1st 合同英語練習会 (Ken's Office)
本日は、飯塚市にて、第1回(初)となる、英語発音セミナーを『合同英語練習会』と銘打って実施しました。---------------------------ー―---------------------------◎ Sunday Mar. 19thI got up by 5:00 a.m. and began to preparefor today's seminar. This seminar is mainly for my face-to-face English course students and correspondence course students.It's the first seminar held in Iizuka City, on the other hand,I have held English training seminar many times in Fukuoka Cityso far.I copied over 20 kinds of written references at a conveniencestore near my apartment in the morning.At 9:00, I had an English lesson with a local grade school teacher.This day he talked mainly about his students.At the beginning of the class, he asked me several questionsabout tense, especially "Past Perfect"(過去完了) and "Present Perfect"(現在完了).I told him that we cannot use "Past Perfect" without"Past Tense" just like we cannot drive a car outsidea driving school unless we go to the third training phase.After this lesson, I was very busy in preparing for the seminar.The venue, Urata Community Hall, was close to my apartment,just 200 meters.I borrowed the key to the hall from the head of the communityand entered the hall around 12:30.This day, the sisters helped me a lot.I really appreciate them for their help.15 members (10 students of mine and 5 guests) joined the seminar.One of them came from Hakata and one of them came fromHofu, Yamaguchi Pref. I specially thank them for coming allthe way from their places.In the seminar, I focused on pronunciation, intonationand rhythm of English.I started this seminar with Japanese tongue twisters:The beginning section aimed to make participants speakloudly and raise their voice.Next, I invited the participants to copy the way a gaijin speaks Japanese.English native speakers speak Japanese with typical English rhythm:Strong & Week Rhythm (Beat).For example, 【 Hi, Wata~shi, Tom (タ-ム)de~su!!!】Followed by the training of saying Toyota, Kawasaki and Karatewith English accent:TOY/O/TA (トィオウラ)KAWASAKI(クワせあ~キ)KARATE (クラーテ・鞍手)★ Now, I regret that I forgot to do 九九 in English with the participants.ーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーーEnglish has its unique rhythm.Spring has come.If a native English speaker say this sentence with their normalspeed, "Spring's come."(ハズ) should be (ズ).Next, I introduced 5 or 6 famous English words which many JapaneseEnglish learners fail to say correctly.Those words include McDonald, Madonna, Hot Coffee, Hot Dog,Hot Potato, etc.-----------------------------------------------------After a 10 min break, I moved on to English tongue twisters andjazz chants. Jazz chants are the main part of this seminar.I prepared four chants, but I just did two of them due to timelimitation. I stressed the importance of English rhythm whileintroducing Sandwich Chants.After chants, I moved to Jazz songs.I picked out "Come-on-a-my-house" and "Love for Sale."If you sing"Come-on-a-my-house", you should have a strongvoice."Love for Sale" had a good English rhythm, say,1) Who'd like to sample my supply? 2) Who's prepared to pay the price for a trip to paradise? Actually, I prepared 10 kinds of jazz songs but I failed todo all of them. I should have been careful in time management.-----------------------------------------------------After we sang these two songs, it was already 4:00 p.m.I got surprised that I couldn't do even 50% of what I had planned to do.So, I changed my plan a little and in the third section (after the second recess) I let each participant introduce himself/herself to other participants.Finally, we practiced how to say things smoothly and effectivelyusing TV quiz show, TIME SHOCK.I handed out a piece of paper, on which one question was written,to participants each. The paper should be turned over untilI said OK.Each participant had to come to the front andtranslate his/her question into English as quickly as possible.I introduced some of the techniques on how to express thingseffectively.----------------------------------------------------Around 5:00, the seminar was closed.After the seminar, one of my deshis kindly played the guitarand sang a song for us.I was exhausted.The participants said that they had a great time, butI had lots of things to be improved.Especially, I completely forgot to use 九九 trainingand give them detailed explanation about pronunciation.Due to poor preparation, I was very nervous during the seminar.That's why I forgot to do other important things.Plus, I should've used 【Mary Had a Little Lamb】 to helpthe participants understand the English rhythm.------------------------------------------------Finally, I express special thanks to the Sisters, the singer withguitar, and all the participants.Ken Suetsugu