Dec 10

1.  Check Lang-8 (7 entries and corrections with no absences)
2.  Check Anki (220 cards)
3.  Japan Times
4.  Read this and answer these questions:
a.  Explain why this statement is a myth:  Children learn languages easily.
b.  Why do children learn languages well?  Give 3 reasons.

d.  Since languages take immense effort to learn, when do most adults learn them?

e.  Historically, when do a language's fortunes begin to rise?

f.  How can language learners create exposure?
g.  How can language learners create motivation?

h.  What was standard procedure for the Apollo-Soyuz missions?

i.  How can we remember "jaune means yellow"?

5.  No homework or vocabulary test this week - focus on studying for next week's test.

Dec 3

1.  Lang-8
2.  Japan Times
3.  Anki (201-210)
4.  Read this page and answer these questions.

     a.  What is the difference between the Novice and Intermediate levels?

     b.  What is the difference between the Intermediate and Advanced levels?

     c.  What is the difference between the Advanced and Superior levels?

5.  Listen to the CD.

     a.  What is Speaker 1's level?

     b.  What is Speaker 2's level?

     c.  What is Speaker 3's level?

     d.  What is Speaker 4's level?

6.  Homework

Article 1

NEW YORK — Toyota Motor Corp. is soliciting voluntary retirement from 2,000 of its U.S. workers, or about 10 percent of the automaker's total workforce in the country, in a program to replace veteran workers with younger ones, Toyota officials said Friday.

The automaker is offering incentives to employees who have worked at the company for more than 22 years, before they retire in the near future when they can receive pensions after working 25 years and impose a negative impact on production, they said.

Article 2

MUMBAI — Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., an Indian unit of Suzuki Motor Corp., said Saturday its domestic new car sales in November rose 9.7 percent from a year earlier to 90,882 units.

Including exports, sales rose 12.5 percent to 103,200 vehicles. Sales of small cars largely leveled off on higher gas prices, but multipurpose vehicles topped the year-before level by over 7,000 units, reflecting the popularity of the Ertiga seven-seat hatchback launched in April.

Article 3

KDDI Corp. and Softbank Mobile Corp. began selling Apple Inc.'s iPad mini Friday with cellular connectivity compatible with high-speed data communications using the LTE network service.

KDDI, provider of au mobile communications services, is adding the tablet computer to its lineup in addition to the iPhone smartphones it has been selling since October 2011.

Softbank monopolized Japan sales of the iPhone as well as the standard iPad with cellular capabilities before KDDI's entry into the market. Softbank and KDDI also released the new iPad 4, which is the same size as older versions of the tablet but has better functions.