Tuesday, October 24, 2006

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

2 comments:

taiko said...

Dear Matthew、

I ' m very happy with our class blog.
I think it's nice record for us.

I have my blog in the blogger,com.
Therefore it's easy to access to this blog.
I hope all classmates can access here and use it for studying.

Thank you for your arrangement !

By the way, does Noah like our gift ?

Looking forward to his picture wearing our present.

Thank you.
Taiko

Matthew J. Nisselius said...

Hi Taiko and Masa,
Thank you for leaving a message.

I am glad to see that you are interested in using this blog.

I will try to post once a week by putting up a summary of what we did in class.

Also, I'd like to start some discussions on the discussion page I created in google groups.
The link is on the right-hand side.

Thanks again and see you next Tuesday!

Sincerely,

Matthew

P.S. Thank you all again for the gift. We will take pictures with Noah and post them for you.