I continue to be amazed at the power of One Word Images (OWI). This evening my daughter and I were again waiting for my wife at a coffee shop and I asked my daughter to help me learn some more Japanese. The last time we did this we made a scone with strawberry eyes. This time I chose the word lid (futa, ふた、蓋 ). We had so much fun talking about this coffee lid and what it looked like. I was amazed at how much I was understanding in Japanese and how much I could express. My sweet daughter even wrote out a vocabulary list of the new words I was hearing. She asked me questions and gave suggestions. We drew a picture and wrote some sentences. When I got home I decided to write up what we discussed.
My Aha! Moment
My daughter had done something incredible. She let the language flow. She didn't hold back language because she thought it might be too difficult for me. She used the ~て form, she used 〜ない form. She would ask me if I knew a kanji or not. When I knew the kanji she wrote in kanji. She made it comprehensible and she made it compelling. She didn't worry if I knew the correct conjugation of the verbs or adjectives. How often do we hold back language from our students because "they haven't learned that yet?" The more I use these OWI with my students the more I see how much language they can handle.
The Description
Her name is Tapuchi-san. She is a green coffee lid. She is square. She has two eyes with red around them. She has a mouth. It has purple around it. She lives in China. She is strong because she goes to the gym. She is kind. She has many friends. She has many family. She has an older brother and sister who are not kind. She is 1,006 years old. She doesn't cry, she smiles. Press the button below to read about Tapuchi-san in Japanese:
My Aha! Moment
My daughter had done something incredible. She let the language flow. She didn't hold back language because she thought it might be too difficult for me. She used the ~て form, she used 〜ない form. She would ask me if I knew a kanji or not. When I knew the kanji she wrote in kanji. She made it comprehensible and she made it compelling. She didn't worry if I knew the correct conjugation of the verbs or adjectives. How often do we hold back language from our students because "they haven't learned that yet?" The more I use these OWI with my students the more I see how much language they can handle.
The Description
Her name is Tapuchi-san. She is a green coffee lid. She is square. She has two eyes with red around them. She has a mouth. It has purple around it. She lives in China. She is strong because she goes to the gym. She is kind. She has many friends. She has many family. She has an older brother and sister who are not kind. She is 1,006 years old. She doesn't cry, she smiles. Press the button below to read about Tapuchi-san in Japanese:
