New Year's Resolutions - 2018
/
明けましておめでとうございます！ (Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu!) Happy New Year!
Did you make any New Year's Resolutions this year?
January is a really good time to think about goals for the year ahead. Apart from anything else, it's cold! And it's nice to be inside making plans.
Here are my New Year's Resolutions for 2018:
1) blog once a week
This one is easy (I hope!) and a continuation of last year.
In 2017 I aimed to publish a blog post a week. I actually did 26, which is one a fortnight.
That's not bad, but I definitely want to beat that in 2018.
2) play more games
In class, I mean. I want to work on making classes more fun, and one easy way to do that is more games.
My lovely students playing fukuwarai ("Lucky Laugh") game ↓
When we laugh together, we learn together.
(Cheesy but true).
3) read every day
This is a personal one. Last year I tried to read more Japanese fiction, and kind of failed.
I did find, though, that once I actually start reading I'm ok. It's the getting started that's the tricky part.
This year, I'm going to read some Japanese fiction every day, and keep a note in my 5-year diary when I've done it.
(16 days in, this is going pretty well.)
4) go to more teaching events
This year, I'm planning to go to more Japanese teaching and education-related events in London.
I went to a couple recently - a Japanese grammar teaching workshop at SOAS, and a bunch of seminars at the Language Show London.
I found it super helpful to reflect on my teaching practice and discuss ideas with other teachers and linguists.
I definitely want to go to more events like this in 2018.
...and it's a good excuse to go to London for the day too.
5) track these goals
Waiting until the end of the year to see how your goals are going doesn't really work.
In 2017, I actually completely forgot about one of my resolutions (to watch more drama in class). I'm going to avoid that this time by pinning them above my desk.
I'd love to know what New Year's Resolutions you made. Let me know in the comments!
Like many people in the UK, I studied French in school. I liked French. I thought it was really fun to speak another language, to talk with people, and to try and listen to what was going on in a new country. (Still do!)
When I was 14 we went on a school exchange to the city of Reims, in northeastern France. I was paired with a boy, which I’m sure some 14-year-olds would find very exciting but which I found unbearably awkward. He was very sweet and we completely ignored each other.
That was nearly 20 years ago, and I didn’t learn or use any more French until, at some point in lockdown, I decided on a whim to take some one-to-one lessons with online teachers. Here are some things I learned about French, about language learning, and about myself.