The recent session of JETAA Toronto’s Japanese lessons have come to a close. Once again taught by the superb Matsumoto Tomoko Sensei, these lessons were structured with a focus on conversational Japanese. They were most enjoyable and lively with many laughable moments. There were eight lessons in total, mainly held at the Toronto Reference Library on Monday nights 6:15-7:45pm. This year there were seven participants. The course is offered annually in the fall to all JET Programme alumni and is free of charge.
A general lesson followed the following structure:
- Onomatopoeia – Sensei presented some new expressions, provided humorous cartoon drawings and sample sentences, and a quiz – all on PowerPoint slides, so students didn’t have to take any notes. She additionally e-mailed students the slides after each class.
- Sample conversations – Sensei imagined conversations that might take place between JETAA members, featuring some humorous elements for added entertainment. These conversations were introduced sentence by sentence and students took turns guessing how the conversation would evolve before it was revealed. There were also grammatical points interspersed in the ‘kaiwa’ in addition to expressions that might be used among friends in conversation about various daily life situations.
- Japanese Game Show – The final part of the class was watching a segment from a Japanese game show called ‘kenmin no himitsu’ (secret of the people of the prefecture). Each episode highlighted a popular food for a given prefecture that isn’t well known outside the prefecture. Sensei artfully chose many if not all of the prefectures where class participants were placed on JET. This was followed also by a small quiz.
Submitted by Julia Rozinowicz