Use English version in classGoogle Maps is a great way to work with directions. In addition, you can map out a route to someone’s favorite restaurant, and share all of these in class. Additionally, you can use Street View, that has pictures of almost every street in Tokyo, to show your neighborhood to other students. Be careful, though, maps you create are made public by default. You should click on the “private” box so you share only with people you want to.
Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is a great place for reference for anything to do with movies. I love to discuss movies with my students. Unfortunately, the names in Japanese often have no connection to the names in English.
With this web site showing, though, I can lecture and show short pictures or even trailers to make a visual connection with the language. I often have my students keep track of the logical connections that are between movies (one actor was in another movie, who’s director made another movie with an actor, who married an actress in another movie…).
Keeping notes organized is hard enough on paper. But when you add web pages, media clips, videos, audio, podcasts, and whatever, it gets hard to handle. Try EverNote, for keeping things organized and connected to what you do.
Just like most other Web 2.0 sites, you can share part or all of your online notes and great finds with your friends, family or students.
You Tube is a great repository of many useful videos, but trying to find something can be daunting, with the millions of videos available.
Enter Teacher Tube, a site like You Tube, but for teachers. More focused audience, lots of materials that are easy to understand.
I am often astounded by how slowly everything goes in class. It is like everyone is living in molasses. The answers are always carefully considered before being uttered. This is not how communication works. It is not good enough to speak correct English, you have to speak it fast.
Learning goes the same way. You need to have a steady pace, and be constantly learning. I like to say that the absolute worst language learning environment is the classroom, a room with no input, bare walls, only other students for interaction, with perhaps one or two exchanges with the teacher each session. Dismal.
Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is a great place for reference for anything to do with movies. I love to discuss movies with my students. Unfortunately, the names in Japanese often have no connection to the names in English. 
