Comment: It's a fun way to learn and practice Katakana and time expression. I think students already know most of the characters' names, so it's easy for them to connect what they see in Katakana with what they know in English. It is authentic and students will love it
Kumiko Gahan hirano@IMAP2.asu.edu
My comments: I thought the idea itself is good because a lot of students, maybe in high school or lower, know the attractions in the Disneyland. But at the beginning level, I would limit its use to only katakana recognition, shopping, and fining out the time schedule by giving more detailed guideline to the students to which page they have to open, since it is too difficult for my beginner students to look for the correct page.
Emi Ochiai emiochiai@hotmail.com
Comments:
I think the idea is very interesting. But the Tokyo Disneyland homepage has
English version. Also, it has too much information to answer specific
questions for the tasks. It might be confusing for students to find the
right information, which they need to answer the questions. Even I can read
Japanese, it was kind of hard to find what I want to find there. I couldn’t
find “Yotei o tateyoo”. I think it will be nice to have a brief map in
the web (Visiting Tokyo Disneyland). Some of the Katakana words are too
technical, which you will see only in the Disneyland. I am not sure if it is
good to learn Katakana words. But it will be good to know how Japanese
people process Japanizing English words in Katakana.
I checked Tokyo Disneyland, but I cna't decide which level I should use and how. Probably, if I assign students to read only the katakana words, I can use this for the beginning level. If I assing students to tranlsate the Japanese sentences there, I can use this site for the advanced level.
Mariko Sugawara mbragg@imap3.asu.eduComments: I think that the instruction of traveling in Kyoto is well explained, and the activities from 1 to 4 are written in order from easier to more difficult levels and very interesting.
Noriko Rich noriko.rich@nau.edu
COMMENT :
Basicaly this site includes dialogs Basicaly on histories of
dialogs foods. I am impressed to know that Professor Ujie created
many dialogs according Ujie students' needs, dialogs, it is not
significant new on an idea base. Comparign this website, Takashimaya
Virtual Comparign is website Takashimaya type of a language teaching
material that I have ever seen before.
In addition, regarding to a textbook that he uses in his classroom,
useable vocabraries would be different. I do vocabraries think
that he mentions about the basic information that other users
migh want to know.
I went to and explored a few of the sites available for beginners, such as stroke order of kana and kanji - they worked well and could be readily observed and seen over and over again. The pronunciation sounds available were slow to bring up, and only 2 stayed available at one time, so could not be referred to again. The picture gallery of japan is so far only of Nikko, but I assume there will be more. That is all I had a chance to see in a limited time.
Lib Wong ewong@email1.asu.eduIt is a good idea to use this in class, in terms of applicability and flexibility. We can use it for reading/writing (typing in Japanese) exercise, or some structure focused class. (ageru/kureru/morau/, Japanese classifier, etc.) Also, it is useful artifact for introducing Japanese gift-giving custom. It is fully up to teachers to design their own lesson plans which incorporates these authentic materials.
There are other sites that allow us to explore different types of products. It may be fun to make the students to find these homepages.
Mieko Kawai mkawai@u.arizona.eduI was only able to reach one site (About Japan) the other pages seem to be inaccessible at the moment. Anyway, this site may be useful as an English-only "Introduction to Japan" supplement, for students who know virtually nothing about Japan. The text is written entirely in English (with a little Roomaji), so it would be of little use for courses taught in Japanese. The highlight of this site is a good (old) picture of Chiyonofuji.
Chris Bragg dbragg@imap4.asu.edu