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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. 

A school is an educational institution that teaches children academic studies like language, mathematics, science.  However, the preschool has responsibility for teaching young children how to live as an individual in a society.  The children should learn skills to live in the world, like how to live with other people and how to buy things at a store in their early days because as they begin to go to a school, they will meet numerous numbers of people.  If they do not know anything, they will be humiliated.  Also, the young children must be ready for studying in the school.  Thus, the other responsibility of the preschool is to teach reading, writing, listening, speaking and thinking skills for the young children to make sure that they can understand many studies in the school in their near future.  Therefore, the preschool is one of the most significant steps of all educations and the young children can prepare themselves for studying.       I strongly think that Queen Kaahumanu School introduces very nice and effective materials and methods for learning about living in a society and also for learning about English words and grammar for the preparation of the studies in the school.   The vocabulary cards with pictures which this school introduces provide knowledge of many things in the world.  Pictures can be strong impression on people’s mind.  I have seen that teachers use this cards many times.  Repetition of easy questions is effective exercise for children’s brain.  I used the picture cards to teach my boy student.  He already knew most words on the cards so my teaching for him went almost smoothly.  But, he had lack of concentration on what he was supposed to do, so it was a little tough to keep his concentration on my teaching.  Learning about things on the cards is one of the studies about how to live in a society because we need to tell other people about things which we need to get.      Spelling correctly is essential for many studies in the school, thus, young children had better to get right spelling in the preschool.  After I taught my first student, I taught a girl student spelling words.  I used great material for studying words spelling.  This learning material includes vocabulary cards and letters.  In this exercise, one word will be given, so the student makes correct spelling from many pieces of alphabet letters.  This activity is rather academic and preparation for the school than another activity.  I gave words and my student made the spelling, but the vocabulary cards consisted of only very easy words, so then, I made some difficult words for her, but she was able to spell them all.  And, I also tried to test her understanding of sound difference like “bus” and “bath” and told her to spell them out, but she answered all correctly.  I was not sure how difficult questions I can give her; however, I strongly thought that she is intelligent.  I also realized that Kaahumanu school had better introduces more difficult studies for high level students to fulfill their needs.  We studied about making correct sentence by using another material too.  We used the puzzle and each piece has one word.  We connected these pieces and made many sentences.  The pieces do not match unless we connect them in grammatically correct order.  Therefore this is very effective method to cultivate grammar skill.      We have to go shopping to get what we need to live.  I don’t know weather shopping is ability to live or not, but it’s essential activity for our life.  So, understanding about how to buy something is useful exercise before the children become school students.  The third activity was based on shopping.  The children already received the shopping list that says what they are supposed to get, and they seemed to finish the shopping already and had a bag which what they bought were inside of it. I asked my boy student to show me what he bought, and he showed me some fruit and fish made of paper.  He did not buy everything he was supposed to get, but he got extra fruit and ice cream that he were not supposed to get instead.  He could not complete the shopping, but he, and also other students will be able to get what they are supposed to get correctly gradually by repeating the practices. The preschool has many things to teach for the children to prepare them for studying in the school.  These include both academic skills and the other one.

On Friday, we went to Queen Kaahumanu Elementary school. First, I taught one boy who I have taught before. We read "The Ugly duck. " The detail of story was that one "duck" was born but, figure of the duck was different from other ducks, then the "duck" was avoided by his brothers and mother. Then, the "duck" went out his nest. However, he needed help in winter because of lack of food. Then, he was saved by one man. Then, when spring came, he grew up to be a beautiful swan. I thought the author of this book wanted to say that people should not avoid another person even though the person is different from them. I wanted to tell this theory to my student. However, he didn't understand very much. In Japan, there is problem of discrimination. Therefore, adults should let children read some fictions. There are a lot of implement in the books. Then, I taught one girl who came from Japan. We learned measurement. This includes practice of addition. However, she didn't know way of addition. Therefore, we counted numbers of dices together. I thought that teaching is very difficult, since understanding in my mind and teaching is very different. We got t-shirts from teachers. Next time, we will finish this field trip. Therefore, I will do my best and I want to teach much new information. Then, I will present this field trip for next CP4 students.

Today, we went to Queen Kaahumanu Elementary School. First, Yuya and I became a group and we taught two children. We used puzzles to study the structure of sentences. It was very useful because the puzzle will not attach if the sentences were wrong. I often forget to put capitals on the sentences. , so it was very useful for me too. Then, our students made some strange sentences. For example, "The woman saw a baby jump over the house." This sentence is very strange because baby can't jump. Strangeness is funny for children. However, sometimes some of them will attempt the strange sentence. Children will not mind if a hamburger was talking with nugget in the TV animation and some of them will think that hamburger can talk with people. Then, I taught a girl. We learned names of tools of cooking. I mistook the spell of fork. Therefore, I will never make mistake of spelling, since e teaching wrong information is one of the worst for children. We learned about shopping. She told me the name of her favorite fruit and I looked for and gave to her. The fruits were made by her with color papers. She was very shy so I promoted very much. Nick always says to us, "Don't wait children". Then, she spoke a little. I thought that she can understand easily because she was very smart. Next time is the final visiting; we will tell children some Japanese traditional stories. I hope our success and I will do my best

Here are some websites for more TOEFL practice.  Good luck! 

TOEFL STRUCTURE PRACTICE:

http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/toefl_structure_1.htm

TOEFL VOCABULARY PRACTICE:

http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/toefl_vocabulary.htm

TOEFL READING PRACTICE:

http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/toefl_reading.htm

TOEFL LISTENING PRACTICE:

http://www.examenglish.com/TOEFL/toefl_listening.htm

Many American young children in preschool can speak English, their native language, very well.  The reason is that even though they are still very young, the children have socialized with their friends or parents since they started to speak English.  Therefore, their speaking skills have been developed so well by talking to many people.  However, they do not know well about how the language, which they speak everyday, is spelled in letters on books or how it must be pronounced.  Therefore, they cannot read many English words in the books even though they do know how to say the words and they often make mistakes in spelling words.  This problem happened to the children because they had not had enough opportunities to cultivate their English reading and spelling skills before they joined the preschool.  Therefore, their English skills are unbalanced.  This problem can be an obstacle to them to learn English effectively in the school, thus the school had better adopt many reading and writing opportunities for the students.       Ka’ahumanu elementary school has nice English reading textbooks and they are using them quite often in the class.  One of these books consists of academic contents thus it is effective ready for the higher classes, and another books are easy tales so these suit for the students’ level.  Therefore, the students can develop their English reading skills effectively thanks to the books.  However, in spite of the school introduces the books, the students are still not able to read or pronounce many English words yet.  My student for this time was in this problem.  He is a fourth grader in the school, so he is actually not too young, and he speaks English well.  Nonetheless, while we were doing a reading activity, I noticed that he could not read or pronounce many words.  I wondered why because we used quite easy fairy tales and I assumed this activity is too childish for fourth graders.  Moreover, my student made the same mistakes many times in reading and pronouncing although I taught the correct words and demonstrated the right pronunciations many times for him.  The fourth graders might be not able to read and pronounce words so well than I expect.  So, I realized that we had better to try to infer each of our student’s ability immediately before we start an activity by talking to them and try to teach them as careful as we can to make sure each student’s comprehension.

http://www.hawaiitokai.edu/modules/news/article.php?storyid=36

On November 3, a team from HTIC was accepted to participate in the Data and Decisions Workshop, to be held December 4-6 in Clearwater, Florida, by the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), and the National Community College Council for Research and Planning (NCCCRP). HTIC views the workshop as an opportunity to further refine its program review process, utilizing the information provided and drawing upon the expertise available at the workshop. The College hopes to strengthen its institutional skills in the area of data collection, presentation, and analysis in order to engage in more informed decision-making and resource allocation.

The HTIC team is comprised of the Vice Chancellor, Accreditation Liaison Officer (ALO), and Institutional Researcher. As the chief academic officer, the Vice Chancellor is responsible for overseeing student learning programs and services, and the College’s program review process. The Accreditation Liaison Officer works with the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor to insure that HTIC continues to develop in accordance with the standards of good practice delineated by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, WASC. The institutional researcher is responsible for organizing and compiling data regarding the College’s students, programs, services, etc., working closely with the Vice Chancellor, ALO and Planning Committee.

Given the College’s unique international identity, the project submitted for the workshop will involve creating a working model for data collection, evaluation/assessment of data, and methodology so administration, faculty, and staff can utilize information, not just for program review, but as part of their daily tasks. HTIC hopes to include in its model clearly defined linkages between data, assessment, and planning (including revisions to prior planning), in order to demystify the process even further. This data collection model is especially appropriate to the themes of the workshop since HTIC’s program review process is linked to accomplishing the yearly goals set out in its mission driven Five-Year Educational Development Strategic Plan. With improved data, the college can better assess and evaluate the College’s programs and effectiveness in supporting student learning, as well as its progress in meeting its goals. That will then enable HTIC to more intelligently decide how best to allocate its resources.

In Friday, we went to Queen Kaahumanu Elementary school. It was Halloween so; we wore our own special costumes. Of course, some students wore special costumes too. I was surprised because in Japan, Japanese students scarcely wear costumes. In fact, when I was in Japan, I didn't know when Halloween is. When I entered in the room, some students called me "Ninja" I wore costume of Japanese "Samurai". Therefore, I thought that "Ninja" is more popular than "Samurai". Students learned about popcorn. Seeds of popcorn are very hard, odorless, and yellow. However, seeds will become soft, sweet smelling, white, and tasty!! I taught one girl. She was a fifth-grade student, but she didn't know spelling of many words. I don't know she didn't understand or because of simple shyness. I couldn't read her feeling from her facial expression. I have heard that American teachers have same problem that they can't know Japanese students don't understand the detail of lessons or not. Most of Japanese think that they should not express their expression openly. I don't know this is good or bad. However, I noticed that keeping silent or hiding emotion is worse and useless for us. There is a one proverb in Japan. "Asking is a shame of moment; no asking is a shame of whole life." Our ancestors made this proverb, so they understood the problem only in their brain. However, they didn't act that. This time we taught only one student. Next time, I want to become a better teacher and I want to catch the feeling of children more!

 Observation of what happens or surroundings and predicting what will happen are very effective to broaden children’s horizon and to cultivate their brains, and it is more effective to do these activities in childhood than after they grew up.  It differs from studying with using textbook.  In the preschool, teachers had better introduce some extra learning opportunities that students learn about our surroundings and ability to observe them.       We did an activity to measure the children’s observation skill by using popcorns.  Children were told to observe and look carefully at pre-popcorns and then make some prediction about what will happen after these are cooked.  My student gave me many opinions about the pre-popcorns.  She said that pre-popcorn are tiny, bumpy, having no smell and yellow.  She thought that after the pre-popcorns are cooked, these will be bigger, turn into white, smell like butter and get softer.  And then, after they looked at what happened with popcorns when these are heated, this knowledge will be established in their brain as one of the common senses.  In addition, this activity does not involve pain of studying like studying mathematics; therefore it is one of the effective ways.  By doing this kind of activity, children’s skill of observation of surroundings will be cultivated gradually and it connects to broadening their horizons.  They can obtain flexible brain.         Unfortunately, we could not do the activity with kindergarten children.  But, the teacher read a tale for the children.  Reading tales for children is very simple way, however it let children to think about the story deeply and I believe it is also effective to cultivate their brains very much.

Today I went to Queen Ka’ahumanu elementary school .  Today is little different day for me because it’s Halloween, but yesterday my teacher Nick said “do not wear the sexy or the woman costume.” Thus, I could not wear the costume. Moreover, I went there with normal college guy. When I arrived to Tokai most of my classmates changed to interesting costume such as Shinsengumi(Japanese traditional bushi), cat girl, scary wolf, witch, and three normal college guys. We were finally no body late at that time. We arrive to Queen Kaahumanu then we got name tag as a usual, and we went to rainbow class. In the class, many children surprised and they were making the popcorn also they learned about difference of popcorn before and after. At the beginning of the class each of my classmate explain to the elementary school students. Then we separated to each elementary school students and my first student was little bit big guy, but he was only fourth grade. His name is Nickolas and he is nine years old. Nickolas and I tried to think what popcorn seed is such as smells, looks, tastes, and colors. He was effective for critical thinking, thus he explain it to me a lot. After that me and Nickolas went to inside of the class then we saw a after popcorn from the seeds. Then Nickolas saw the table with me and he did a chart of what popcorn seed is going to happen after burning. Nickolas told me good reasons such as popcorn seed getting bigger, color changed, and smell is make me hungry. Then time is over, but soon the other student came inside the class. I thought I am going to teach somebody else again, but this time the teacher read the book for the children, thus we watched the book story and later we left the school. When I arrived to Tokai I am quickly to go to my car and changed to the Halloween costume.