Hi Class,

We had the 23rd lesson on Tuesday.
I hope everyone is feeling well.
Many people in my office have been getting sick lately.
Take care of yourselves!

In the lesson we discussed the next step in the Personal Branding Statement process.
We have learned that the formula for the PBS is Skills + Personality/Passion + Market Needs.

Our next step is to look at market needs.
Here is your homework for Tuesday, January 9th, 2007:
(Please note that there are no lessons on December 26th and January 2nd!)

I'd like you to write out the following:

1. Write down the title of your position or the type of business you are in.
Example: If you do consulting for clients, you might be a business consultant.

2. List up the following:
a) the general responsibilities of your job
b) the specific duties of your job
c) achievements you have made

3. List the key talents or skills necessary for doing your job well.
This can include areas that you need to improve as well.

Do your best writing out this homework and we will discuss it during the next class.

I hope that all of you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Matthew

Hi Class!

This is the 22nd lesson.

Today we reviewed the steps for the Personal Branding Statement.

You have Skills, Personality, and Passion finished so far.

Your homework is to meet and do a one-on-on discussion with a colleague, friend, a co-worker, family member, or a superior and discuss your Personality and Passion with them.
Write down any feedback or new things you learn about yourself in the process.

You should know what your strong traits are now and should have gone to the "Project You! Community" and posted them to the discussion: What's your personality? => Scaling => Strong Traits.

By the way, this link is the ALC site which has a very good dictionary:
www.alc.co.jp

Thanks for all your hard work and see you in class,

Matthew

Hi Class,

Today we had the 21st lesson.

Homework:
Have a one-on-one discussion about your your 10 skills, passion, and strong traits with a friend, colleague, or superior.
Write down anything that was different or that was added to your Skills, personality, or passion.
Please use the Personal Branding Statement page in the Project You! Community as a guide.

Dear Class,

On Tuesday we had our 20th Lesson!

We are making really good progress with creating our Personal Branding Statements and many of you are really reading a lot of books.

I am very happy to see that you are posting the books that you've read on the Extensive Reading Community.

In class this week we reviewed how to add the books you've read to the discussion group.
Here are the basic steps:

• First use the search function at the top-right part of the page to search for your book title

• If you read "Forrest Gump", just type in "Forrest" and if someone has added it, it will appear
• You can also search by using the abbreviation for the book level; type PGR2 and all of the Penguin Graded Readers for level 2 will appear
• Put in your first or last name and a list of all the books you've read will appear (after you have inputed them of course)

• If your book hasn't been inputed then type the following into the discussion subject:
  
• Series/Level * Book Title * Yomiyasui Level * Genre * Total # of words * Rating
• For Example: PGR3 Forrest Gump YL 3.4 HU 10,000 ☆☆☆☆
• Now type the date you finished reading the book, Your name, and a comment into the Message area
• For example: 2006/9/5 Yumiko Toyoshima 映画と比べるとより現実的な内容だったけど、おもしろかった。

• If your book has already been inputed then reply to the last message, input the following, and press the send button:
  
• date you finished reading the book, Your name, and a comment into the Message area
• For example: 2006/9/5 Yumiko Toyoshima 映画と比べるとより現実的な内容だったけど、おもしろかった。
• Now do this for all of the books you've read so far!

I want to thank everyone who has posted the books they read this week.
As of last night, around 80 books, and over 100 comments have been entered!
Let's keep up the good work!

Be sure to bring your Personality Scaling Worksheet results with you tomorrow.
You should know what your strong traits are now and should have gone to the "Project You! Community" and posted them to the discussion: What's your personality? => Scaling => Strong Traits.

Our next step will be to have a one-on-one focus group with a friend, colleague, boss, or superior to discuss your personality traits and see if they agree or can give you some feedback.

Thanks again and see you in class!

Matthew

Dear Class,

Today was Lesson 19 and we discussed the following:

• We talked about Gmail and the different programs related to it such as:
• Docs & Spreadsheets
• Calendar
• Groups
• We reviewed the Personality Scaling worksheet from the Excel file
• We finished circling our personality traits
  
• We wrote down any traits that were 1, 2, 7, or 8
• These adjectives are our "Strong Traits"
• Our homework is to go to the "Project You! Community" and post to the new discussion: What's your personality? => Scaling => Strong Traits
• We decided to create another group for Extensive Reading
• Each book will be a post
• Each additional person who reads the book will add a comment
• Lastly, we talked about online social communities:
• Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG)
  
• Habbo Hotel http://www.habbohotel.jp/habbo/jp/
• Second Life http://secondlife.com/world/jp/
• MMOG Chart http://www.mmogchart.com/

Homework: Don't forget to register on our class blog.
Hiromi is in charge of helping everyone at iCommunications to get logged in.
Be sure to review what we did in class and go to the Project You! Community to input your homework as a comment under What's your personality? => Scaling => Strong Traits.

Thanks and home to hear from you soon!

Sincerely,

Matthew

Dear Class,

If you look at the comments on the last post, Miyu sent us a link to the Penguin Reader website.
This is a good resource for learning more about their graded readers.

I have added this link to the right-hand side of the blog as well as the links to the other publishers' graded reader sites.
Some are in Japanese, but most are in English.

I hope you find them helpful!

Thanks again to Miyu!

Sincerely,

Matthew

Hello Class,

Yesterday we had our 18th lesson and we talked about the following subjects:

• I explained how to use the our Project You! class blog
• Introduced the Google Groups Project You! Community
• It's a group discussion page where we can discuss the homework and answer questions posted
• There is a link to it on the right side of the class blog!
• We went over the adjectives in the personality scaling chart
• Lastly, we discussed which books everyone is reading for Extensive Reading

Homework: Be sure to fill out the Personality Scaling Chart in the Excel file I sent previously.

• The adjectives in the left and right columns have opposite meanings
• Highlight or printout and circle the details about your own personality
• For example: if you are really not really organized and not scattered, you can mark somewhere in between the two adjectives
• We will go over your answers next Tuesday, so please print out the chart from the Excel file

Thanks again and be sure to leave comments or questions here on the class blog and in the Project You! Community discussion pages.

Sincerely,

Matthew

Hello Class!

On Tuesday, we had lesson 17.
These are some of the subjects we reviewed:

• We talked about my business trip to Kokura, Kyushu where I participated in the Japan Association of Language Teaching (JALT) conference
• Professors, publishers, and other professionals came from all over Japan and from other countries to meet and share research, know-how, and products for learning English
• I learned more about Podcasting and how it can be used to teach English
• Experts are saying that Extensive Reading and Listening is not only beneficial but essential to learning English (I've been saying this all along!)
• We also went over our "Personality Traits" in pairs and learned many new adjectives
  

Lastly, our homework is to do the personality chart in the Excel file I sent you a while back.
You can find it in one of the worksheets in the file.
It has been filled out already as an example, just change the answers to fit your own personality.
We will go over it in class on Tuesday morning.

Good luck with your homework and see you soon!

Sincerely,

Matthew

Hello Everyone!

As you know, I went on a four-day business trip to Kita Kyushu.
My colleague, CEO, and I went to an international conference for the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) in Kokura.

We had a booth in the exhibition hall to demonstrate our website to people attending the conference. It was very interesting to meet university professors and other professionals from all over Japan and many from overseas.

I attended a lot of presentations regarding topics such as extensive reading, podcasting, online chat, and other technology for language learning.
I really learned a lot about some new areas and am excited to try out some of the things I learned.

Last Tuesday, we had our 16th class.

We reviewed the 5 Essential Factors again and talked about the importance of keeping a notebook with your goals written down inside (See last post; how to use your SMART Goals).

As for our Personal Branding Statement (PBS), we have the following formula to help us create it:

PBS = Skills + Personality/Passion + Market Needs

So far we should have the following done in our Excel sheets:

• 10 Skills - How they help you with your job/career & Proof of the skills
• Meet with a colleague, boss, or friend and get feedback on your 10 skills
• Passion - What do you love?
• If you didn't have to work, what would you do all day long?
• What is your dream job?
• What would the schedule for your perfect day be?
• Personality - Write down 10 adjectives that describe you or your personality.

That's all for now.
Remember that your homework doesn't have to be perfect, just do your best!

I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!

Sincerely,

Matthew

Hello Class,

This is my first post on our new blog for our Project You! class.

This morning we had our 15th class!

Today we reviewed the 5 Essential Factors:

1. INPUT => Exposure to the language => Reading & Listening

2. OUTPUT => Speaking & Writing

3. Motivating Goals => SMART Goals

4. Classroom Instruction => Coaching and Training

5. Effort => Think Nike! => "Just Do It!"

We also discussed some additional ways that we can increase our speaking and writing.
What were some of the ways?

We then reviewed our SMART Goals and discussed in groups how everything was going.
There were some specific difficulties we had with continuing to work toward our goals.
If we can figure out what is blocking our progress, we can fix it and continue.

Here are some areas we had trouble:

SMART Goal Challenges!

(Some problems achieving goals)

• Lack of opportunity to use English
• Don't understand my real needs, how to use English
• I don't make it a high priority
• I don't read when and where I decided
• My book was too boring, so I need to change books
• I no longer ride the train everyday, I need to find a new place to read
• I fall asleep on the train
• I have trouble getting in the mood to read => find a more interesting book!
• Level 2 was too hard, I need to switch to level 1 books at Kinokuniya this weekend at 14:00

Lastly, we discussed how to use our SMART Goals:

Get a notebook to write down your goals!
Carry it with you wherever you go and review on the train, at lunch, and before you go to bed!

1. Write it! => Write it down in your notebook

2. Read it! => Read it and review everyday

3. Repeat it! => Continue reviewing your goals everyday

4. Believe it! => Imagine yourself already achieving the goal => "Image Training"

5. Achieve it! => If you make this a habit, you WILL achieve your goals!

I hope you have enjoyed this post.
I will try to write one once a week to give us some extra practice outside of class.

Thanks and see you next Tuesday morning!

Matthew