What's New at Kyoto NHK ESS?

Dear all: This is Akira Oku.
The announcement of practice on May 7 is as follows.
Genre: Composition.
Title: Frugality and Health.
Remark: In-advance preparation is recommended. You are encouraged to prepare a draft of answers to the activity appearing in the following announcement.
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Kyoto NHK ESS: Practice Manager A. Oku: 2016.5.7
Frugality and Health

Genre: Composition for fostering the value of life
Game procedures:
1. Make 5 or 6 groups.
2. Read sections (A), (B) and (C) shown below. Choose either combination (A) + (B) or (B) + (C), write the answer to facilitate group discussion.
3. Present the typical answer(s) in the group to (A) + (B) or (B) + (C).

Section (A). Poverty or Frugality
Do you like these Danish-style proverbs?
1) Possessing less are not but wanting more are the poor.
2) Those who demand less are blessed whereas demand more are damned.
How to play today with (A). By mimicking them, create your proverbs on a similar theme and discuss. (15 min)

Section (B). Manifesto of the Frugality Party（by H. Shingu）
A spectre is haunting in the World, the spectre of consumerism. All the powers of the World, all the countries on earth, have entered into a holy alliance to exercise the doctrine of this spectre, to buy more, to waste more.
Where is the country which has not been enticed to the consumerism? Where is the voice of keeping the world wide traditional way of frugal life that has not been silenced under the branding reproach as hindrance to the social progress.
Two things result from this fact:
1. Frugality is the only way for the human being to survive continuously on this planet earth. This simple fact is understood by every people world over at least deep in mind.
2. Frugality must openly, in the face of the whole world, be talked, published and appealed through every available method, for its necessity, its consequences and the reason why it has been in the past, it is now and it will be forever, the principal philosophy of happy life. Now is high time to have the spectre of consumerism be contained and ostracized from the world.
To this end, following Manifesto of the Frugality Party has here been written, in the Japanese and English languages, to be publicized.

節約党宣言 （和訳）
妖怪が世界を牛耳っている . 消費主義の妖怪が。世界中の国々が同盟を結んだように、この妖怪の行動規範すなわち消費活性化を一致団結して押し進めている。現在、消費を奨励しない国が世界のどこにあるだろうか？太古から世界のどの場所でも続いて来た伝統的な倹約の社会を守ろうという声は必ず、文明の進歩を妨げるという一言で、時代遅れ、の烙印が押さるのである。
二つの事があきらかである。
1. 節約主義は、それ以外に人類の存続を守る方法がないことを、心の中ではすべての世界の人々から認められている。
2. 節約主義は、過去も、現在も、そして未来においても、常に世界で第一の生活哲学である。いまこそ堂々と、この心の奥の声を、なにはばかることなく広く主張し、出版し、あらゆる情報手段を用いて、これが再び世界の常識になるように、節約党宣言を発表すべき時である。消費主義の妖怪は即刻とらえて世界中の社会から放逐せねばならない.
この目的のために、節約党宣言が日本語と英語とでここに起草された。

How to play today with (B).　 (35 min)
After reading the above manifesto, select one political party out of four candidates shown below. Make a draft of its manifesto of declaration in less than 150 words. Work time = 25 min, group discussion = 10 min.
Party Names:
1. Party of Uncovering False Environment-Benignancy.
2. Defense Party of Gyoza-no-Ohshou.
3. Farewell Manifesto to Automotive Society.
4. Manifesto of An-Hour-A-Day Smartphone Party.

Section (C). More Apples a Day! (from TIME)
The great cholesterol controversy that has waged incessantly for the past decade was beginning to wane last week. As the American Heart Association held its scientific sessions in St. Louis, even onetime skeptics were prepared to concede that abnormal quantities of fatty material in the blood should be regarded as one of the major factors in producing heart-artery disease. Thirty-two papers were presented on the subject; the evidence seemed overwhelming. Said Minneapolis Physiologist Ancel Keys: "No one can say that the maintenance of a low level of blood cholesterol will positively prevent development of artery disease. We don't know that this is the answer in whole or even in large part. But it's like a person with hypertension; we can assume he'd run less risk if his blood pressure were lower."

One piece of evidence was offered by Keys himself. Intrigued by the fact that Italians enjoy a far lower rate of coronary disease than Americans, Keys decided to find out why. Last week he suggested a possible answer: the Italian diet. Noting that Italians eat more leafy vegetables and fruits than Americans, Keys reasoned that some ingredient in these foods restricted the level of cholesterol and other fatty materials in the blood.

The Key ingredient turned out to be pectin, a carbohydrate well known to many U.S. housewives: it is the substance that makes jelly jell. Keys found that taking 15 grams of pectin daily for three weeks lowered blood cholesterol levels by an average of ten milligrams—"a modest but significant amount." For Americans who want to keep the doctor away, Keys added a familiar note: his 15-gram daily dose corresponds roughly to the amount of pectin found in two ripe apples.

How to play today with (C). 　Write the diagnosis or prescription as the answer to the questions 1 and 2. (15 min).
Question 1. Three apples a day keep --- what?
Question 2. More than four apples a day keep --- what?
Have a ball!

Dear ESS members:

Sorry for the late announcement. This is Kumiko Takesue who is in charge of coming practice on May 14th.
The practice will be as follows.

Genre: Talking
Title: Decision Making

Make some groups consist of 4members and talk about the given topics.



Decision Making

Activity 1 | Vocabulary and Expressions

• resolution -‐‑‒ a firm decision to do or not to do something
• inevitable -‐‑‒ certain to happen; what you cannot prevent
• psychological -‐‑‒ related to the mental state of a person
• inescapable -‐‑‒ unavoidable
• toss -‐‑‒ throw something lightly or casually
• instinct -‐‑‒ natural tendency for people to act based on the knowledge and abilities that they were　born with; a feeling that makes you do something or believe that something is true
Advanced ⅼ Article Discussion Lesson 08
Copyright © since 1998 DMM All Rights Reserved.

Activity 2 | Article
Decision Making
Each of us has our own stories to tell. Life is like a roller coaster, at times it goes up and at times it goes down, this means life rotates in different directions both advantageous and disadvantageous. But of course we can always choose how our life will turn out to be by making decisions.
Decision making is reaching a conclusion, judgment, or resolution after thinking about what is the best thing to do. We all inevitably have to make decisions at times. It is a constant psychological exercise that we inescapably do every single day. When we find it difficult to decide we seek for advice from another individual. There are times when we don’t know what to do but still do not feel the need of help, we toss a coin or just choose whichever. But most of the time we trust our instincts and decide all by ourselves. However, regardless of the effort put into decision making, we need to accept that some decisions will not always be the right and best choices. Some people often make decisions while experiencing strong emotions and therefore such decisions most of the time result in failure.
No one will ever be able to make the best decision all the time because all of us make mistakes.
To avoid choosing wrong we need to dissect problems into simpler forms and create solutions for them, weighing the risk involved, considering pros and cons, choosing advice from people who have more experience on the matter, and lastly come up with the best decision accordingly.

Activity 3 | Question and Answer
Directions: Answer these questions about the article.
1. According to the essay, what does decision making mean?
2. What does the phrase “Life is like a roller coaster” mean?
3. What are the things we need to do to avoid wrong decisions?

Activity 4 | Summary
Directions: Make a summary of this article, focusing on the main topic.
Copyright © since 1998 DMM All Rights Reserved.

Activity 5 | Thoughts
Directions: Exchanging thoughts about this article.
.
Activity 6 | Free Conversation
Directions: Answer these questions related to the topic of the article. Have a free conversation about it.
1. Do you trust yourself or other people more when it comes to decision making?
2. In your opinion do you make more of advantageous or disadvantageous decisions?
3. Is there any decision that you regret making?
4. Does it take you long to decide what to buy when you are shopping?
5. How important is decision making to you?

K.Takesue

ESSの皆様

５月２１日のプラクティス案内をさせていただきます。

　Genre: Grammar ＆ Vocabulary
　Title: Quizzes of Grammar ＆ Vocabulary

８０題程の英文法や語彙に関しての問題を考えていただきます。
程度は中程度です。

山本

Hello to the member of Kyoto NHK ESS.
This is an announcement of practice on May 28th, 2016.
I would like you to have a little chat about issues among the education system in Japan, from kindergarten to University.

Title:
Date: May 28th, 2016
Genre: Discussion
Presenter: Akira Hashimoto

Procedure:
1: Make 6 groups as usual
2: Presenter will read out the topics and give you some tips about each of them.
3: Choose one of the following topics about Japanese education, and discuss within the group. Handout will be given to each group.
4: In the end, summarize and present what you have discussed to the rest of the class.

Here are the topics:

1: One of the criteria for “highly ranked world university” includes a lot of international student/stuff/faculty within the University. Having said that, do you think Japanese university should be aiming at “highly ranked world university”? (In other words, should we participate more and more foreign people to live in Japan?)

2: There is high demand among young couples to increase the number of kindergartens available for new pupil. On the other hand, some people just don't want to have another new kindergarten in their backyard. In this contradictory situation, what would be the most suitable solution?

3: Some immigrant with religious background (e.g. Muslims) have strict rule to obey in their everyday life, such as prohibition of eating pork, girls wearing Hijab (scarf for Muslim women), etc. In some areas of Japan, there are increasing numbers of their children who are attending to Japanese public school. Should we, as the Japanese, accept Muslim’s tradition within the Japanese public school, or should we just say to them, “when in Rome, do as Romans do”?

Hope you enjoy the practice.

Akira Hashimoto

Dear Kyoto ESS members,
This is an announcement of the practice on June 4.

(1) Genre: Presentation
(2) Title: Show and Tell about Your Hobby
(3) Description:
What do you do in your free time except for learning English?
Show and tell about what you are interested in to the members.
If your hobby is photography, take some pictures you have taken.
If you took up handcrafting, take a piece you have completed.
Any object can be used if you have interesting information to present with it.
For example, a concert ticket, a book, and a recipe you cooked,
Whatever they are, you must have been particular about them.

Something unique would be preferable.

Please be sure to bring some objects to show. Maybe Photos on your phone will do.

Takada Kumiko