Narumi Sugimura :: Friends blog

To to the CP Faculty,

This term we had such successful TOEFL scores that I thought it would be nice to reflect on what got us to this historic point in the College Prep Program.

I started working at HTIC somewhere in Spring 2003.  Only Nilo was here before then.  At the time we had a fun but not so academically rigorous program. Students were being admitted into the Liberal Arts Program with TOEFL scores under 400, Japanese use in class was rampant, attendance was spotty, and BBQs at Kapiolani park were common Wednesday activities, In-Class Essays did not exist.

In winter 2005, when I was appointed Coordinator, Dr. Yoshikawa mandated that all students must get a 450 on the IPT TOEFL to enter LA.  It seemed impossible.  The CP faculty then of which only Nilo, Mark, and myself remain, set out to revise the curriculum not only for TOEFL, but to ensure study skills were being developed, and that students could actually write essays in English.

The forefathers of this new curriculum, starting in Spring 2005, added an extra hour of class time to the program, a Reading Lab, the In-Class Essay, an English-Only Policy, an attendance policy, TOEFL outcomes, and stricter and clearer assessments of our previously existing reading, listening, writing, and speaking outcomes.  We also added a skipping policy that allowed students scoring 450 (this number has been raised to 460 with a 3.7 GPA) to skip one level.  And it worked.  Students actually got 450.  Students also actually began failing, repeating classes, and consequently crying in my office at the end of each term.  They also began to understand what it means to study, and what it means to reach an outcome.

At the end of the Spring 2005 term, Nilo states, "they will be getting 500 soon".  I respond, "NO WAY DUDE".  Soon after, the TOEFL 500 Club is born and students remarkably start stepping up to the challenge.  In winter 2006 a pre-CP pilot class emerges to help students with remedial skills and to address confidence issues especially with such a high rate of failing .

In Spring 2007 a new curriculum with 5 levels, as opposed to 4, begins with extra support for lower level students.  The skipping policies expand to include skipping directly to LA with a TOEFL score of 500.  Also during this year, CP undergoes a technological revolution, with Moodle and the Portfolio System bringing innovative new ways to teach TOEFL and Academic English with mp3s, video, pdfs, and  a new way for students to reflect on their experiences by uploading work, tracking their own progress, and blogging about their experiences.  Evaluation rubrics are refined, added and put online and as a whole the CP Community becomes more standardized, and more comfortable with the established curriculum.

Most significantly, a real and continuing team of highly qualified instructors that have a special talent of motivating students becomes apparent.  With everyone on board, unified and dedicated to the curriculum plan, we reach this historic point with the Fall 2008 term yielding six students reaching the TOEFL 500 goal, averages for both Levels 4 and 5 equaling 484, Level 3 at 465, Level 2 at 448 and we even have one student in Level 1 scoring a whopping 497.

Although TOEFL is not our only assessment, it is our strongest and clearest indicator of success in our program and success in comparison with the rest of the world. That we have reached such levels so far is evidence that we are providing a high quality program and producing students that can compete globally.  To everyone that has played a part in this 5 year story, I salute you.

Today, I went to on a Field Trip to visit the KAHALA hotel with core3 members. We are very tired these days. Therefore, today’s field trip is very good exercise for a change which means good for us. Before we went to the KAHALA hotel, we researched about tourism and Hotel industry in Hawaii. Now, I will write about these problems and be related to the KAHALA hotel’s services. Tourism is one of the world's fastest growing industries as well as the major source of foreign exchange earning and employment for many developing countries. World tourism demand continues to exceed expectations, showing resilience against extraneous factors. According to my research, tourism is lack to the well being of many countries, because of the income generated by the consumption of goods and services by tourists, the taxes levied on businesses in the tourism industry and the opportunity for employment and economic advancement by working in the industry.

What makes an ordinary travelling person a tourist? According to my research, “the concept of tourism refers to the broad framework that identifies tourism’s essential characteristics and distinguishes tourism from similar, often related but different phenomena.” On the other hand, the KAHALA hotel has many services that we visit today. Their vision is “To be the leading resort in Hawaii through continuous enhancement of our product & service and to maintain the legacy and traditional of Kahala, by recognizing the talents of our family.” Their product is very fancy such as beach, grand lobby, waterfall, and room 550. As you know, the KAHALA hotel is one of the best hotels because many people not only tourist but also famous person visit there. Also they could set their mind at ease. We could too! I had a good time there with my friends and Minori. If I have a chance, I would like to visit there with my family. Thank you!

Today was the final day of our service learning at QUEEN KA’AHUMANU elementary school. In addition, today’s work was a special activity for us because our work was telling a traditional Japanese story to children. I was so nervous before I told it to them because I did not have confidence that children would understand our presentation. However, they were interested in our story. Because of it, I started to have confidence that my storytelling could be understood by children. Then, Nick said to me, “Actually, pictures help you.” It means that pictures we made led children to understand the content of the story easier than just telling the story. Actually, I agreed with what Nick said although I lost my little confidence again. Therefore, I could know that speaking to children with using gestures and tools such as pictures and figures is effective in attracting children, their understanding and gathering attention.           I could have time to consider teaching children through the experiences at QUEEN KA’AHUMANU elementary school. Teaching children is hard work, I think. The reason is because children do not know vocabulary or words as much as us. For example, when I teach or talk to children, we have to translate from a difficult word to an easy one. Therefore, we must have abilities of not only teaching children but also noticing or understanding their feeling and nonverbal gestures to be teachers because sending and receiving these signals are important between them and us.

Expanding my Knowledge              We went to field trip in UH on November 9. The reason was because the Chinese exhibition was hold then. Therefore, the content of knowing Chinese traditional clothes involved in historical status with watching them. In my case, every things displayed there were interesting on many ways for me. For example, I could know who and which status people wore these clothes and what these clothese were made of. Actually, I did not look and understand all of them because our visiting was limited. Because of this field trip, my knowledge about the ancient Chinese was expanded. This experience made me excited. Therefore, I wanted to know about the ancient Chinese and the traditional things like not only clothes but also life style in more detail!

we visited UH manoa to  learn about the chinese thread technics in its ancient time.  I looked at some old chinese tribes' cloths with vivid colors.  I indeed thought those cloths are too gorgeous for normal citizens in ancient time.  however, the cape which made of horse's tail and the armor made of many pieces of metal made me surprized so much. 

http://edutechnologyrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/11/purposegamescom-how-to-make-map

I searched long and hard for an easy way to make a map quiz for my Academic ESL World History class and I came across a website that's pretty cool. Purposegames.com is website that lets you create and publish your own quizzes on the web. This has been before, but what is unique to this site is that you can upload images, put dots on your image, and ask quiz game takers to match inputted text with the dots. Put all of this together and you get a custom map test fast and easy. Check out the one of the Middle East I made for my class:

http://www.purposegames.com/game/world-history-cp-quiz

http://edutechnologyrevolution.blogspot.com/2008/10/how-to-upload-and-post-document

Here is a quick and easy video tutorial that shows you how to upload and post a document in moodle so that your students can see it. This is a fast way to post syllabi or other documents that will open with desktop software such as Word. Another way to display text, that is completely in the browser is to compose a text or web page, but we'll save that for another tutorial.

Click the link below to watch the video:

How to upload and post document in moodle

Last week, we went to the forest which had a lot of mosquitoes ( I foget the name).  Before we went there, we researched about the history of the forest. According to the speeches of my classmates, there seemed to be some pictures of dogs, human, etc on rocks. However, because I have never been interested in history, I couldn't understand well why the ancient Hawaiian people drew such pictures. ...................... When I got to the forest, I could find less  mosquitoes than I thought. As you know, I had the speech about some habits of mosquitoes. Thanks to my good research, I didn't bitten by them at all. Actually, I expected that the trip became very  acrtive and dangerous because I am from Nagano which has a lot of beautiful nature and wild places. I had prepared for going to the heven before we went there. However all of us  are alive now. I am very relieveed  at the results. The only mistake that I made was that I wore sandals there.

     The field trip is an activity which broadens our horizons and it prevents us from knowing nothing of our world. Besides, the field trip is effective for us to refresh our mind. I think we will be able to study harder than before the time we departed. Having a field trip occasionally is a nice way to know the community that we belong to for us. It teaches what the textbook does not cover. Yet, I do not mean it is good for us to go on the field trips as many as we can. We must not neglect our studies. Also, we can be excited and delightful easier than the usual classes during the field trip. There is likelihood that we cause trouble to others. Therefore, we have to straighten ourselves up during the field trip. Anyway, we can have a great time at least if you follow the rules.     And then, I am going to write about actual field trip and what could we learn by taking part in the field trip.  The other day we visited a pizza restaurant to have a brunch.  The restaurant is located in Manoa, so for starters we could watch what kind of place there is from inside the car.  Then we get to the pizza restaurant.  Pizza is one of the most popular foods for American.  First of all, I was surprised by the size of the pizzas which are lined up in the cases.  There are not so many pizzerias in Japan, so I could enjoy the difference of culture between America and Japan.  And we could watch the process of making a pizza.  I was very impressed because it was the first time to watch it for me.  And, what I most surprised is almost all shoppers left the restaurant with holding one or more whole pizzas in their arms.  I know it would be eaten by entire family, but I can not believe about it because I never saw such a scene in Japan.  However, it was also enjoyable for me.  We appreciate Nick taking us there.

I went to on a Field Trip to eat lunch with Nick who is my world history teacher. In this paper, I am going to write about what is purpose of Field Trips. I think that a Field Trip is enjoying oneself with friends and teacher because we always study hard. Sometimes I was tired, and I could not eat enough food. Field Trips are very good exercise for a change which means good for us. Today before we rode the bus Nick said, “Everyone should speak English. It is good for you to study.” I agree with him. We learned new English words by talking with each other. It increased my knowledge of English. Therefore, Field Trips are very important.
Now, I will write about what we did on our Field Trip. We went to Boston Pizza to eat lunch. There were many kinds of huge pizzas. We ordered a Spinach and cheese pizza, a mushroom pizza, and a cheese pizza. Almost everyone ate two pieces of pizza. We enjoyed talking with each other in English. We had a good time there. If I have a chance, I would like to go there. Thank you Nick!