Restaurant Review Blogging

For the past couple of weeks, we've been talking about restaurant reviews. Hopefully by now, all of you have been to a restaurant and written about it for your restaurant review assignment.

These days, restaurant reviews are popular on the Internet. A quick search can help you find the kind of place you want to go to. What are your thoughts about restaurant reviews? Do you read them? Do you rely on them? Or do you prefer magazine restaurant guides, like Yokohama Walker?

Let's take a moment to blog on the topic of restaurant reviews. This should not be like your restaurant review that you wrote for your assignment. It should be on what you think about restaurant reviews. Here are some questions that may help guide your blogging:

Can anyone be a restaurant reviewer or only professionals?
The trend of smart phones & restaurant reviews
Writing restaurant reviews as a career
The advantages/disadvantages of magazine vs Internet reviews

If you have no comments to make about restaurant reviewing, then please blog about your experience with a restaurant. However, it should be different than what you wrote for your restaurant review assignment. For example ...

My experience working in a restaurant
My experience with my family in a restaurant
My experience as a customer in a restaurant
A story I heard from a friend about a restaurant

Fall weather is here! Goodbye humidity!

If you're like me, you're happy the cool, fall weather is here and the hot, humid days are over! Every morning this summer I arrived at Tsurumi University all covered in sweat. I had to change my clothes before teaching my summer intensive course. Now we have nice cool, fall weather. It's much better for studying, and of course, it's football season in the U.S.! Who is looking forward to watching the NFL? Only me, right? Oh, well ...

We haven't blogged in a long while, so today, let's do some blogging in Essay Writing class. You have two themes you can choose from:

1) "used to"

Write a short, true story about something you used to do. It can be from your childhood days, or from a more recent time, such as high school or college. Use "I used to ..." or "We used to ..." somewhere in your blog. Write at least one paragraph.

2) The Senkaku Islands Dispute

We talked about this a little in class, as we try to stay abreast of current events. What is your opinion on this issue? Do you support Japan's position? Do you think China's position has some merit? Write a paragraph about your thoughts on this.

OK, let's get busy blogging!

Welcome Back Essay Writing Students!

Hi everybody! How was your summer holiday? I hope you had a great time, got some rest, and earned some money. I also hope you studied English a little in your spare time. Did you read a book or watch some DVDs in English? Great!

You may notice that I used this blog site for my Summer Intensive English Course. There are some comments from my 9 summer students about things we talked about in class. You can read the comments if you like. I hope you don't mind that we borrowed this site for the purpose of blogging.

Well, now it's time to get started again and do more writing in the 2nd semester. Today's topic is "A Change in Me." We will think about one way in which we have changed in our lives. For example, when I was younger, I thought having my own business would be great. For a while, I had my own real estate office, and I was part owner of a small restaurant, too. Now I really appreciate having a steady job as a teacher, and I don't think I would open a business of my own again. I think I am less motivated by the dream of getting rich, and I am more leery of the risks involved in having a business.

How have you changed over the years? Is there something you believed when you were young that you don't believe anymore? Has your opinion of people or life changed over the years? Have you become more optimistic or pessimistic? This is a sophisticated topic, but if you think deeply and do your best, you can turn it into an interesting blog comment! Gambatte!

Summer Students - Let's Blog!

As part of the summer intensive course, let's blog about something in English! Today we learned some vocabulary about feelings, such as "annoyed," "embarrassed," "anxious," etc. Please choose one of the words and use it to write a blog paragraph. For example, if something annoys you, write about it and explain what annoys you and why. Another example: think about a time you were embarrassed or worried about something and tell the story.

Following are some rules for this exercise:
1) Write a paragraph, not a list of sentences. That means you don't type the "Enter" key after each sentence. You make one space after the period and then keep typing.
2) Type at least 4 sentences in this blog. Try to make your blog as interesting and fun to read as possible.
3) Ask Kevin how to spell or say things you don't know.

Here is a complete list of the feelings words we learned today:
annoyed
anxious
delighted
depressed
embarrassed
furious
proud
scared
shocked
surprised
tense
worried

Essay Writing - April 14, 2010

Welcome students!

This is the first class of Essay Writing at Tsurumi University. We will have a busy year, so let`s get started with some English blogging right away.

Please comment on `Writing in English.` You can tell me anything that`s connected to the topic. Tell me about the ways you have written in English in the past (for example, letters to friends, email, English homework and essays, etc.). Tell me how it will be useful for you to be able to write well in English. Write ANYTHING connected to the topic `Writing in English.`

Your writing on this blog should not be too long. From 50 to 100 words is OK.

You may sign your name with your real first name (ex. Reiko, Hiroaki) or you may use your special blog nickname that you chose in class.

OK, please get started!

Kevin Miller
Tsurumi University English Dept.