
good review for Japanese 2. Brute force studying the reader also helps
too.
NATHAN K.
Comments
The first part of the homework works well and helps youremember your plain
forms and helps with vocab if you are really payingattention to what you are
doing. I would add more conversations in thehomework. Some of the web pages
we had to do things with seemed like a goodidea but to me they didn’t seem to
help as much.
COSSELLA D.
I think that this summer's assignments were long enough that they gave us plenty review. I think that we should download japanese font so that we could have access to the websites that we were on the Part 3's.
ROCHELLE D.
Well , as for the summer assignments, they do help because we need to review more than we did in Level 2. I believe this is a good way to keep incoming Japanese 3 students more updated and fresh with the course. Although, it would be good if the students would be also looking on Japanese 3 stuff, to see what there in for and that it would be even more help with their year. Well I think the summer assignments is a good thing and should keep going;because for one thing if I have to go through it , so should the others. Another is, it keeps you on track.
PHONG G.
Part 3
Some things to make the assignments a little better are to not use that
Kanji site. It really doesnít help unless you actually write out the Kanji.
And people r too lazy during the summer too. The Plain form section was
good though. It helped me learn my plain form a lot easier. Maybe it was
because it was in roomaji? As I progressed though, I found that I used
up a lot of the vocabulary and accidently used it again a couple times.
JASON W.
Part 3:
Although the summer assignments were useful, even needed maybe, in keeping the japanese we have learned fresh in our minds, i would like to suggest a few changes. The plain form part was useful in the begining as a refresher, but it became tedious and little help after assignment 4 or so. Also we ran out of verbs after assignment 7 or so and began repeating them. I would have liked more translations, testing our general knowledge of japanese vocab and sentance structure. It was also frustrating not being able to read the japanese of any of the japanese sites. Ways to install the japanese text support with Netscape would have been appreciated. I do believe that summer assignments are a good idea and should be continued with future classes.
?????
part 3
the japanese homework was a sucessful summary of the different elements
of our studies, except that because it was a new experience, some of us
(the unfortunate students) did not have the japanese text accessories that
other students had. maybe in the future the software needed to have a japanese
word processor will be suggested, so that new kanji or just being able
to use kanji, katakana, and hiragana can be incorporated into the homework.
NGOC N.
The summer assignments should begin a week after school lets out
and end a week before school begins.
MAX W.
Natsu yasumi no shukudai waÖ
Dame!
1.There was too much "Dark Side" review.
2.I didnít learn anything new.
Ii desu nee.
1.I was able to greatly increase my fluency in the Japanese language. Now I can take less time to translate English into Japanese.
2.The homework prevented me from forgetting any Japanese, including
vocabulary, situations, grammar and somewhat kanji.
ANDREW C.
Third:
I believe the homework assignments were effective
because most of them required individual work and
cheating was impossible. If there is any more
sufficient way to have individual work, i havent found
it.
NGOC-LAN N.
ART 3:
The summer assignmentsÖ hmmÖ well, the sites we had to visit that required
a japanese text reader caused a lot of us problems. I think that is probably
one of the major problems this summer. A solution? Iím not quite sureÖ
perhaps making sure everyone will be able to read the text before the summer
starts? I know you had to take care of some things this summer, but I think
that the next incoming J3 students should know exactly when an assignment
would be sent out, every Monday for example. Just so they know when to
expect it because I found myself checking my mail a lot this summer. Thatís
all I really have to sayÖ not much. Mr. Hall, next year, try going on AIM
at about 11:30 pm on Friday night. Haha.. itís pretty funny if you have
all your studentsí screen names. =D
MUOI N.
part 3;
Honestly,at first i thought this was a huge pain. However, after a while, i feel like its quite a good purpose. I mean, i dont want to throw away all the things I learned during the school year, so with this summer asingment thingy, at least i could remember what i have learned. also, with this, i could keep up and continue to succedd in this japanese class because i really want to go alllll the way with my japanese. unfortunately, i have some comment s about the summer assignment thingy. I feel that the verb break down and summary review and the situations were great reviews,however, the link or websites were painful. I did not get to read any of it because i think my computer does not carry such font. oh, oh yea, the articles about japan or what goes on in japan are extremly interesting, because i feel like its good to know what's going on in the country im learning about or learning to speak it's language. other that, im ok with all this. actually emailing and contacting thru the computer internet is also quite a pain.
THE T.
Part 3:
I think that the summer homework was a very good idea. It helped me
reviewed during the summer. Maybe next year, you could also post the homework
on the schoolís Japanese website?
MIRIAM L.
SUMMER ASSIGNMENTS
Overall, I thought the summer assignments were well-balanced and effective,
although most people I talked to about it wondered if it was legal. Some
were a bit on the long and tedius side, like the cartoon kanji one, yech.
In my lazy summer mode I thought they were a lot of work, but they just
kept me from forgetting how log a week was (which, trust me, I would have.)
The plaing form breakdown was the only thing I really didn't like. It got
monotonous after a while, and wereas with kanji it's relatively easy to
throw in some veriety, the plainforms never change, and they drag on, and
on, and on . . . I think if you had a couple of different exercises like
this, say four (I wish I could tell ou what they should be, but nothing
springs to mind) we could rotate as we saw fit, and work on something we
felt we needed work on. Make sense?
JACOB T.
Part 3
Well... the whole concept of summer homework was a good idea, but i
really didnt find much inspiration to turn in the homework (or even look
at it) until late in the week (..thurs. and fri.). I guess that was all.
I would also say... as long as you dont tell anyone else that i said it...
but more homework would have been much nicer. That is just my own opinion,
though.
LISA H.
FEEDBACKS:
I thought that the SAís were very useful and beneficial in several ways. First, it helped us to stay focus on Japanese over the summer, which prevented us from forgetting the things weíve learned. Second, it helped us refresh our memory on the plain forms, which is going to be used a lot in Japanese 3. Third, it gave us a clue of what to expect in Japanese 3 without even a taste of it. What I mean by that is, a person can tell by their progress where they currently stand and whether or not they are willing to take a step forward to a more difficult stage. Fourth, the SAís also helped out those who were behind for any reason to catch up and get all they help they needed so they can walk into Japanese 3 ready and prepared like everyone else.
MICHELLE C.
Part 3
The homework assignments could’ve been more effective
if the plain form review weren’t on all the assignments;
it could’ve been on half of the assignments maybe.
That part was very useful and I know that part VERY well. I thought that
you could maybe switch off every week with plain form review and sentence
translations. The assignments didn’t really emphasize
on sentence translations and I thought that switching off might be a good
idea. That would help improve on grammar and vocabulary. I thought the
homework assignments were very useful and that it really helped me review
and get to know the material even better.
TERESA K.
Part 3: I think there should be other options for people who can't view a web site for any reason. Or maybe an essay about japan or japanese society for an alternative. There should be more of the "dark side" on the homework just for the students to stay on the ball. I liked the web site with the cultural lessons on japan. I learned a lot from that site that will be useful on the japan trip. All in all I think the homework was a great idea that should be used in the other japanese levels and our other language programs. There should have been one extra credit/ fun assignment this summer to. It would've been nice to also see Hari sensei and do something with him before school started.
Part 4: I want to do really good in japanese 3 and hopefully review japanese 2 also during 7th period. I want to be able to save enough money to go to japan about 3 times this year. My friends that are also in japanese 3 want us to go to japan for our senior trip instead of jamaica. I will hopefully continue to study japanese at san jose state and become a translator for businesses/ people, or maybe a japanese teacher.
GIAN A.
PART III
I think that this "j3 boot camp" thing worked. It helped me remembered most of the patterns, especially "the dark side." Only thing that was annoying about it is that when u look for 20 words through the reader and realized that u just picked some of the ones you turned in last weekís hw. But overall, it was helpful.
MAI N.
To be honest the summer assignments didnít help me remember my Japanese as much as I hoped it would. I mean I think Iím pretty good with the changing forms of verbs and adjectives, but Iím still rocky on writing the sentences because I think Iím relying on the reader too much. And because the assignments were only once a week, it really didnít help me keep the Japanese fresh in my head. I had so many other things I was busy with this summer that I couldnít just concentrate on JapaneseÖ and Iím really sorry, but I donít think Iíll be ready this year.
For the incoming school year, I really would like to be more dedicated
to improving my Japanese. Since Iím a junior going out for volleyball,
I wonít have varsity practice until 5 and I figured during the time after
school and before practice, Iíd like to spend that time in tutoring for
Japanese. I want to be able to ace the Japanese class so then I can move
on to Japanese four. Well I guess thatís itÖ See you on Monday Mr. Hall.