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

EQ and IQ

I read an article written by Daniel Goleman. In this article, he pointed out several miss-stated news blog written by Po Bronson who is a journalist. As you know, Daniel Goleman is an author of "Emotional Intelligence". We can see his view to IQ and EQ from our text book too.

As I see it, IQ is one of the way to measure our intelligence but, it is impossible to estimate or measure our intelligence just by IQ. Because our intelligence is composed of many elements which include education, environment and among others. Furthermore there is no evidence to prove the relation between intelligence and IQs or EQs. Nonetheless, many institutions and companies have accepted the idea that high IQs and EQs are crucial to success.

http://www.danielgoleman.info/blog/topics/emotional-intelligence/

EQ&IQ

I read the article from Psychology Today. The article is called Successful Leaders Need Multiple Intelligences. It mentioned that successful leaders are not only need IQ but also need EQ, and also introduced some diffierent intelligences, like:social intelligence(SQ), ecological intelligence(ECQ) and success IQ. SQ means to understand the social situations and to know hoe to play various social roles. ECQ means to talk about the awareness of our place in the ecological system. And Success IQ is the ability to understand how to be successful in life and work.
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

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.”

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=3CA0E56C-FF42=BCDA-8A2B8B9667B526C1&print=true

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

The IQ Test to measure your brainpower and cognitive ability from a standardized 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.

Styles of learning

There are so many different styles of learning, such as:
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.

France

France is in Western Europe, near to Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium.There's climate is varied, in the north and west area, winters are humidity and mild.The east has cold, clear winters and hot, stormy summers.For the south area is mild moist winters and hot, dry summer.

Common-law relationships are becoming common in France.Common-law means couples live together two or three years, their relationship become be married.They just like spouse, but don't have marriage certificates.Most families are small, with one or two children. It's common for both husband and wife to work.Most French people put importance on their families. Family members will get together for meals or a day on weekends or holidays.

Agribusiness is France's largest economic sector.Farms produce beef, grains, vegetables, fruits and dairy products. It's also the foremost producers of wine in the world.The French make 25% of the world's wine, about 10billion bottles a year.There also produces many fine liqueurs.France's luxury goods are famous all around the world, and Paris is renowned as one of the capitals of fashion design.

One of France's best-known sporting events is the Tour de France cycling race in July.It appeals to thousands of peopleline the route, cheering their favourite cyclist, and millions of people watch the race on TV every year.Soccer is another popular sports in France,they are in the next time World Cup list, and they won the World Cup in 1998 and the Eurocup in 2000.

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.

Italy

Italy is in southern Europe and fronts on Mediterranean Sea. Italy peninsula looks like a long boot. Italy consist by this peninsula and 2 big island, Sicily and Sardinia. The area is total 301,225 square km, and The population is 58 million. Italy's capital is Rome, but Milan, Turin, Genoa and other cities are also famous as a historical city.

Italy is next to France, Switzerland Austria and Slovenia at The Alps. More than three-quarters of the Italian countryside is hilly or mountainous. It has The Apennine mountains which run down the middle of the peninsula and, there are active volcanoes in the south of Italy. Italy's the longest river is Po. it rises in the Alps and runs to the Adriatic Sea. The Tiber River rise in the Apennines and flows the city of Rome to the Mediterranean. Italy has 1,500 lakes.

Brazil

Brazil is located in the central eastern part of south America and it is the fourth largest county in the world.
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 is located in southeastern and central Europe, North of the Balkan peninsula, on the Lower Danube ,within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordedring on the BLACK SEA almost all of Danube delta is located within its territory .
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 .

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.

Cultural Awareness - www.cp-pc.ca/english

Please follow this link to do some research on a country of a fellow classmate. Please take the time to do the research on a country other than you own and one that is relevant to a different culture than your own.


www.cp-pc.ca/english

Toronto

Toronto one of the most beautiful cities I have visited. It has allot of activities and amulticluter people.I have been studying English for 4 month and I improve my speaking and listening because I have to use it every day ,I can read a news paper often,all the people around me speak English so I can make small talk with them but I THINK the important thing is speak and don't be shy or you will lose your new words that you have been studying . In fact this is my big problem.In other hand my children have been learning English faster then me and they have the ability to catch Evey word thay heard actually I learn alot from my children and I enjoy watch cartoons with them they use simple language I think they very usfull

Pablo Osorio

Toronto from my point of view

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

UNIT 7 Minds at Work

Many talented employees are working at Ashton Corporation, especially these eight employees have special abilities. They have their professional fields, which are either scientific field or humanities area. As the result of professional people's office, they can cooperate and support each other. It is important for employees to respect and help. These process of relationship building make their company well-balanced. Compare with these kinds of intelligence people, my personality mostly much with intrapersonal. I prefer to work alone; however, I rarely ask someone's help. I always focus on the improvement of my English ability.

1. About Toronto
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.

3. Developing Good Study Habits

-It is important to practice and to make chances to speak with English native speakers.

-To join sports or culture club is one effective way to improve my speaking skill.

-I will observe native speakers' speaking style and reaction.

-I will find speaking partners who are the same age or gender or have same hobbies.

-As possible as I can, I should use English.

-I will try to listen to other people's conversation what they are talking about at coffee shop.

-I will watch TV news or listening to the radio every day.

-I will use TOEIC or TOEFL text book's listening test.

-I will watch TV drama and movies in English.

-I will listening to many people's conversation to get use to accents because non-native

speakers have many types of accents.

4. Presentation

I am going to present about general ideas of Cambodia on November 20, 2009.

This is what I am going to talk about at the presentation.

1. Where is Cambodia?

2. Cambodian is ethnic minority in Canada.

3. The actual circumstances in Cambodia.

4. The history of Cambodia #1.

5. The history of Cambodia #2.

6. Culture & Custom

7. Religion

8. Language

9. Quiz

1. Where is Cambodia?

I presented about general ideas of Cambodia which was based on contents. Cambodia is located in Southeast Asia and are surrounded Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

2. Ethnic Minority in Canada

Now about 25000 Cambodians are living in Canada. Compare with the statistics Canada's data in 2001 (20430 Cambodians were in Canada), Cambodian's population are slowly increasing.

3. The Actual Circumstances in Cambodia

Cambodia's capital city is Phnom Penh and 9.9 million people are living there. Ethnic groups are Khmer, Chinese, Vietnamese and Cham-Malays and Languages are Khmer, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and English. They have two seasons, which are dry and rainy seasons. Temperature is from 1８ to 35 degrees.

4. The history of Cambodia #1.

Buddhism temple, Angkor Wat, which is the largest religious building in the world, was built in 12th century. In 1431, Cambodia was invaded by Thailand and after become French colony from 1862 to 1953. On November 9th, 1953, Cambodia independent from France.

5. The history of cambodia #2.

Through Vietnam War, there are still many land mines in the ground in Cambodia. Many people were become victims with land mines; therefore, they lost their legs until now. In 1975, political leader, Pol Pot controlled Cambodia. His group, the Khmer Rough have killed many intelligent people during his reign. In 1998, new government began.

6. Culture & Custom

Cambodia is agricultural country, so main product is rich, which can harvest twice a year. People are generally eating rice, fish, fruits and drinking tea. Festival and Music are relate to religion. Ramthon, which is slow movement and bare feet, is Cambodia's national dance.

7. Religion

Majority of Cambodians are believing Buddhism; on the other hand, minority people are believing Muslim and Christianity. Some Buddhists and Muslims are practicing Animism, too.

8. Language

English Khmer (Cambodian)

thank you →　 Ar Kum

Hello → Choom veab suor / sour sdei

Goodbye → Lear heouy

Please → Suom

Excuse me → Suom tous

9. Quizes

(1) How in Cambodia's weather?

(2) What is the largest religious building in the world?

(3) When in Cambodia's independence day?

(4) How many times can rice be harvested in a year?

10.Answers

(1) Dry & rainy seasons

(2) Angkor Wat

(3) November 9th, 1953

(4) Twice a year

Toronto

Toronto is a beautiful city with multi nationality people with there multi culture , this is my second vist to Toronto, but this time i'm planing to stay longer and to learn english, The first time i visited Toronto was in the summer, the weather was beautiful at that time , I like it a lot. Most of the people are friendly. There is so many things to do and visit in Toronto , Like CN tower. Lake, island, museum, Down town, shopping centers, theaters.....etc .

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

Welcome to Toronto! The most multicultural city from Canada, people from every part of the world are waiting for you! I'm now a international student and I want to share with you some clues to improve your english. The first one is actitude, Don't be afraid if you make some mistake, be patient with yourself and with people, ask weatever you want. it is ok if you say sorry, i don't know or not. the second one is if you don't know one word, please search the meaning of it, spell the world, try to procunce well, recognize what part of the speeach is and try to build some sentences with it and explain to other person . After that you can use thos word as a part of you regular conversation, this is the best way! the third one and least, maybe for now, enjoyng learning outside of class, you need some bigger than a university to really communicate in enhlish, go out with people and share in the dinner, watch movies, read newspeaper, buy something for yourself, use internet, listen music. I am sure that you will have a lot of things to do here, it is an opportunity to improve your english.

Toronto and Study Habits

Studying English in Toronto become easier every day. Here, I can speak with the native speakers which prove my prunciation and fluency.I life in Mississauga so I have to take the Go train and the subway every day, so I use that time reading the metro news peper that really help my learn more vocabulary and can reda faster now!. Also, watching the TV and Movies, my favouret things, in English, I have fun and learn in Canada.

We can be more comfortable in Toronto

[Out side of class]
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

There are many races in Toronto. It's called "Cultural Mosaic". The centre of Toronto has a big economy. I suppose that this is the reason why many people come to Toronto.



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.

Toronto

There's some plans below I intend to improve my English in Toronto: Talking to classmates who from different countries, so I have to speak English with them to communicate.Listening to people(native speakers) talking to each other at coffee shop or other place.Listening to the news report and also recording then try to write down what you listening after that to correct what you write down.Reading newspaper or English novels and speak out then you can notice you pronuncation is correct or not.