Kevin Ryan in Tokyo

Category: Language

  • New Text: Whodunit!

    Adam Gray and Marcos Benavides have collaborated on a textbook of mysteries for language learning called Whodunit.

    Whodunit?
    Whodunit? Mysteries for langauge laerning

    Published by Abax, this is one of the first creative Commons textbooks available. You can download it and pay what you think is the best price (shades of RadioHead or Pearl Jam).  After reading through the very interesting mysteries, I decided I would use it in 3 of my classes. I am most curious as to how it works in an average class in japan (at ShowaELC) and how it is different from my exceptional students and University of Tokyo. Will keep you updated, but this looks like a great text out of the box, easy to use and thorough. The paper edition comes with additional audio to round out the experience. I am going to have my students use both versions (paper and pdf), so they can get the entire experience. I will be adding supplementary materials to my Moodle on this topic as well, with 2-minute and 5-minute mysteries, and a tutorial on how to write a mystery.

  • Google Goggles adds translation


    Over at Mashable, they report that Google is adding translation to their new (still in development) Goggles, which can recognize objects and words. Designed for a phone with  a camera, it is a great way to get information.

  • Google Translate Update

    Google Translate has added new features making it a lot easier to use. For those of us in Japan, the best one is “romanization” which allows you to get the pronunciation through roman letters of the kanji in question. Read more about it at Mashable. Here is a video that shows the new features.

  • Vonnegut’s 8 Rules for writing fiction

    Kurt Vonnegut is in my top 3 writers. Here are 8 reasons why.

    From the entry in Wikipedia.

    In his book Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction, Vonnegut listed eight rules for writing a short story:

    1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

    2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

    3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

    4. Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action.

    5. Start as close to the end as possible.

    6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

    7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

    8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

      Vonnegut qualifies the list by adding that Flannery O’Connor broke all these rules except the first, and that great writers tend to do that.

    1. Banned Books Week

      Last week was banned books week. All over the world, books are continually banned for their content. At this Interactive map of banned books, you can find out which books were challenged at school and in libraries all over the US and Canada. It would be great to do a version of this for Japan.

      Banned Books Interactive
      Banned Books Interactive