Hello Everyone! Hope you are all doing well and keeping cool in this hot weather! Speaking of weather, right now, I am so jealous of my Dad who is on vacation right now in northern New Mexico. He is in a small town called Taos One of my Dad’s favorite hobbies is photography so all week, he has promised, and the weather there is MUCH cooler than here. My family always went to New Mexico for vacations when I was younger so seeing pictures really makes me want to visit again. to send me a bunch of photos to show me just how beautiful it is there.

Northern New Mexico is a great place to go if you like hiking in the summer, skiing in the winter, camping, exploring, hot air balloon riding or photography! If you ever get the chance to go, I really recommend it! See you in class!

開幕がもうすぐですね。

ですが、このような状況で開催していいのかどうか・・・

賛否両論ありますね。

みなさんこんにちは。

夏を感じますね。日に日に暑くなってきています。最近は暑さのせいか食生活が乱れがちです。

無性に何か食べたくなるときってありますよね。久しぶりにハンバーガー食べたくなったのでマクドナルドへ行きました。テキサスバーガーなるものがあったので買ってみました。テキサス出身のサム先生は「ハッ」と鼻で笑っていました。日本人が海外の寿司を見たときの反応なのでしょうか。

味は秘密にします。ぜひ食べてみてください。トルティーヤチップスがなんと中に入っていますよ！

As you all have probably figured out by now, I really enjoy baking. If it uses flour and butter, I probably like it. Sometimes, baking can be a real pain: it can take a long time, use a lot of ingredients, use expensive ingredients, be finicky, etc. And sometimes, it can be super quick and easy.

Scones are one such quick and easy recipe! Well, this particular scone recipe, anyways. There are certainly more laborious recipes out there.

My family has a long history of absolutely loving the scones you can buy once a year at the Puyallup Fair (now known as the Washington State Fair). They’re so good. They’re warm, and soft, with a crisp outer shell – and when you pair them with a berry jam, you’ve achieved perfection! They sell an instant mix at Costco you can use to replicate them super easily. It’s, like, five minutes of assembly and ten minutes of cooking, and you’ve got a bunch of delicious scones to enjoy.

I haven’t yet been to Japanese Costco, so I’m not sure if they sell that wonderful instant mix here. But I had a hankering for some fair scones, so I made do.

You can make them from scratch, of course, and they hardly take any extra time at all. So, that’s what I did! And boy, did they pay off.

I might’ve kneaded them a couple times too many, because the texture isn’t an exact match, but the flavor and everything else was perfect and delicious. My tiny microwave oven can only make a handful of scones at a time, so they have to be baked in two batches. But the whole bake still only took about an hour and resulted in a container of sweet, delicious scones that pair perfectly with cherry jam. What a happy day!

Don’t be afraid to start baking, guys. Not everything is as fussy as macarons. You can always start with something easy yet wonderful like scones. Just be sure to share!

We are in a new school year. We have new students, and they know very little English. They
will be sitting in our rooms every week to give them more exposure to our language. How can we be
good teachesr to students who barely understands us? How can we promote English to help them
not only in English class, but other classes as well? I think some of these techniques can help both
students and English teachers.

1. MAKE IT VISUAL
Students have a harder time processing spoken language. So instructions – even basic directions
should be written on the board whenever possible. Harder concepts should be diagrammed or
supported with pictures. And showing the steps of a process or showing students what a finished
product should look like can go a long way toward helping students understand. Sometimes showing
our students what to do is all they need in order to do it.

2. BUILD IN MORE GROUP WORK.
If we really want the kids to learn, they’ve got to be engaged.” That means less teacher-led, whole-
class instruction, and more small groups, where students can practice language with their peers in a
more personal setting.

3. HONOR THE “SILENT PERIOD.”
Many students go through a silent period, during which they will speak very little, if at all. I don’t
force them to talk if they don’t want to. A lot of students want to be perfect when they speak, so
they will not share until they feel they are at a point where they’re perfect. Some of the students will
try to speak in “broken English” to engage with the English teacher. Just knowing that this is a
normal stage in teaching English and should help relieve any pressure you feel to move them toward
talking too quickly.

Thank you for reading my blog. Until next time!!!!