Wednesday, December 9, 2009
My Teacher that i'll never forget
My Ideal Teacher - by Nozomi Ono
There were lots of students who doesn't like about him because he was very strict, enthusiastic and demanding, but I knew that he had to be strict to improve our skills. He was never afraid of being hated by students.
One day, I injured on my knee then I had operation. At that time, I was worrying seriously whether I could continue volley ball or not, because I couldn't play volley ball about five month, but my teacher encouraged me to continue volley ball. It was the first time for me to see different aspect of his character. Thanks to his advice and encouradgement, I could continue and still now I love to play or watch it. I never forget about him.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A teacher I'll never forget
Yukiko
Through the university to graduate school, I learned from professor Oshitani. He was influenced on my thought, most of which are based on his thought including not only academic area but also common sense. We have a generation gap; however, his instruction taught me how important to study academic area and obey the social regulation. In his class I could learn precious teachings and it was helpful in my life. Originally, I was living with my grandparents, so I was comfortable with listening older people’s experiences and opinions. On the other hand, nuclear families are getting common in Japan; therefore, student who are from nuclear families are not familiar with older generations to build up relationships. To live with extended family was a strong advantage of me.
Compare with my school career and my university friend’s, my career is a little longer than them because I was taking teacher-training course, museum curator course, and librarian course. Therefore I needed time for study to complete finish my university programs. He always supported me strictly, but I never gave up. Consequently, I become more confident and I could have a successful live in the university. I am appreciating my professor.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Discussion about working conditions
Generally, people prefer to develop a routine because it makes people to focus easily and people can save time.
There are two main reasons why people use a list as a visual reminder.Firstly, they never forget about important task, even people forgot about it, list would help people to remember. Secondly, people can decide or make an order what is the priority thing or not.
It is one of the most difficult thing to let people know he or she doesn't want to be disturbed. We came up with two ideas. Firstly, express feeling by face but people never get good impression from that kind of behavior. Secondly, stick a notice to the desk or door.
There are lots of cocentration killers around us such as internet, TV and e-mail. One of the way to over come these concentration killers is to decide specific time to use computer once or twice a day. But everyone insisted that it is difficult to overcome cocentration killers.
At last, I'll describe how to take a breather without leaving your desk. It is the time to check e-mail or to search internet, and there are other three suggestions. Firstly, to do exercise such as stretch. Secondly, to read your favorite book or magazines. Third one is listenning to music, it makes you to forget every stressful things.
i was talkig with classmet, He say
Children, as well as parents, feel the stress and confusion of separation and divorce. Many kids feel angry, sad and frustrated about the prospect of their parents splitting up for good and are uncertain about what life will be like after divorce
roberto
talking about family
In our class we have discussed about it. For example for people from Middle East are really important to show respect to their parents specially with father while for Asia's people are really important listen and take advantage about their advice from both of them. Moreover, latin people show more respect to their mother than father.
however, the world is changing and have a children and have a family is now a big decision. people must think seriously about it before do something. people insist that have children is good becuse is the natural way of life, i mean you are happier if you have family, In contrast, some people believe that they were not made for have a family and they are also happy. Anyway, whetever you decide for yor life you must do your best
Children and audlts barents
Having children and live with elderly parents
Also we were discussing of live with your elderly parents. I think we almost have the same opinion, that it is hard to live with them because for sure your partner wont like to live with your family, so, we think if you live in their neighborhood it's biter for you and for them. If you live near their house you can go to visit and help them any time even thou you will have your privacy life. Nozomi asserted that living in the same neighborhood is good for children and parents as compared to living in house. Yukiko observed that living in the same house different floors and entrance would be good for smaller families.
children and parents
Hanadi believed that there are many advantages living with parents, for example, they can take care children, can ask help among others. On the other hand, she argued that if she lived with her parents, it is too stressful especially living with mother in a low or father in a low. So, she insisted that it is the best way living different house next to their parents' house. Every students agreed with her opinion.
Yukiko believed that she can spend a good time with children if she had children. But she claimed about current situation in Japan. She insisted that in Japan, the number of children is decreasing because of the costs. In other words, money is big problem when people bring up children which include education, health care among others, and there is no enough support from the government.
Nojood empasised same opinion with Yukiko about children that if she had children, she can spend a good time with her children. And she argued about difference between Saudi Arabia and Japan about support. In Saudi Arabia, government covered most of the money for children which include education and insurance, so people don't have to care about money when they have a baby.
Yukiko
Japanese women are facing difficlties to have children because there are many issues in Japanese society. Nozomi mentioned that many people are facing financial problems to have children because they have to pay lots, such as hospital fees, school tuitions and clamschool fees. Therefore, young couples cannot have children easily, Yukiko explaines that. in addition, governmenr has to develop the law to support parents more.
On the other hand, people believe that to have children brings a lot of benefits for parents and families. Nujood mentiomed that parents have responsibility to grow up children; however, through the child raising, it bring fun and happy. Only parents who have children can have these experiences.
The advantage & disadvantage of to live parents
Hanadi explained Soudi Arabian's traditional way the relationshop children and parents. In her country, the youngest child live with their parents and take care of them. This style is opposite of Japanese style. Hand in hand with parents' aging, family has responsibilty to take care of them; however, it cause many serious problems which are Alzheimer, dementia and moter disturbance. Yukiko explained her Japanese family's situation. Her family was extended family, so when she was a child her grandparets were taking care of her. It was an advantage of her parents because they could continue their jobs.
On the other hand, this family structure is not always fanction well because sometimes her grandparents and her mother had troubles. Originally they were from different families; therefore, imbroglios are common problem betwee daughter-in-low and parens-in law. This question is an big decision for women whether to live with parents-in-low or not.
About Children and Parents We Talked in The Class
First, we talked about having child. Roberto mentioned that having child needs money and time to raise them. That's advantage. However, Haider believe that children makes you happy.
Second, we discussed about respectation for parents. Haider believe that we should respect our father. He also added it was common in my country, Japan. I believe that may be true, but it is traditional thought. Then, Roberto mentioned that he understood what he said, but they tended to respect for their mother because single mother became common in his country.
Third, we talked about living with elderly people. I believe that elderly people has a huge knowledge, and if I living with them, I can get many knowledge from them. However, Annie believe that elderly people and young people have different thought, so the relationship with them is complecated and difficult.
Parents & Chlidren by Annie Lin
My uncle's nephew thought that if you live with your parents, you wouldn't need to pay rent and taxes. And when you faced some problem, your parents could help you to overcome. But your time would be control, you couldn't do whatever you want to do.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Working Conditions
To be concentrate, there are 7 points to concentrate to work. -Stay organized.
Clean and well organized workspace helps you to be comfortable, concentrate and motivate.
-Develop a routine.
Systematic pattern of a day helps you to force yourself to work and reduce a stress.
-Make a list.
Making a list about what you have to do helps you to reduce your useless time and deal more works.
-Challenge yourself.
Dealing harder task makes you encourage, stimulate and improve yourself.
-Reserve some "do not disturb" time.
Hiding interruptions prevents you to lose your times and makes you concentrate to your work.
-Go offline.
Offline environment prevents you to lose your time to surf internet and makes you concentrate to your work.
-Take a breather
Take a rest makes you refresh, reduces a stress and sometimes may break your wall.
What is your problem?
Speaking about me, I suppose that the biggest problem is Go offline or Reserve your some "do not disturb" time. Online environment appeals me to play and makes me lazy. Internet has a huge information, but it also has a lot of entertainment. It helps a lot and wastes my my a lot. I use it for the latter more then for the former. I often need a little time to concentrate my work or study because of this problem. If the work I can deal without a computer, I hide my laptop and do my work.(Go offline) However, if the work needs to use a computer, it's difficult. I sometimes surf different web site in the halfway to do work, at worth, I stop. It's a difficult problem, because it comes from 2 problems. Also it's a serious problem. However, I have no idea without being more strict for myself.
If you would like to change - believe in yourself by Haidar Alobaid
This is not the case for most employees beauce many of day .
they are not challenged or fulfilled , for this reason many employees end up leving their jops and going on extened vacation and getting fied .If you dont want this happen to you ,that you wouldnt have this situations, If you like to Improve Work Performance there are some suggestions it my help you .
Relationships between you and your work can also be
considered the "games of work." Games have basic rules to
play, which require specific skills to succeed at playing.
People win at the games they play when they achieve the
game objectives and by operating within the rules of the
game better than others. The "games of work" also have
objectives and basic rules that must be followed to
succeed.
Here's a piece of advice that you may have heard before;
-In order for you to love others you have to be able to love yourself,
-Proud of who you are.
-rmamberyou'r accomplishments, and everything you do have,try to ask you'r salif
how i am?
that would giv you strong emotion .
-Although it is commendable to aspire to become a better person or lead a better life, I think a person should appreciate the life he has before trying to make it better; if you're trying to fix something about you that you'll never be happy with then you'll always be unhappy.
-I'll say is to never let anyone make you feel otherwise. If you believe in yourself and do things the way you want, to the best of your ability and that's all you can expect from yourself.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Stay on Target
After the work is done, cleaning up the workspace can help save time in several ways. You can save the time by searching the files or folder that haveto be worked on. Similarly, making the workspace a more comfortable place and cleaning up is thought to be a waste ot time.
A routine is standardized actions or procedures that are followed regularly. Ddveloping a routine is one of the ways to manage time and saving time for other things. Creating a list can also save our time by making our goal more clear.
If we encourage our self by challenging oneself this makes it easier to focus on more interesting things. Concentrate on more serious studies and avoid the mistakes.
Avoid any source of disturbance like the internet by sitting away from it. Wear headphones or write a sign that say do not disturbed or tell the people around to be quiet.
During the work time we need to take a break to breath, to refresh the mind, relax, and take some deep breaths. Listening to music or having a cup of coffee can help as well.
every on had his on strategy to mange his day and improve the work.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
by Yukiko Minami
What are some good ideas for workers to improve their work?
Majority of people prefer to work in clean offices because visually nice, comfortable and well organized; on the other hand, minority of people mentioned cleaning was wasting their working times. People’s opinions are not always same about their working places, but they agreed with to make visual reminder, schedule board or calendar. It bring a great number of advantages, for example, people would not forget important meetings and can manage their schedules and can save time. Schedule management is one of essential social behaviors as a professional worker.
Secondary, human relationships are important inside the company. Generally, many people are worrying about their relationships between boss and coworkers. There is one solution, which is to develop their work's routines; therefore, people can divide their jobs and keep distances from other workers. It also bring saving time and cooperation with other workers. Cooperation is one possibility to change relationships because through their work, they can know their coworker's abilities and respect each other.
Not all jobs can do smooth. When people face the challenging tasks, people, most of whom encourage themselves to finish their jobs successfully or try to push aside the pressure, are afraid to make mistakes. In the case like that, people do not want to be disturbed. Under the pressure, if someone had disturbed them, they would be screwed-up everything. The most effective way is to put a sign, “Don’t disturb!”
In the office, people are surrounded by temptations, such as internet news, e-mail and facebook. These attractive items disturb their jobs, too. They need proper use of e-mail accounts, and company should use the program which does not accept to access facebook. In addition, people cannot work without breather. They should walk, drinking coffee or use massage machines during breather. After they can refresh; moreover, their working efficiency can improve.
Stay on Target (P.80)
Seven Specific Work / Study Problems
Stay organized, develop a routine, make a list, challenge yourself, reserve some “do not disturb time”, go offline and take a breather are seven specific work or study problems. Most people are facing some of these difficulties; especially, “take a breather” and “Go offline” are my problems.
Due to my cultural background, I am not good at taking a breather. I do not prefer to meet someone, when I am taking a break. Generally, japanese people tend to think that if they saw this scene, they would consider that I was not hard worker. Non-breather brings inefficient circulation because people’s concentration have limits. My ideal style is focus on specific hours to study and then take a breather, but almost always I forgot to take a breather and trying to finish my tasks. I started make a time table to take a breather constantly. I am get use to this style; therefore, I am not struggling in inefficient circulation.
Another problem is I cannot survive in the offline environment. Since I came to Canada, I started using internet frequently to check Japanese news. I am afraid knowledge gap between my Japanese friends and I. If I do not check Japanese internet news, I will feel isolation. On the other hand, it is important for me to get use to Canadian life; however, I cannot read only English news. Consequently, I have not find a good solution yet.
How to overcome stress and Work strategies
-Take time to relax:
Will keep you calm and will train you to remember key details when you return to the books.
-Stay well fed :
Eating properly will keep your energy levels up and stop your mind wandering.
Try to find out what works best for you so you can make the most of revision time.
-Ask for help:
If you're struggling with a topic be sure to talk to someone. Talking about any stress you might be feeling is also the best way to overcome it.
Try not to stay up until the early hours.
Work strategies:
-Cleaning up workspace make it easy for us to find files, the place will be more comfortable and organized ,but it is wasting time.
-It is important to develop a routine to save time, make our work easier, managing time and to be organized.
-Using a list as a visual reminder will help you to focus by saving time, not forget, managing time and keep motivation.
-Challenging oneself make it easier to focus by encouraging your self, trying to win, excited,concentrate and to be more serious.
-Let people know you doesn't want to be disturbed by putting sign on the door, lit them know about your schedule, ignore and put an ear pugs.
-Keep Internet news and incoming e-mail from being concentration killers by turning the wireless off, to have more than one e-mail account and put the computer in another room.
-Take a breather without leaving your desk by breath deeply, take a short walk in the hallway, relax your muscles and have a cup of coffee or tea.
Stay on Target
Stay organized, develop a routine, make a list, challenging yourself, offline, reserve some"do not disturb" time and take a breather are seven specific works. And for Reberto, don't have the routine to study is his problem. For Nozomi is can't go offline. For me, reserve some "do not disturb" time is hard for me to do.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Yukiko



Japanese Traditional Clothes, Kimono
My friend, Keiko gave a presentation about Japanese traditional clothes, Kimono in her Academic English class, so I joined her presentation as a volunteer on November 3, 2009. She explained general ideas of traditional wear and how to wear it. I gave a demonstration with her teacher, Mary and classmates. In addition, Heather’s class, Jennifer and Yoon came to watch our presentation. We were glad to show our presentation because majority of her classmates are form Saudi Arabia. Japanese culture is not familiar for them; therefore, they were curious to know Japan and some of them tried to wear Kimono. We were proud of our successful presentation.
How to wear Kimono
1. Put on a kimono
2. Adjust the length of a Kimono to ankle
3. Left side of Kimono is the upper
4. Tie with strength
5. Tuck up extra parts and make it flat
6. Put a small board
How to tie Obi
1. Fold one end in half
2. Wrap around the body two times
3. Tie strongly
4. Make butterfly on the back and wrap with another side of Obi
5. Arrange the Obi nicely
Sunday, November 29, 2009
EQ and IQ
EQ&IQ
IQ is not the most important anymore, people also have to learn different intelligences to make life and work better.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/200905/successful-leaders-need-multiple-intelligences
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Yukiko
IQ & EQ
As time goes by, the definition of intelligence is changing. I read two interesting articles about IQ (intelligence quotient) and EQ(emotional intelligence quotient) from psychology today and scientific American’s websites.
Scientific American
This article was written by psychologist and philosopher James Flynn on January 3, 2008.
According to James Flynn’s research, people’s IQ level has improved by three points every decade. This affair has happened all over the world and across any races; moreover, IQ scores are nothing to do with genetics. People can gain high marks culturally-loaded subtest than vocabulary and arithmetic because they have experiences. Flynn also mentioned modern life made people’s way of thinking from concrete to abstract categories. He calls it, “scientific spectacles.”
The Multiple Intelligence of Leaders
This article was written by Ronald E. Riggio on March 27, 2009 and in his article he mentioned three types of intelligences.
Generally, people believe that smart person who has high IQ score can become a leader, but they (he or she) do not always have capable of a leader; especially, scientists, mathematicians and artists. Despite they have special talents in academic or verbal area, most of them do not have leadership as leaders. On the other hand, we can notice that no all leaders have extremely smart in IQ score.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is more important ability than IQ because in some situation, communication ability can build important relationship between leaders and followers. In addition, “charismatic leaders seem to have an extraordinary ability to communicate at the emotional level.”
Third intelligence is the Social intelligence (SQ), which is “the ability to understand social situations, to play social roles, and influence others,” Riggio’s research group indicated that SQ is more important ability as a leader than IQ and EQ, but they also think these three intelligences are great advantages to show leadership.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/4060
IQ EQ Test
some of the areas tested:
Verbal - Comprehension of similar words or opposites, analogies, and relationships.
Arithmetic & Mathematical - Comprehension of math equations, patterns, and more.
Spatial - Comprehension of patterns, analogies, relationships, visualizations, and more.
With the IQ Professional Test Report you can discover your hidden strengths and weaknesses:
-Spatial
-Verbal
-Arithmetic/Mathematics
Scores between 90 and 110 are considered average -- so a person scoring 95 is simply average, not below-average. For children scoring below 80 special schooling is encouraged, children above 125 are "highly gifted". IQ scores outside the range 55 to 145 are essentially meaningless because there are not enough people to make statistically sound statements.
The EQ Test to measures 16 emotional competencies covering the ability to accurately perceive emotions in oneself and others, use emotions to facilitate thinking, understand emotional meanings, and manage emotions.
The purpose of this test is to:
- increase your understanding of your own and other people's feelings and emotions.
- give you an idea of your current EI level compared to others.
- improve your ability to manage and make the most of your feelings and emotions.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Styles of learning
1_using pictures, images, and spatial understanding.
2_ using sound and music.
3_using words, both in speech and writing.
4_using your body, hands and sense of touch.
5_using logic, reasoning and systems.
6_learn in groups with other people.
7_work alone and use self study.
Although each person prefers different learning styles and techniques everyone can use a mix of learning styles.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
France

Friday, November 20, 2009
Australia
Australia is a multinational country located in the southern Hemisphere and its capital city is Canberra. Human habitation of Australia is estimated to have begun about forty years ago. In the middle of 18th century, the population increased sharply because of Gold rush. On the other hand, the indigenous Australian population declined.
In 1970s, Australian government abolished White Australia Policy and they encouraged immigration not only from Europe but also from Asia and else where. Though English is the national language, they have own distinctive accent and vocabulary. But it is believed that there were 200 to 300 indigenous Australian language at the time of first European contact. There are indigenous people called Aboregenes. They have own traditional culture such as music, art and food.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Italy

Brazil

The population is 162 million.
The poor people in Brazil live in poor neighborhood. Diseases are common in this place , because their house have mud floors
with no running water.
They cook the food on a burning wood .They wash their clothes by hand in polluted water. However, families have electricity and medical care.
Middle class families have electricity and running water because they can bay for it.
Upper class families live in big cities or large houses surrounded by guards.
There are different ways for Brazilian people to have their food:
In Bahia there is a popular dish called Vabapa, it contains fish and shrimp mixed with palm oil, coconut milk and bread, it is served over rice.
This dish were taken from the African slaves.
In Rio de janeiro, Paulo and Minas Gerais, feijoada is a favourite dish, it contains black beans, chunks of beef, pork, sousage and some times pigs ears and tails.
The biggest meal of the day is lunch.
Romania
Romania shares border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south .
Romania has the 9th Largest terrioty and the 7th largest population with 21.5 million people ,the capital and large city is Bucharest, It's the 6th large city in EU withen 19 million people in 2007 .
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Russia
Russia is one of the northern Eurasia countries. It is the largest country in the world. It covers more than a ninth of the land area. The total area of it is around 17,000,000 sq with 142 million people with representing more than 100 nationalities.It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning 11 time zones.Also, it contains approximately one-quarter of the world's unfrozen fresh water.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Cultural Awareness - www.cp-pc.ca/english
Friday, November 13, 2009
Toronto
Pablo Osorio
I arrived in Toronto 5 month ago. I've traveled to a lot of countries but I had never been in Canada before. For me was difficult to image how Toronto was. People knew Toronto gave me so different general perceptions and that was not enough to image city. The most pictures I found in Internet showed some places like CN Tower from Ontario Lake.
When I arrived in Toronto I had a great surprise because I met with a wonderful city. After the family host welcome, I immediately went out to know the city.
I walked to the subway and that was my first disappointment because it is dirty, slow, old, noisy, but I thought that subway could be only a bad spot. I got up in St George station and I immediately went to University of Toronto’s Campus St George. I enjoyed a lot walking, seeing and taking pictures about St George Campus, because it is really awesome. There are a lot of new and old buildings with different nice style architectural, large green areas, absolutely open, many people walking around. I thought: Here really there is life and there is a good atmosphere. At the end of that day I had a great impression about Toronto.
Whit the advices of my family hot, touristic guides and common sense, during the next days I was walking and knowing the city and I realized that Toronto had a lot of interesting places to know and things to do, in other words Toronto is a enjoyable city.
I’ve visited many places as Toronto Island, CN Tower, Distillery, St Lawrence Market, downtown area, King Street where are the financial district, Dundas Street, High Park and other parks, Kensington Market, Yorkville, Greek town, CN Tower, AGO, Beach area, Spadina, Casa Loma, etc.
I could practice one of my favourite hobbies taking pictures in those places while some of them I sent to my family and mine friends in Chile. They had a well impression about this city. “Toronto is so beautiful”, they said me. However, under my point of view Toronto has nice places but ugly places too, as all cities around the world.
Sometimes the circumstances makes that the city has a bad atmosphere as was the long garbage strike in Toronto. Everything dirty and with bud smell. I really hate Toronto during that time. For me was very difficult understood that the government didn’t take measure to improve that situation.
Maybe that situation marked the end of my honeymoon with Toronto. At beginning everything were beautiful and new for me. After two month since my arrived, I started to realize that there were a lot of thing that I didn’t like and in Santiago, my city, are much better. In this moment I realized too that I was living in Toronto and I was left to be a tourist. Other example, is price level. Toronto is so expensive and each day is more expensive because Canadian currency is stronger than US currency and this was a very bud surprise.
A city is done to beautiful places, ugly places and so many different things. Usually when people arrived to a new city first see the beautiful places and with the time people start to have a global vision about the city and I’ve have that experience with Toronto too.
At the beginning I felt that everyone were so kind and polite until I had my first experience with impolite and rude people. Well, finally I understood that I was in the Earth and I wasn’t in the paradise.
Definitely a highlight about Toronto is the cultural life. Concerts, plays, streets festival, theatres, games, parades, cine festivals, restaurants, are permanent part of Toronto life. In Toronto also there a lot of book stores where people find a large quantity of books and magazines with current information about many topics. I like the magazines and I enjoy when I’m in a book store and I can review and read everything without complaint of nobody.
Finally, I think that Toronto is a great city with good things and bad thing. But I keep the goods things: cultural life, good universities, tolerance, good restaurants, beautiful places and landscape and nice people.
Studying English in the U of T
I have been studying in Toronto for 5 month. It has been a good experience for me.
I go I go to class every day and I used to study in OISE library every day, because there I can be concentrated. On Tuesday and Thursday I have activities during afternoon.
I used to read ideally every day. When I’m in my apartment I listen radio or TV in order to developed that skill.
The studying activities are not easy to organize because we have to developed four skills speaking, reading, writing and maybe the most difficult listening and to do that demand a lot of time.
Yukiko
Toronto is a multicultural city. In many places, subway ,restaurant and library, we can hear many languages. This is a big difference for my life because Japan is a minolingual society. Every morning , I can hear many languages in the subway and people are reading not only English newspaper but also other language articles. We can find other cultures interesting aspects.
2. How do you study in Toronto?
People who are not English speakers have many types of accents. Everyone speaks English; however, sometimes our communication do not work well. I felt I need to get use to the accents.
Toronto
I was hoping to study in Toronto, it was my dream, Now a day it's became real. I am now in Toronto and i am planing to take the master degree in business administration , but first of all i have to improve my English so i can take the TOEFL and enter the university.
One of the nice thing about Toronto that you don't have to be very good in English for people to understand you, they even don't expect from every body to speak English since there is a lot of emigrant from all over the world So, when i first arrived to Toronto i could manage my self with the little English that i learned from back home. now after starting learning English at the U of T and practicing English in my daily life for the last couple of months i feel that my English is improving day by day.
Grettings! everyone is very welcome in my blogg
Toronto and Study Habits
We can be more comfortable in Toronto
Toronto has people of all nationalities and also many culture and custom. So we can practice English to talk to our teacher, friends are from various country or our host family a lot and to attend activities in our school, for example volunteer. This is good opportunity for us. Because we can concern with people who first meet. The people who is canadian or other country. Also we have to listen to the explanation for volunteer and do it by ourselves. It is sometimes hard, but very nice experience. So, It makes us improve our English ability too.
It has also many coffee shops, thats why we can practice in many place, outside of home. Of course coffee shops too, but also supermarket, post office, barber and so on. Especially, we had better go out side of home. The reason why, for example supermarket has many things wich we never see, and we have to try to read explanatory labels and understand them, also if we can't understand them or we don't know where is our purpose things, we can ask clerk in a shop, those are good practice for us. Moreover we can observe the person who is native speaker or speaking English very well. This good point is that we can copy the person who has good way to speak or body lunguage. Perhaps it is most best way to improve our english ability.
[At home]
However we are hard to understand pronunciation of other country. So we can practice pronunciation on English web site on internet. Of course we can listen to music too. If we have our favorite kind of music, we can listen to it, and then write the lyrics, it is very good way. we can practice for listening, pronunciation, morover it is our favorite so we can keep going it regularly in our daily life. If you don't have any music, you can use "Youtube". This site is very convenient for us. I recommend it. These makes us easy to listen to other people, pronunce and speak, also easy to understand. We had better do those and use. I think these ways are good for practicing Engish in Toronto, and those make us be more comfortable in Toronto life.
Satoshi
I made a 10 point plan how I intend to practice English.
1. Read a book with voice.
2. Listen music with writing lyrics.
3. Watch TV or movie. If possible, watch many times.
4. Talk with friends in English. Especially, with people come from different countries.
5. Live with home stay, room share or in dormitory.
6. Think in English every time.
7. Memorize some phrases.
8. Listen nativespeaker's talk.
9. Review the class.
10. Ask to people who you don't know about some your questions.