I find Sudoku puzzles, particularly the hand-crafted rather than computer-generated ones, to be an addictive form of intellectual entertainment. The delight of seeing a solution unfold can be comparable to seeing a new vista with each step in a Japanese garden.

Logic is the key to solving Sudoku puzzles, and hence they can be a good class activity to combine simple language with higher-order thinking skills. Project or draw one on the board and encourage students to suggest where numbers can be placed.

For German-only classrooms, the words Zeile (row), Spalte (column), Block/Bereich (3x3 block) will be useful, as well as oben/unten, links/rechts. Rules and tips in German are on Janko's excellent puzzle site. For hand-crafted puzzles, go to the Guardian newspaper's collection.

Labels: all languages, games, german, japanese, teaching ideas

A few months ago, Yakiniku Japanese Restaurant (ph 3871 1988) opened on Sir Fred Schonell Drive, St Lucia, Brisbane and I went there for the first time last night.

It has a café feel to the furniture and there is a fair amount of road noise; however, the first sign of quality came when we were presented with the menus and told that there was no sushi that evening as the recent rains meant that the fish wasn't good enough. Pity, given that I really like sushi, but I was pleased to draw the conclusion that this restaurant was not going to compromise on quality.

There is nevertheless a two-tier menu, with many dishes offered as a smaller quantity served on rice for about $8-$12. We ordered from the main menu, where prices for main courses were $13-$26. Our first dish was king prawns in a light ginger sauce. This was a generous serving of tasty prawns, accompanied by precisely placed salad vegetables. The other dish we ordered was a spicy seafood soup, served in a hot-pot. The delicious stock was full of fresh fish, prawns, scallops and squid.

Talking with one of the owners after our meal, we found out that they had had a restaurant in Paddington many years ago and had received a number of "good food awards". Given the quality of the meal we had just enjoyed, this was not at all a surprise to us. This restaurant is certainly worth a return visit.

Labels: Brisbane, japanese, restaurant, review

The school where I teach German (and other subjects), ran a "Celebration of Languages" incursion for grade 8 students today. These students learn German, Chinese or Japanese, or have English Support classes.

We had about 170 students participating in three 20 minute activities. Two of the activities were craft based - badge (button) making and paper fan decorating - and the students were encouraged to utilise their chosen language/culture in their designs. I ran a quiz competition as the third activity.

The number of students in each group meant that we ran the quiz in two rooms. This meant that while I was in one room, I had to have another teacher (who doesn't teach a language this year) running the quiz in the other room. The success of the quiz can be attributed to the organisation that was done in advance:

• Quiz questions from the three languages/cultures on small cards, with answers


• Instruction sheet for the other teacher to back up the 5 minute "This is what you have to do" run-down.


• Great quiz game controller (from Teacher's Discovery) set up with furniture arranged in groups for the team numbers that were anticipated.


• Prizes (also from Teacher's Discovery - we just don't have a company here with their range of products!) already packaged in labelled bags for the teams that came 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.

Please let me know if you would like any of the files I created for the quiz.

It was a fun morning and the students were really competitive. We'll certainly be making this event part of our annual calendar. It is a pretty packed time of year for us (in Australia) though, so we would probably hold it in either term 1 or 2 next year instead.

Labels: chinese, german, japanese, promotion of languages

If you are able to have students email you work for feedback, there are a number of ways you can do this using MS Word (and presumably, many other word-processors):

1. Insert menu | Comment
Advantages: You can write as much as you want, pointing out the correction to be made and explaining why the correction is needed.
Disadvantages: Students need to be shown how to remove the comments if they are going to re-edit the document.

2. Tools menu | Track changes
Advantages: You correct the student's work and the word processor will show where changes have been made. This can be printed as well, or turned off if a "clean copy" of the document is desired.
Disadvantages: Students might not get the opportunity to learn why the changes were neccessary.

3. Tools menu | Compare and merge documents
Advantages: Like track changes, the word processor will show where changes have been made and what was there before the change.
Disadvantages: You need to remember to save a copy of the student's work as a new file before you start.

4. Use a marking toolbar (macros)
Advantages: Very fast way of indicating to the student where and what type of corrections need to be made. Makes the student review their own work.
Disadvantages: Needs to be installed. This can be tricky, but once set up, is as easy as selecting a word or phrase and clicking a button. This then highlights the text and inserts a comment about what type of error the student has made. See http://iteslj.org/Articles/Holmes-ComputerMarking/index.html for examples and downloads.

Some of these ideas I use in my own teaching, a couple are thanks to a colleague at a workshop yesterday.

Labels: chinese, ESL, german, indonesian, IT tips, japanese, teaching ideas