“Thou art translated”: Remapping Hideki Noda and Satoshi Miyagi’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Post-March 11 Japan

As an example of this, I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream as adapted by Hideki Noda originally in 1992 and then directed by Miyagi Satoshi for the Shizuoka Performing Arts Centre in 2011. Drawing on my experience as the surtitle translator of Noda’s Japanese adaptation “back” into English, I discuss the linguistic and cultural metamorphosis of Noda’s reworking and the effects of its mediation in Miyagi’s rendition, and ask to what extent the production, adapted in post-March 2011 Japan, can be read as a “contact zone” for a translingual Japanese Shakespeare. In what way did Miyagi’s reading of the post-March 11 events inflect Noda’s adaption along socio-political lines? What is lost and gained in processes of adaptation in the wake of an environmental catastrophe

The role of non-native English speaking teachers for elementary school English

More than 90% of Japanese elementary schools now teach English conversation since it was introduced in 2002. The aim of teaching English conversation is to help students become familiar with English and to facilitate their positive attitudes toward communication with people from different countries. The English conversation classes definitely require a number of teachers who can teach English to elementary school students, which has been the major problem. The purpose of the paper is to discuss the role of non-native English speaking teachers (NESTS) in elementary school English activities from the perspectives of communication, second-language acquisition, and teacher resources. A survey was conducted utilizing questionnaires and classroom observations. To survey the needs of language instructors that English learners have, questionnaires were distributed to English language learners from elementary schools to universities. Additionally, English classroom observations in elementary school were undertaken to investigate the effects of and difficulties in using NESTS in English activities. Based on the results, the paper discusses the merits of and difficulties in using NESTS in elementary school English activities

Improving advanced learners' communication skills through paragraph reading and writing

Japanese learners of English have suffered from an inability to become competent communicators despite their large vocabulary and good grammar. This is mainly because their messages are not presented logically. To help with the learners’ difficulty, the researcher utilized paragraph reading and writing. The objectives of this study are to introduce a major problem advanced Japanese learners of English have and the approach the author has done to help the students overcome the difficulty. The participants were thirty-two university students and the topic of the writing was about Japanese culture. Their writings were evaluated with the focus on global errors. Achievements were measured when the students became aware of the English logical organization and increased their knowledge on the appropriate rhetorical form for composing messages effectively, which was important for them to communicate both in spoken and written English. Key challenges were that students had difficulty understanding the concept of “coherence” and writing coherent paragraphs

LHCb Semileptonic Asymmetry

A recent LHCb measurement of the CP violating flavour specific asymmetry in $B_s^0$ decays, \asls, is presented. This measurement is based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1 fb$^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ $=$ 7 TeV, collected during the 2011 run of the LHC. The result is \asls = (-0.24 \pm 0.54_{\rm stat} \pm 0.33_{\rm syst})\times 10^{-2}, which is the most precise measurement of this quantity to date and agrees with the Standard Model prediction.}Comment: To appear in the proceedings of Beauty 201

LHCb PDF measurements

The LHCb experiment covers a unique region of acceptance at forward rapidities in the high energy proton-proton collisions of the LHC. This means that measurements of particle production in LHCb are directly sensitive to the parton distribution functions at low Bj\"orken-$x$ values. Several measurements of inclusive $W$ and $Z/\gamma^{\ast}$ production with the Run-I dataset are reported in these proceedings. Further measurements of $W$ and $Z/\gamma^{\ast}$ production in association with inclusive jets and $b$- and $c$-tagged jets are also reported.Comment: On behalf of the LHCb collaboration. In Proceedings of the Third Annual Large Hadron Collider Physics Conference LHCP15, Aug. 31-Sept 5, 2015 St. Petersburg, Russi

Rifton Finns: An Ethnic Enclave in Ulster County, New York

When you begin to consider the Finns of New York State, there are two obvious foci that have received the majority of attention in the ethnic literature. The presence of some estimated 20,000 Finns in New York City during the 1920s provided a large population with its myriad cultural, religious and social organizations and activities. The heyday of the large Finnish population has passed, and as of 2000, a total of 3,466 Finns lived in New York City.1 This number remains the highest population within the state. Due to this large population size, much has been written about their existence, for example, in Brooklyn and Manhattan.2 A second significant concentration of Finns within the state has always been the Finger Lakes region in western New York State. Here, in cities and towns such as Van Etten, Spencer, Millport, and Ithaca, activities and organizations have existed for decades and have also received academic interest.