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Student Exercises for Glimpses of Old Tokyo

Soon to be released as a 2-book package, Glimpses of Old Tokyo and Exercises for Japanese Students. These exercises are mainly communicative, intended for use in pairwork, the students asking questions of each other.
There are two sections of questions, one more to do with content of the stories in "Glimpses" (Basic Questions), the other more challenging helping students to think and discuss with each other (Challenging Questions). There are two other sections, one acting as a warm up to reading the stories (Warm Up), the other to encourage students into further discussion of issues raised in the tales (Talk it Over).

Here is an example of the exercises for the first story in "Glimpses":

1.  A Place in our Hearts

A.    Warm Up
1.  Where is your hometown? What is it famous for?
2.  How long did you live there? / How long have you lived there?
3.  How often do you visit your hometown?
4.  What do you like about your hometown? What do you dislike?
5.  Where are your parents from?

B.    Basic Questions
1.  What was the writer's hometown, Takinogawa, like?
2.  Why did the writer's childhood friend, Masako, come to Tokyo?
3.  What game did she play at Masako's home during the New Year holidays?
4.  Why wasn’t she sure if people play the game nowadays?
5.  When they went to Kaminakazato Station, what questions did they ask each other?
6.  Why were they confused?
7.  Where would their memories live on?
8.  What wouldn’t the writer do again?

C.    Challenging Questions
1.  Why was Masuho Fujita’s hometown quiet in the past?
2.  Why did the writer’s friend come all the way to Tokyo?
3.  What were three clear memories the two friends had?
4.  Give four pieces of information about the card game played over the New Year holiday period.
5.  Why was this traditional game “rather intellectual”?
6.  What was one able to do as “a veteran of the game”?
7.  Why do you think Masako’s father was good at the game and always won?
8.  The problem with visiting where they used to live was their inability to recall things,  right?
9.  The writer said that the houses they recalled “had been built for renting out perhaps more than ten years ago.” Do you think this should be written as “ten years             before”? Can you explain the difference?
10.  How were the old houses different to the new ones?
11.  Why did they give up and go back to the station?
12.  Why do you think the writer won’t ever return there?

D.    Talk It Over
1.  Please tell me about some of your childhood memories: relatives, friends, school, games, places you visited and pets. Anything else you recall?
2.  Do you ever attend reunions with former classmates? If so, tell me how you feel.
3.  How has your hometown changed over the years?
4.  Do you agree with the writer's decision not to visit her hometown again? Please tell me why.

The answers to the Student Exercises for Glimpses of Tokyo can be downloaded here (PDF, 152kb)