problem in educational system in HK

The educational system in Hong Kong is examination orientated. I am not saying that examination is a bad thing, because sometime students really need some exam or quiz to stimulate their studying.

However, the result of the exam is too important that we cannot just treat it as a motivation. Some of the examinations like HKALE and HKCEE (in the old educational system) can affect people's whole life. So, it is easy to understand why students focus on the result but not what they have learnt.

For those students who prepare the open exam, they might focus more on examination skill rather than the knowledge. This also leads to many students want to go to tutorial classes, this cost a lot and a little bit time consuming. Beside learn the skill, students need to remember, just memorize what the marking scheme says.

Another thing is about the curriculum. The subjects provided by the universities in Hong Kong are very limited. Back to the secondary school, we need to select stream in F.4 (in the old system). After F.4, I don't have music lesson, art lesson. The only lessons I had were those with open exam. I think this cannnot help develop the creativity and imagination of students.

 

survey project reflection

It is my first time to creat a online survey. Of course, it is also my first time using Japanese in the survey. I know more about the popularity of animation in Japan and how Japanese look at animation. As there are not many respondants, so the survey cannot present the whole idea clearly, we cannot say it is the result of all Japanese. But still, we know more and some of the answer is quite similar to our expectation.

  At the beginning, when Yuuki and I was designing the questions, we faced some problems. We wanted to ask many things, but at the same time, we wanted to asked something more deeply. At the end, we just divided our survey into parts. As it is a survey, we did not hope to have many opened questions, so it was not easy to think many choices and thus the questions changed for many times.

In the future project, if I can have changes based on this survey, I would like to consider more before start thinking the questions. In this survey, we actually assumed all respondants have watched animation before. Then, we started creating questions. About finish, we start thinking what if those respondants really have not watched before, should we separate them? But, we didn't want to change the questions again, so we just assigned some questions for them to answer. So, I hope I can consider each case clearly before start creating the questions next time.

Another thing I want to improve is the connection between questions. As the website cannot show one question only and it can't skip some questions, it made the result a little bit odd. For example, in Q3, if you answer yes, you have to move to Q4, if no, move to Q10. The number of answer in Q4 is more than the number of respondants answer yes in Q3. So, I think they got confused in answering which questions as we just had some instruction after the answer.

I think there is one technical limitation. Two websites were provided for us to upload the questions, as we had 12 questions, I heard from my friend that one of the website cannot accept more than 10 questions (I don't know is true or not, but it is the reason we use the other website. So, we assume it is true^^). But in our original survey, for the answer of "other", we want respondants to type more, to specify the answers. However, the website we used don't allow this. It provides either MC or opened question. So, we delete that part.

All in all, I learn many in this project. I know more about animation in Japan, how to creat a survey online and of course I learn Japanese.

P.S: the website of our survey: http://enq-maker.com/d0wgkBW

The presentations of the survey (1)

On 31/3, we have two presentations about their respective topic in class. The first one is about music and the second one is about お宅.

I don't familiar with both of the topics. I love listening music, but I seldom search music by myself and I won't search for the "new song/music". I only know the song by friends' recommandations or from animation. So, I know very little about music culture, even the singers, I may just know their names.

In the presentation of Yuri san and Joeie san, they really introduced many things to me, for example different type of music. Two results from the question a little bit surprise me. The first one is the language of the songs that Japanese listen to. Of course, I expect they mainly listen to Japanese, but I thought they will also listen more other languages. The second one was raised in the class, about the most familiar Japanese Pop music acts. I really think that Ayumi Hamasaki is the most famous female singer in Japan, I was shocked about the result.


About お宅, again I know very little about it. Few years ago, this term started appear in Hong Kong with the movie and tv series (電車男), but I didn't watch either one. The presentation of Kumo san, Phillip san and Bule san introduce me お宅 and after that, I have searched more about this.

お宅 describes people who are an expect of some aspects, and surprisingly, the origin meaning of お宅 can be use as you under certain circumstance.  I know that there is misunderstanding of お宅 in Hond Kong and in Hong Kong, お宅 has a negative meaning. But actually, it should be used naturally in Japan.


From these two presentations, I know more about two unfamiliar topic and they lead me to do some research in order to clarify my mind.

Personal Pronoun Projects

In chapter 1 of the textbook, it introduce the personal pronoun 私(watashi). However, I know that there are many others pronoun are used. In this project, I refer to the use of pronoun in 学園アリス. In the following, I will list out some characters with different age or post at school.

学生

初等部

name: 佐倉蜜柑

pronoun: ウチ
age: 10 years old
character: optimistic

name: 今井蛍

pronoun: あたし

age: 10 years old
character: cool, mature




name: 日向棗
pronoun: 俺

age: around 10 years old
character: cool, strong, mature



name: 飛田裕

pronoun: 僕
age: around 11 years old
character: 優しい(nice), 弱い(weak)


中等部


name: 安藤翼

pronoun: 俺

age: 14 years old
character: reliable, stong







name: 美咲

pronoun: あたし

age: around 14 years old
character: stong, nice



高等部



name: 今井
pronoun: 僕

age: around 18 years old
character: cool and gentle



先生



name: 神野先生
pronoun: 私

age: 38 years old
character: cool and harsh





name: 岬先生
pronoun: 俺

age: 27 years old
character: reliable



name: 鳴海先生
pronoun: 僕

age: 27 years old
character: narcissistic and nice

 校長 

name: ?? (中等部校長)
pronoun: 私

age: ??
character: mysterious, elegant and noble

All in all, male will use 僕,俺or 私due to their age or strength. Stronger or older may use 俺. Weaker or younger may use 僕. 私 can be used by male and female. In a formal way or women who are elegant will use 私. Female use あたし. Other than that, I guess ウチis how people call themselves in country side or in different province.

For me, I would like to use あたし, because it is less formal than 私 and it is more feminize and cute.

Japanese Geography Project

If someone ask me whether I went to Japan before, my answer is usually "just take it as I haven't been there before". But actually, I have been there once when I was in primary school. Since I was so young at that time and I joined the tour group, I don't remember the details of that trip. Many "memeories" of mine are actually created by the questions I asked my parents years after the trip. So, I don't have a clear idea of the location I went and thus I will talk more about the places I want to go in Japan in the future.

1) Fuji-Q Highland (I am not sure if it is the correct name, I only know the Chinese)

It is in Yamanashi Prefecture. It is the one of two places that I remember I visited in the last trip. There was one event that I remember the most in the whole trip and it happened in Fuji-Q Highland.

I didn't remember why I had that courage to ride the highest roller coaster in the park or the world (at that time), but still I did. However, before I had the ride, there was a staff member asked me something. At that time, I didn't understand what he was talking about, he slowed down his question and repeated it for many times, but I cannot get it. At last, he wrote something on the paper. At first, I didn't understand the words because it was written in capital letter(until now I cannot understand capital letter fast), but after a few second, I can read it. It was " HOW OLD ARE YOU?". It was shocked to know that he was speaking to me in English and I had no idea.

Finally, I can ride on that roller coaster successfully. But the ride was quite terrible for me. As it is the highest one, it was a very exciting facility. Plus, I was very thin or you may say skinny at that time, I doubted that the safety-belt was totally useless for me. So, that ride became too excited for me.

For now, I hope I can visit there in the future because I love riding roller coaster and that roller coaster is the most exciting one in my mind. So, I want to try it again. Also, I know there are more facilities there, I want to try it. Besides, the scenery there is really good, as it is near to the Mountain Fuji.

2) Tokyo Disneyland Park/DisneySea Park

It is in Chiba. It is another place that I remeber in the last trip. There wasn't any special event happened, I remembered it just because of kind of regrets.

I was very curious about DisneySea Park, it seemed like very mysterious for me at that time (and also now). However, the construction of the park didn't finish at that time, so it was one of the regrets.

Another regrets was about Tokyo Disneyland Park. As the day before I visited Disneyland, I visited Fuji-Q Highland. I was scared by that roller coaster, so, I was afraid of riding any roller coasters or playing any facilities in Disneyland. It was kind of waste and I regreted it after that day.

3)Hokkaido

I want to go to Hokkaido for mainly two reasons(or things?!), snow and lavender.

It is a common sense that there is no snow in Hong Kong, so I hope I can see or play the snow or even skiing and I know that Hokkaido is very famous about this.

For Lavender, it is because the talk between friends or people and also the beautiful photos on internet. Beside that, I love Lavender because it is very romantic and it is often used in many fictions as Lavender symbolizes waiting for love and devotion in the language of flowers.

Of course, I want to try the hot spring, but I think I can enjoy it in many places in Japan, not only in Hokkaido.


source of pictures:

Fuji-Q Highland: http://www.youyoutokyo.jp/doing/dc1136.html
Disneyland: http://www.traveljapan.co.nz/tours/stopover%20tours/stopovers.htm
Hokkaido: http://www.welcome2japan.hk/location/regional/hokkaido/furano.html

Japanese writing project

When I learnt or saw the word of eraser in Japanese in the textbook for the first time, I felt a little bit strange, as the word is written as けしゴム (消しゴム), with katakana, hiragana and also kanji. On the other hand, the japanese word written on the eraser from my friend is different, at least not 消しゴム (I don't remember what exactly the words, just remember it's different.) However, at that time, I didn't check or think of the reason, I just put it aside. So, after Seo sansei gave this writing project to us, I decided to check and think about it.

Of course, I don't think that ゴム is a onomatopoeia or loan word. At first, I just think that it may be a practice to write in katakana. However, after I check the dictionary, I discover that it is a word from English. It is the english word "gum" which is one of the ingredients for making eraser. So, it makes sense that why "消しゴム" is written with katakana, hiragana and kanji.

Another question that I am curious is why the word is different on the eraser of my friend. As I forget what is the exact wordings, the only thing I can remember about that eraser is it is from Muji (sadly, there is no Muji near my home). So, I just go to some stores that sell stationeries. It is surprised that I find four different kinds of expression.


 

The first type is 消しゴム, of course. I can find it more easily than other type. Somehow, I think that it is a more classical expression  for eraser, may be it is because it is the expression used in the textbook.



The second type is 消ゴム. I don't know why し is missed. Actually, I don't even know whether it is eraser or not, I guess it is. I check on the dictionary to find the meaning of 消ゴム, but I can find nothing, there is no word like this.

 

The third type is けしごむ. All the words are written in hiragana. I can only guess why the company do so. It is a product of a box of erasers which have different cute shape. In order to match the image of the product, it is better to use hiragana than katakana or kanji. It is because hiragana has a roundish shape which gives people impression of cute.

The fourth type is ケシゴム. All the words are written as katagana. I think it is because the company wants to emphasize and attract people to see and buy the product.

 I think the use of these expression depends on what the company want and whether it suit their product. However, no matter which kind of expression, they have the same meaning of eraser.

初めまして～

こんばんは、皆さん～
初めまして、私はイーりン(Elaine)です。
でも、ETと呼んでもいいですよ～
私は日本語が少しわかりますから、英語で自己紹介します。

hi~ I am Elaine, call me ET or Elaine is ok.
But be careful, don't spell Elaine wrong!! is E-L-A-I-N-E~
I'm a year 1 student from HKU SPACE and I've studied Japanese for about 1.5 year.
When I have spare time, I enjoy watching animation and reading comic.
Sometimes, I listen to Japanese songs.
I spend many time on reading fan fiction in Chinese(mainly) or English (sadly, not Japanese T^T)
Also, I like reading novel too ^^~

This is my first time to create my own blog, so I hope I can make new friends here ^^~
じゃ、皆さん  よろしく　お願いします