English for Activists

Dear All,

Hello. I hope you are well there.
I'm sorry to delay delivering E-news letter.

We had a class on Apr. 6th 2010, we did four activities.

1) Correction
We corrected Seika's E-newsletter which delivered last week.
It was almost perfect, but there are some uncommon phrases for native speakers,
we interchanged some words common expression.

2 )Discussion about the new meeting room
We have to find the new meeting room, which is used, from May 11th,
we discussed about it.
Some people propose some places.
For example, "Yotsuya Hiroba", "YWCA", "Cafe Renoir",

Hi, everyone. This is an e-news letter for the last class on 30th March. I will briefly describe the activities in the class and make small notes of what appeared remarkable to me.

We did three things in the class.

Firstly, we did the correction of the last e-news letter written by Yasu-san. There, Yasu-san detailed the process of Monopoly we played in the class. I thought it amazing that he could represent the process so meticulously, none of which I could recall (perhaps I did not know what was going on, even when I was playing!).

From Yasu-san:

Good evening everybody ! I try to write my home work.

Learning Plan of 3/23
Practice making the sounds and rhythms of English -- It had not done.
Talking about some topics and news -- May be it had not done, too.
Play monopoly -- So good!
Write a short report for the EFA e-newsletter -- Too severe for me, but is fun for me.

Go to dinner and drink -- It warmed up. We wanted to talk each other, but we must roll dice in class, so at tha restaulant we talked and talked, I think.

Would you like to read or listen to news about activism in the US and other countries? Here are some useful resources:

http://www.labornet.org/ -- "Global online communication since 1991 for a democratic, independent labor movement"

http://www.labourstart.org/ -- "Where trade unionists start their day on the net."

http://www.democracynow.org/ -- "A daily TV/radio news program, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, airing on over 800 stations, pioneering the largest community media collaboration in the U.S."

Hi everyone,
Here is the report of the EFA class on March 13th.

1) Memorizing the members' names
12 people got together including new members. So at first, we repeated each
member's name one by one, and memorized them.

2) Chanting in English.
"Education under attack" "What do you do?" "Stand up! Fight back!"
The key point was to shorten between "do?" and "Stand", like "What do you
dostand up! Fight back"

3) Know each other
In order to know each member's interest and to find out who have the similar
interest of his own, we exchanged own ideas with each other.

This piece by Juan Williams summarizes the history of the game Monopoly (aka the Landlord Game) and has good links to other stories.

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/monopoly/

Thanks to Takasu-san, we now have a google group. Please check it out!

http://groups.google.co.jp/group/english-foractvists?hl=ja

Listen to this broadcast and read along (the full text is below).

October 5, 2009 - Mercedes Sosa, an international symbol of protest against the dictators of Latin America in the 1960s and '70s, died Sunday in Buenos Aires. Through her five-decade career, she teamed up with a wide range of musicians, from Joan Baez to Sting to Shakira. She was 74.

Welcome to the new and continuing participants in the Tokyo English for Activists course! I look forward to working with you all, and learning with and from you. Please feel free to register on this website and start your blog. You can also watch videos and read the words, listen to poetry, get news from sources like Democracy Now! and much more.

Comments, questions and suggestions are welcome!

I just wanted to thank everyone who participated in the English for Activists classes in Tokyo and Yokohama. I learned a lot this time, about a wide range of themes, from the historical origins of Monopoly to the way traditional Ainu houses are built. I learned to play Daihinmin -- which is now my favorite card game -- and the lyrics to Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown. I learned about the caves of Okinawa and the origins of the current financial crisis and how it is affecting workers in Japan as well as the US. Thank you to all of my teachers!