Microbrews in Denver

I tried quite a few in Denver during the week I was there and all were good (except Coors-my taste for beer has definitely changed since college), but the one that left the strongest positive impression was the SKA Nefarious Ten Pin Imperial Porter. Very pleasant sipper, creamy, slightly fruity, slightly chocolate, with a good balance of hops

Highly recommended!
http://www.skabrewing.com/

B+ on http://beeradvocate.com/

Here is a review by Bubba83, quoted at length because I'm still working on my beer review vocabulary:

"22oz bomber poured into a tumbler at 45-50 degrees. Nice amount of head on the pour, good tan color and the brew itself is midnight black. Lacing is pretty good and a thin rim of head stays around til' the bottom of the glass.

Smells pretty good, chocolate cake comes to mind, along with some freshly milled grains, almost like being at the homebrew shop. Roastyness is also apparent along with some vanilla.

Taste was a little chaotic, all over the place. First I get some sweet/tart fruits that seem a little out of place. Afterwards some chocolate followed by a bit of vanilla and cake batter. Finishes pretty hoppy. The taste just doesn't feel cohesive to me, it seems like there are a bunch of flavors thrown into the brew without any real flavor goal in mind.

Feels too thin for an Imperial Porter. Also, not much livelyness from the carbonation. After the good appearance, I was expecting a little more.

Drinkability could be improved by making the beer a little chewier/creamier. Alcohol is fairly well hidden, but some of the tartness and richness from the cake batter also somewhat negatively impact drinkability.

I don't regret the purchase at all, it was enjoyable and interesting throughout. If you haven't tried it before, give it a whirl."

Making EFL learning real and relevant to students' lives

I found this quote in an journal about Service Learning Studies published at ICU.

"Learning is more fruitful and dramatic when it is contextualized, when it is shown to have relevance to real life, and when it makes a difference in the lives of students and those they serve."

This leads to two questions.

First, in foreign language learning focusing on academic skills, how can we contextualize and make the learning relevant to real life?

For one, we need to show more video or other representations of real academic or professional situations in which effective (or ineffective) written and oral communication is being used. Assignments in classes should be linked to authentic activities and that link should be persuasively shown to students. Hopefully the examples and the tasks can be "cool"--something that inspires and creates excitement and makes students want to engage in.

Second, how do we make activities that can make a difference in the lives of students? The service learning system at ICU is an excellent example. Helping others can often lead to a higher awareness of the need for more learning, for a reexamination of self, one's cultures, and other cultures, and a critical inquiry into the dynamics that shape the world around us.

For language classes, will it make sense to design activities to try to make a difference somehow? Students can always do research on paper etc. with a specific local or global issue in mind, but that does NOT make any connection to real people. How can writing or speaking by about a real need? Interviews...emails...newletters...vodcasts...letter to the editor...presentations to persuade someone to do something...Specific ideas might be

• something to help refugees or other foreigners in Japan, something to an embassy in Japan
  
• something on an issue in an English speaking country that relates to Japanese students (overseas study, visas?, international relationships, depictions of Japanese culture...an letter to the editor or a letter to a policy institution about some cause?).
• something about their own university/community/life/culture - to introduce it in English to students of other countries
• Hmm...in any case, I want to get away from "Write an essay about education" (for me) That's not bad, and motivated students can use tasks like that to improve, but it is not engaging, inspiring, authentic.
  

Communication Strategies that can be used when you get stuck in speaking

Have you ever gotten stuck in a foreign language conversation, not being able to understand what the other person is saying, or not being able to express what you want to express? Did you stay stuck for an uncomfortable amount of time, or were you able to solve the problem and move on in a comfortable way? How many "strategies" for getting unstuck can you think of?

Canale and Swain (1980) include "strategic competence" as one of the four main components of communicative competence along with linguistic (accurate expressions for what you want to say), socialinguistic (appropriately polite choice of verbal and non-verbal language), and discourse competence (making a smooth transition from idea to idea so that you don't lose your partner). Strategic competence is defined by Canale and Swain (1980) as "strategies that speakers employ to handle breakdowns in communication. (p.25)" In other word, it is the ability to "keep going" with your communication in spite of difficulties with understanding or expressing ideas in the foreign language." Judging from my experience with professionals and college students in Tokyo, I feel that strategic competence is one of the areas in which Japanese speakers of English need more explicit practice.

I had read about strategic competence before and had seen taxonomies of strategies such as the one below adapted from Yoshida-Morise's article in Young and He's Talking and Testing (2001), but had never worked through them with a view to introducing them systematically to language learners. I'm considering some kind of introduction in my speaking class next term, but will knowing these be useful somehow? Also, how do I make this list into a usable resource for learners to draw on when they get stuck. What learners are interested in, unlike researchers, is what strategies they SHOULD use, not what they DO use.

Reduction Strategies (abandoning or reducing the meaning)
-Topic avoidance (staying silent or changing the topic)
-Message abandonment (giving up trying to say that idea)
-Semantic avoidance (changing the message to a simpler one)

Achievement Stragies (filling in the gaps of IL to achieve communication of the meaning)
1.Approximation (using a similar meaning when you don't know the right phrase)
--Lexical substitution (similar word)
--Generalization (more general word)
--Exemplification (listing examples to let the listener guess)
2. Paraphrase (saying the meaning in different words)
--Circumlocution (like playing Taboo)
--Word Coinage (two sleep days)
--Morphological creativity (internationalizated)
3. Restructuring - Changing to a different sentence structure
4. Borrowing from their L1, which is usually not effective
5. Cooperative Strategies - Asking the interlocutor for help
-Indicate they cannot explain "It is very hard for me to express."
-Ask how to say something "What do you call the..."
6. Non-linguistic gestures, mimes, pictures, sound imitations
7. Repair - saying it, then fixing it and saying it better
8. Telegraphic strategies--communicating without saying anything, just a pause
9. Fillers (in L1 or L2) nanteyuuka How do I say it?
10. Change of role (Asking a question instead of answering it)

So...all of these are good, of course, in the sense that learners have to do what they have to do to survice with limited language resources. There is nothing wrong with abandoning something that is not working as a message in communication.

Next, the most useful of these, as "good" strategies to teach seem to be:
1) Giving examples
2) Circumlocution
3) Non-linguistic circumlocution (?) - mimes, drawing etc.
4) Asking for help
5) In any case, not giving up on the conversation or going quiet. Continuing to find a way to go forward with the communication (assuming that is the best thing to do, of course)

Question:
What would a conversation between native speakers of English show? What kind of strategies for communication are used among advanced speakers to make the conversation go smoothly? Less proficient speakers definitely should learn from those.
Can a database of academic spoken language shed light on that?
http://lw.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/ESL/FormulaicExpression/Definition.htm
http://lw.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/ESL/Clarifying/Intro.htm
http://lw.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/index.htm

What would a corpus of academic spoken discourse look like at ICU? What kind of speak acts will students actually need to perform? Also, in business or other professional arenas beyond ICU, what will be required of many of our students? (Is it even realistic to try to guess that?) How do we lay a foundation that will maximally applicable to the maximum number of students?

A fairly good run and a personal best at the Tokyo Marathon 2009

いや～終わりました。ホッとしてます。３０キロまではお祭りムードで快適だったんですが、最後の10キロは足が動かなくなって辛かったぁ。最後の２キロは痙攣との戦いでしたし、ゴールしてからしばらくはちょっと吐き気がしてました。でも終わってみると楽しい思い出です。新年明けからトレーニングで健康な生活が送れましたし、頑張ってよかったです。

しかし、このように走れたのはファミリーの支えあってのことです。２時間も３時間も練習に出て子供の相手しなかったり、臭いせんたくものを増やしたり、いつも世話をかけてました。今日も大きなポスターを作って３人で浅草の方まで応援に来てくれてました。雨や混雑でお互い見えないままになってしまったのですが、それでも気持ちは伝わってました。Ｔｈａｎｋｓ　ｆｏｒ　ｙｏｕｒ　ｓｕｐｐｏｒｔ！

タイム的には、もう少しいいタイムが出るかなと願っていたのですが、あまり厳しい練習はしていなかったので実力通りでした。結果は４時間２６分ぐらいで、おそらく自己ベストです。前半は快調で「このまま維持すれば４時間切るかな」なんて妄想を抱いてました。でもハーフぐらいから現実の壁。まあ練習の実力通りでした。２５キロ以上走った回数がやはり少なかってですし、ペース的にも普段から５キロ２５分ぐらいで走る練習をしないとsub-4は無理ですね。また気が向いたら来年やってみます。

ちなみに自己ベストが「おそらく」というのは東京マラソンは何故かスタートラインを越えた時間を速報の中に入れてくれないのでスター選手の「よ～いドン！」を基準にしたタイムと自分の腕時計のタイムしか分からない訳です。３万人もいるのでスター選手が出てから自分がスタートラインを跨ぐまで約１５分かかってます。

http://www.iza.ne.jp/news/feature/4811/sports/allphotomatrix/

それを前提に以下の速報を見るとゴール時間が４時間４０分なのでざっと４hr２６minと計算してます。

ＣHRISTIANSMARK 種目(Category)：マラソン男子
5km　00:44:28 　（実際は29分ぐらい、快適）
10km　01:12:37 (split 0:28:09、快適)
15km　01:41:23　(split 0:28:46、快適)
20km 02:12:15 (split 0:30:52、強い向い風、トイレ休憩)
25km 02:41:28 (split 0:29:13　快適)
30km 03:12:59 (split 0:31:31　少し疲れ気味)
35km 03:48:24 (split 0:35:25　ゆっくり走るだけで精いっぱい)

40km 04:23:57 (split 0:35:33　ゆっくり走るだけで精いっぱい)
Finish 42.195km 04:41:34 (split 0:17:37　痙攣！足が動かない。かなり歩いた)
(Estimated time adjusted for delayed start is probably 04:26:34)

２００５年のHonoluluマラソンのタイムが４hr２９minだったので４hr２６minはpersonal bestと思ってます。去年の東京マラソンはかなり練習不足で４hr５７minでした。

でも、結局タイムはどうでもいいのです。速くなっても何もいいことはないわけで。マラソン参加の最大の意味は日ごろの運動の促進に尽きます！体重もほぼ目標値まで下がりましたし、体の調子いいですし、今後も続けていこう！

今回の反省点：　昨年同様衣装が地味だったこと、そして一緒に走る仲間がいなかったことですね。練習では時々一緒に走る人はいるのですが、東京マラソンは当選するのが難しく彼は落ちてしまいました。今度は数人で派手な衣装を決めてチームで是非走りたい！

今回一番よかったこと：終わった後、冷えたボロボロの体を引きずりながら品川の駅中で食べた熱々激辛のタンタン麺。うまかった～。そして三鷹に戻って入った銭湯のジェット・マッサージ風呂とそのあとの生麦酒。（カッ～！）この二つが最高。走るのも（前半は）楽しいけど、やっぱり終わった後が最高に気持ちいい。

感動したこと：自分と同じぐらいのタイムで走っていた６８歳の外国人のおじさん。ドイツからこのために来たらしく、楽しそうに写真を撮りながら快走してました。走るリズムは速くないけど、ものすごく堅実で歩かない。自分が抜いてもジリジリ最後の方に追いついてきてほぼ同じタイムだった。最後の５キロは彼の後に着いて走法を真似ていたら快適だった。７０歳間近ですごい！自分がそのぐらいの年齢になったらできるのだろうか？

BEYOND THE PAIN...

LIES...A MEDAL,WRENCHING　CRAMPS　AND　REALLY STIFF,SORE LEGS

RW/WW Atwell Chapter 7: Responding to Writers and Writing

Summary
Atwell describes how she interacts with students in two different types of writing conferences: content/craft conferences and editing/conventions conferences.

Content and writing craft focused conferences: These start with an open, listening-focused getting of "How's it going?" or "How can I help you?" and allow student authors to talk through difficulties they may be having in their writing and get advice from their teacher based on her much more extensive experience as a writer. Illustrating with examples from her class, Atwell emphasizes the importance of:

• Giving support while the students are writing, not after they have written and submitted it
  
• listening-letting the student describe the problem and possible solutions,
  
• building on the positive aspects of what the student has done so far (rather than going to the negatives that you notice),
  
• giving specific compliments of what is working, and to give honest questions about the points where the writers meaning is not clear yet, and
  
• being patient about the long term progress of the student.
  
• time management to make sure all students get chances for help,
  
• preparing to take/give notes, and
  
• keeping a balance between fostering independence for solving the problem and giving advice or ideas as a mentor while not intervening to the point of taking over the writing.
• Ending the conference with "What will you do next?"
  

Another key skill Atwell aims to teach students is "How to have a writing conference with yourself," to enable students to have an inner dialogue about the quality of their writing in terms of focus of purpose, level of specific detail, effectivness of leads/conclusions/titles and style.

Editing/conventions conferences: Atwell believes that students will learn to use conventions well (as they write their draft, ideally) if they believe in the importance of writing well for an audience to read it easily. She also emphasizes that conventions should be taught mainly in one-to-one conferences (along with some whole class mini-lessons?) focusing on only 1~3 convention issues in the context of the piece of writing of the student and AFTER a number of preliminary steps: 1) the student author has already edited the piece with a different color pen based on a personal Editing Checksheet specific to the piece, and a personal Proofreading List in the writing notebook developed step by step over the weeks, and 2) Atwell has also edited with another colored pen.

Reaction
良かったこと・参考になったこと
このチャプターは自分がどのように学生の作文に対してコメントをしているかを問い直す良いチャンスとなり、発見・再発見が多くありました。以下の文は主に自分のresponseにおける問題点の考察になってしまいました。

p.220

"Students know that I will confer with them while they are writing, not after the writing is done."

ICUではこのような書く過程での個人サポートが多少できていますが、まだ改善の余地があると思っています。

現在EssayのDraftを提出させ、その数日以内に１０分ほどTutorialと呼ばれる個人Conferenceをしています。幸い学生数やスケジュールの面でそれが可能なのでこの貴重な個人指導の時間が各学生と２～３週間に一度ほどのペースで持てます。Essayは600~1000語の長さなので事前に提出してもらい、私が読み、気づいたこののコメントを多少つけ、それを返却し、Conference学生はコメントの意味を確認したり、内容の相談をしたりして最終版のEssayを書く準備をします。Conferenceの内容は基本的にAtwellの"How can I help?" みたいなStyleですし個人的なadviceもいろいろできて、プロセス自体は学生にそれなりに良いサポートになっていると思っています。

しかし。。。問題は：今の悩みはこのシステムを活用できていない学生がいることです。つまり、どうしてもDraftの期限までに十分に書けない（書かない？）学生がいて、あまりにも内容がまだ「目指す基準」のEssayから遠いので"Good luck with your research and writing"ぐらいしかアドバイスができない場合があるのです。学生としては難しく書けなかった、資料が見つからなかった、時間がなかったなど、理由はいろいろです。

皮肉なことに一番苦労していてサポートが必要な学生ほど期限通りに満足なドラフトを書くことができず、Conferenceで十分なサポートが受けられていない現状があるような気がしています。そして結局最終的に提出されたEssayに低い評価が付き、低い評価を説明するために問題点を指摘するコメントを書いてしまいます。

やはり全員同じようなものを同じスケジュールで書かせている故に発生しているのかも知れませんね。書く能力や興味、そして書く事に使える時間は十人十色なのに同じことを要求するとどうしても「できる・できない」が分かれる。なんとか解決したいものです。

解決としては、何よりもAtwellのようにWritingで苦労している学生をもっと早い段階から把握し、その学生へのサポートを増やすことが必要かと思っています。それから評価においてはprocessにおいて「努力していたけどできなかったのか？」それとも「やる気がなかった・時間をかけなかったからできなかったのか」を見分けることをできたらいいなと思います。Self-EvaluationやReflectionをやってはいるのですが、課題ができていない学生はあまり具体的なことを書かない・提出しないという傾向があります。Self-Evaluationは「できた！」という実感があると意味がありますが、「やらされたことができなかった」時は書くのが嫌になるのでしょう。自然な反応なのかも知れません。全員同じ課題・基準で量ることもできるだけ見直すことを考えたいと思います。

やってみたいこと
My Proofreading Listの作成は是非やりたいな。私が作るChecklistではなく、学生自身がMini-Lessonなどから理解したポイントを自分でリストし、チェックする。すばらしいです。組み込みたいです。

みなさんへの質問
みなさんの書く内容を読んで考えたいと思います！

追加：稚拙ですが、昨年２月にCambodiaの英語教師のための学会でWriting Feedbackに関するWorkshopをやりました。その時のスライドを以下に挿入します。理論があっても実践は難しいものです。。。

Speaking Improvement FAQs

These are just some notes I'm making to prepare an FAQ list for a speaking class website. I'm hoping to have a number of FAQ articles about speaking skill development for ICU students to peruse.

It is actually very challenging to keep responses short. I guess what may work best is a short response with a link to more imformation about sub-points that can be easily navigated.

I want the FAQ list to be visually appealing and accessible. I want students to enjoy wading through it and getting ideas. Hopefully they will discover many concepts and practice methods that will encourage them to become self-propelling learners of speaking.

Q. How can I improve my speaking skill? (The most general question)
A. Improving your speaking has three main steps:
1. Input through listening, understanding when to use what type of language
For example, you hear somebody say "I'm sorry, could you say that again?" when they can't catch something somebody said. You notice the function of the words, intonation, timing, and (if possible) even the gestures or facial expressions that make up that act of communication successful.
2. Practicing a similar expression in a similar context. This can be in a classroom, or in a real situation, or even in an "imagined situation" that you simulate by yourself.
3. Getting feedback on your effectiveness. In other words, getting a reaction to check whether your communication is successful or not. In the example of "I'm sorry, could you say that again?" if the listener stops and repeats his words for you, your communication has been successful. By experiencing positive feedback/reactions, your confidence increases.
Basically, people who speak a foreign language well have repeated the 3 step cycle again and again, building their confidence with more input, more practice, and more feedback.

Q. I speak English very slowly--the words don't come out. How can I develop my fluency?
A. This often happens to learners who have not had a chance to practice speaking very much even though they have learned English for many years. Don't worry! As you repeat the 3 step cycle of input, practice, feedback and try expressing your ideas in various situations in class and outside of class, your fluency will develop. In addition, here are some key practice methods to keep in mind for improving fluency:
1. Repeat useful phrases until you can say them smoothly (Use dialogue materials to learn what kinds of phrases are useful for the situations you will be in, such as class discussions. Keep trying to use new phrases for a variety of functions.)
2. Prepare what you want to say before class and do a rehearsal. If you have a chance to discuss something in a class, imagine what you will say when you do your homework.
3. Practice talking about what you like to talk about. For example, you can do a Oral Journal by recording yourself talking about what you did that day or other topics that you choose. Even if you do not ask someone else to listen, just speaking and recording can be an excellent way practice connecting your ideas more smoothly.
4. Use time limits and systems such as 3-2-1. With a topic, first give yourself three minutes to talk about it. Then, try to say the same content more smoothly in two minutes. Finally, summarize the ideas in one minute--not just speaking more quickly, but also speaking more efficiently to get your main points out. If you record yourself, you can reflect on your own improvement too. If you have a partner to exchange recordings with or give presentations to, your study can be even more enjoyable or effective.

Q. I feel like some of the topics we discuss in our academic English program are too difficult. I want to practice more casual conversation English. What should I do?
Topics in ICU English classes can be difficult sometimes, and may not always help you develop fluency in terms of being easy to speak main ideas without thinking. Unlike "free conversation" lessons, academic English practice asks you to develop skills to think critically and discuss at the same time, in a good balance. You should see those difficult topics as an excellent chance to practice phrases that analyze the difficult issue and keep the communication going even if you are not exactly sure what your opinion is. By getting ideas from others and asking questions about the question, you can "think together as you discuss." This ability to "think together as you discuss" is one of the most important skills that you can learn if you want to use English skills in professional situations in the future. Of course, preparation before class to read the text and have some ideas about the content helps immensely too. However, even if you have not prepared, you should still be able to use class time to engage in a meaningful discussion. There is no reason for silence or lack of participation, especially when your chances to speak English while living in Japan are so limited.

Q. I think my pronunciation is not good. What should I do?
Q. I have a poor vocabulary. What should I do?
Q. I get nervous when I speak English. What should I do?
Q. I want to find a native speaker conversation partner. How?
Q. My classmates often speak Japanese in discussions. What should I do?
Q. How can I use movies to improve my speaking? (What is shadowing?)

These ideas are all good...now to start developing the site...