Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Tornado Alley

Atama-ii Books: Tornado Alley

You are a writer. When a tornado hits, will you write the big news story...or will you become the news?

Today I read another Atama-ii book, Tornado Alley. It is No. 9 in the series. As with the other Atama-ii books, it is an interactive adventure, with eight different story paths. I read two story paths today. Because I had already read this book before and things had not ended well for me, it was my intention to play it safe, but I ended up dying on the first path, after worrying about a dog caught in a tornado. The second path I took wasn't very exciting, but I lived and made some money.

The language in these Atama-ii Books is very simple (A1+ on the CEFR scale), but the stories are all very interesting. The choices keep you awake and involve you in the story, but there are only two choices at each juncture, so making the choices is not difficult. I think most people usually read two or three story paths each time, so the books are suitable for re-reading two or three times. Doing so can help students increase their reading speed.

Ito, L. (2015). Tornado Alley. Tokyo, Japan: Atama-ii Books.

A bit about me

Hello, everyone, I'm Rick Lavin. I'm from the UK and I work at PUK. I'm the head of the English Department there. My field of research is applied linguistics. I'm especially interested in writing, technology in language learning, and sociocultural theory. In my free time, I like playing the koto and watching movies. Actually, these days I almost never play the koto but I do find time to watch some movies. I live with my wife and two daughters near PUK.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Welcome to Academic Writing

Hello, everyone, welcome to this year's Academic Writing course. I'm looking forward to helping you improve your writing, while having fun studying with students from several countries in a variety of fields.

Thursday, September 15, 2016

AWL sentences

this increase coincided with modest gains in complexity and accuracy

integrated FFI occurs during communicative activities.

Teacher linguistic identity has so far mainly been researched in terms of whether a teacher identifies (or is identified by others) as a native speaker (NEST) or nonnative speaker (NNEST) (Moussu & Llurda, 2008; Reis, 2011).

The article concludes with a call for recognition of the plurilingual multicompetencies of all TESOL teachers

In this article, the notion of dissent refers to a more critical, ideological orientation to advocacy for and by TESOL professionals

This study investigated the views of teachers and learners regarding the timing of grammatical instruction, conceptualized as a distinction between isolated and integrated form-focused instruction (FFI) proposed by Spada and Lightbown (2008).

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Shrek Forever After

Today, I read Shrek Forever After, an adaptation for learners of English of the movie of the same name, the fourth in the Shrek series. As the story begins, Shrek and Fiona are married and have children. Because Fiona has received True Love's Kiss from Shrek, she has stopped changing between princess and ogre and is now an ogre all the time. But Rumpelstiltskin wants to cause mischief in order to get power in Far Far Away for himself.

Rumpelstiltskin realizes Shrek's vulnerability. Shrek has lost his old life in which he was free to do as he pleased. Rumpelstiltskin promises Shrek a day of his old life if Shrek will give Rumpelstiltskin another day in return. Shrek falls for the trick.

It soon turns out that the day Rumpelstiltskin takes from him is the day he was born. So Shrek doesn't really exist in this new reality. Donkey says that, if he gets True Love's Kiss from Fiona before 12 o'clock, he can bring back the old reality. Unfortunately, Fiona doesn't know him, so she cannot give him True Love's Kiss. Rumpelstiltskin enlists the help of the Pied Piper, and it seems that everything will soon fall into his grasp. Is this the end of Shrek and Fiona?

Shrek is a very interesting series, because several different fairy tales are incorporated into the stories in an interesting way. Rumpelstiltskin and the Pied Piper are two totally separate stories. The emphasis on 12 o'clock is reminiscent of Cinderella. Watching Shrek can be an interesting education or refresher on traditional stories.

This book I read today is in the Popcorn ELT Readers series from Scholastic. The series is designed for people in the early stages of learning English, so the vocabulary and grammar are easy, and the books are quite short. The present book is 1068 words long. It is a Level 3 book (the highest level in the series), and books at Level 1 and Level 2 are even shorter. All the books are based on movies, TV series, or classic children's literature, so they are easy to understand even if you don't understand some of the words. In total, I was able to find 52 different titles across the three levels (http://www.ricpublications.jp/cat/New_ELT_Readers_Catalogue_2015.pdf).

Thursday, September 8, 2016

AWL Sublist 1 words in Brown Bears article

area area areas areas assessment availability constituted majority methods proceed research researchers significant similar specific varied varied varies

In areas with high concentrations of preferred plants, such as butterbur, bears can remain until they crop all the plants.

Feeding methods and habits of brown bear in Sikhote-Alin are varied and specific for each type of feeding behavior depending on the composition and condition of food, its availability and abundance, season, animal's sex, age, physical condition, personal preferences and experience, the presence of competitors and disturbance from other predators and humans.

The study of traces of life activities of animals allows the researchers to determine the diet of the bear and the characteristics of its food-procuring behavior, which is important for the assessment of the predator population and development of scientific measures for its control.

Thus, cranberries constituted 97% of the diet of brown bears in the vicinity of the Sikhote-Alin Nature Reserve in the second half of August–September 1999.

Soft fruits growing on trees (apple — Malus spp., Dahurian buckthorn — Rhamnus davurica, pear — Pyrus ussuriensis, bird cherry — Padus spp., hawthorn — Crataegus spp.) are almost inaccessible for brown bears due to the fact that the majority of adult animals are unable to climb trees.

When there are not many cones the animals consume each cone where they find it, and then proceed to another one.

The remains of cones eaten by brown bears are similar to those of Asiatic black bears and, to a lesser degree, of wild boar (Sus scrofa).

Feeding methods and habits of brown bear in Sikhote-Alin are varied and specific for each type of feeding behavior depending on the composition and condition of food, its availability and abundance, season, animal's sex, age, physical condition, personal preferences and experience, the presence of competitors and disturbance from other predators and humans.

Feeding methods and habits of brown bear in Sikhote-Alin are varied and specific for each type of feeding behavior depending on the composition and condition of food, its availability and abundance, season, animal's sex, age, physical condition, personal preferences and experience, the presence of competitors and disturbance from other predators and humans.　　>>

Feeding methods and habits of brown bear in Sikhote-Alin depend on the composition and condition of food, and its availability and abundance. >>

シホテアリン山脈のヒグマの食べ方および習慣が餌の

構成と状態、そしてそれがどれだけ簡単に手に入るかとその豊富さによる。

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S207815201630027X