2012-11-26

BR2-11: SCOTLAND

How much do you really know about this country of exciting cities, beautiful islands wonderful mountains? Everybody know looks a little further than the Scotland of visitors—at the real Scotland that lies underneath. 

    Oxford Bookworms Factfiles is a sub-siries in the Oxford Bookworms series. As you may know, Factfiles is a nonfiction subseries. Many of the books are about places, and some about social problems such as the environment. Many of the books about places are about countries, but this one is about England's populous area. Like many of the books, Scotland has ten chapters: This is Scotland, Scotland today, Scotland's past, Edinburgh, Glasgow, The Highlands, The Islands, Traditional Scotland, Eating... ... and drinking and Scotland tomorrow.  Some consist of two pages. The first and last chapters (This is Scotland and Scotland tomorrow) consist of  only one page each. The last chapter has a nice large map of Scotland, and photos are included on every page. The book ends with two page of exercises and a glossary.


The language in general is fairly simple, but the impression is that it's noticeably more challenging than Stage 1 books. Most of the vocabulary is fairly simple, but there are many proper nouns. This is unavoidable in a book introducing a place, but may give an impression of difficulty to some students. Picking  page 12 at random, the numbers of words in each sentence are as follows: 5, 15, 19, 42, 17, 4, 8, 14, 9, 4, 4. These figures give  mean of 12.8. One noticeable difference from Stage 1 books is the absence of very short sentence of fewer than 10 words, which may slow down reading speed a little.
285 words

in Fukuoka, Okayama

  I had good last holiday. I went to Fukuoka to saw my friend on last Thursday. I have been about one years since I saw her last. I talked her a lot of things. I had a good time. After I went to Okayama by bus because I see my sister and her family on Friday. I went to many places. I went to Tsuyama where live my sister and her family. Last Friday, I went to cake party. My sister took me to cake party because my sister's mother-in-low hold the party. I ate a lot of kind of cakes.  It was very delicious.  Next day, I went to Tkamatsu city. There are many famous Udon restaurants. I went to the most famous Udon restaurant, Ssakaeda.
(131 words)

2012-11-20

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Book reviews

Sport to watch(typing 12)

My favorite sports to watch are swimming, women’s volleyball and soccer. And I like Olympic sports to watch. I joined swimming club when I was junior high school student and high school student. So I enjoy swimming to watch because I can understand swim of rules. I like women’s volleyball because volleyball is very interesting. I cannot play volleyball well but volleyball is interesting sport. I like women’s volleyball but I do not men’s volleyball because men’s volleyball’s game is finish soon. I like soccer but I do not know soccer’s rule. But I can become high tension when I watch soccer game on TV. I like Olympic sports too. Olympic held this summer at London. I watched Olympic on TV. My favorite Olympic sport to watch is rhythmic. A rhythmic was hold at midnight. So I recorded rhythmic game for watch after.
143 words 3734/15000

place I've been(typing 11)

I have my favorite place. My favorite place is poor of Kikuchi city, Paris and London. I have many good memories at there. I could make many friends at there. I met many people. I could meet a man who is my favorite man. I fell in love with a man. I only could meet him at there. So I went to poor to meet him. I like London. London was very good place I have been. There are many cute stores and beautiful places. I went to many famous places and watched many famous buildings. I like Paris too. I like a row of houses and streets of Paris. I like macaron so Paris is the cradle of macarons. So I bought many macarons for me. I want to go there again. I want to go around Paris and London slowly.
142 words 3591/15000

Shoes (typing 10)

  I have some my favorite shoes. For example, it is Randa, Reebok and Vans. Randa makes lady’s shoes. So there are long boots, short boots, sandals, pumps and sneakers. I bought short boots at there. I like Reebok too. I bought sneakers to diet. Reebok’s sneakers can diet just put on one’s shoes and walk. I put on my Reebok shoes when I walk to diet. My sneaker’s color is pink so my shoes are very cute. And I like Vans too. But I cannot buy shoes of Vans because it is very expensive for me to buy the shoes. I want to buy new shoes so I want to buy shoes of Vans. So I have to save money.
120 words 3449/15000

color(typing 9)

I have many my favorite colors. For example, it is red, green, brown and black. I like Christmas color, Halloween color and deep color. I like Halloween but I do not like Christmas. I like red because I think that red is very cool and passionate color. I think that green is natural color. I like tree so I like green and brown. I like black because black seems thin. So I chose black when I buy clothes. I almost have black clothes. I do not become pale color so I want to become pale color. I want to become orange, blue, pink and white. Lately, I like wine red color. Wine red is very cute color so I bought clothes color of wine red.
121 words 3329/15000

High school memory(typing 8)

My favorite high school memory is speech contest. I took part in speech contest of Kumamoto gakuen university. I took part in speech contest 3 times when I was high school student. My English teacher advised me to take part in speech contest when I was fast year in high school. So I took part in it. I spoke about my twin sister and me. And I took part in that speech contest next year. I spoke about my love story. I was praised by many people. But I could get prize. I took part in that contest when I was third year high school. But it was last chance so I practiced hard. So I could get prize. I was very happy that day. I thought glad that I took part in speech contest.
135 words 3208/15000

dish(typing 7)

My favorite dishes are fried chicken, hamburger steak and pizza. My favorite dishes are very high calories so maybe I will become easy get fat body. So I care that I ingest meat swimming in fat. Fried chicken is very delicious. My favorite fried chicken is KFC. I like hamburger steak so I sometimes make it. My hamburger steak’s sauce is very delicious. I use many butter. I like pizza. My favorite pizza is Margherita. I love it. I like tomato basil and mozzarella cheese. I like mozzarella cheese so I like pizza that it uses many mozzarella cheeses. I want to eat pizza that the home of Margherita. These dishes agree with Coca-Cola. I always drink Coca-Cola when I eat these dishes.
123 words 3073/15000

Movie star(typing 6)

My favorite movie star is Anne Jacqueline Hathaway. She is actress of America. She is very beautiful, cute and smart. She has nice smile. She is stared many movies and TV. For example, she is stared The Princess Diaries, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, Hoodwinked! , Alice in Wonderland, Bride Wars and The Devil Wears Prada. She is not only stared their movies but also other movies. My favorite movie is The Devil Wears Prada. So I watched it many times. I like movies that she stars movie. I want to watch Alice in Wonderland and Bride Wars again. Alice in Wonderland and Bride Wars is very interesting. I want to watch Snow white and queen of mirror. Star of the movie is Anne Hathaway.
125 words 2950/15000

Something special I did during this vacation(typing 5)

I had many good days in this summer. I went to many places. For example, I went to Fukuoka, Kagoshima, Korea, Paris and London. I went to Fukuoka with my friends for paly at theme park. I swam in the pool at there. I enjoyed! Next I went to London and Paris with my friend for study and sightseeing. I had friends whose is Mexican, British, Saudi Arabian at there. I was very happy. Last I went to Kagoshima with my mother. There is my grandfather in there. So I met my grandfather. I went to my mother’s favorite restaurant. This restaurant is Italian cuisine. I spent enjoy days during this summer.
112 words 2825/15000

2012-11-19

BR2-10: NEW YORK

Oxford Bookworms Factifiles is a sub-series in the Oxford Bookworms series. It is devoted to nonfiction, and most of the books are about countries or famous cities or environmental problems.

 The book I read today is New york. Generally, the book is quite easy to read. There are few embedded clauses, and the sentences are simple in structure. The average sentence length is about 23 words. There are some much longer sentences, but most of those are lists or have easy-to-understand such as "because" clause. The vocabulary is quiet simple, with few unknown words that learners will need to look up in the dictionary. But the books do have quite a lot of information and the number of words is fairly large.Thus, these books are recommended for learners who are aiming to progress beyond very short and simple books such Usborne First Reading or Oxford Reading Tree.

 The book consists of nine chapters: The big Apple; In the beginning; Visiting the city; Some places to go; Looking up!; Shopping and eating; Entertainment; We love a parade! and New York and New Yorkers.

 Chapter 2, In the beginning, describes the geography of New York.

 Overall, the book was very interesting and useful for me. My knowledge of New York was very limited, and the book gave me a lots of useful information and made me want to visit New York myself. As mentioned above, this book and other books in the Factfiles sub-series may be a useful next step for learners who have read mainly very simple books.
257 words 2713/15000

have to do

I have to a lot of homework, go on diet and save money. First, I have many homework, it is typing, English central, book review and other subjects. So I am going to study more from today. I have to finish homework. But I have part-time job everyday. So I have to find free time and I have to do homework. Second, I have to go on diet! I bought DVD to diet. Do you know "easy do dance" of TRF? I danced it first time yesterday. It is not easy! It is very difficult. But it is very effective for health. Please use it! You can dance. Last, I have to save many money because I want to go many countries. So I need to save money. I have three part-time jobs. But they is low. So I have to work more. (143 words) 2456/15000

2012-11-12

Podcast episode 4: The big bag mistake

The big bag mistake is my latest podcast episode. Please enjoy listening.
listen to ‘the big bag mistake’ on Audioboo

13 words 2313/15000

Scripts 2:The Big Bag Mistake

Do you know book "The big bag Mistake"? In this story, A woman met a man at an airplane. The airplane arrived at Rio de Janeiro airport. The woman mistook her bag for his bag at there.
(37 words) 2300/15000

spain class dinner

I went to Mexican restaurant to dinner with Spain classmates. I had good time. I enjoyed talk and dinner.I could make friend more the dinner. But I ate hot dishes too much there. So my lip hot. I want to go there again. But the restaurant is going to move to other place. The restaurant will move to Fukuoka. So I have to go to Fukuoka if I want to eat Mexican dishes.
(73 words) 2263/15000

2012-11-05

BR2-9: The Big Bag Mistake

"I like London," he says. "I like the noise, the lights, the people, the red buses. Do you London, Gisela? Do you like England?"
  I tell about contents of this book. The woman met the man at the airplane when she went home to Rio de Janeiro. She had a very important manuscript for her. She put her clothes and the manuscript into a travel bag. The man talked to her  but she did not talk him because he was very noisy for her. The woman and the man's airplane arrived at Rio de Janeiro airport.  They went into the building and wait for their bags. The woman's bag is blue and the man's bag is blue too. So the woman mistook to take the bag but she did not notice that. She ran and after the bus. She is tired from the plane trip so she sleep in the bus. A man took her bag because he thought the contents of her bag is money or some expensive clothes. The thief ran. She is unhappy. She went home to her apartment building. The man was waiting front of her apartment. She was very lucky because she could get her bag. John Escott (2002) The big bag mistake.
(260 words) 2190/15000

school festival yeah!

The takumasai held on last Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I had good days. We sold Tonziru. Tonziru is Japanese miso soup. Many people bought it. I took part in school festival in Halloween costume. I masqueraded Angel of Stitch's characters. Last day, I end the school festival off with a drinking party. I drank too much at the drinking party so I cried because my club president told me to good stories. I was happy that I could good memories.
(81 words) 1930/15000