I found this website to be very interesting and diverse. There are many topics for teaching about Japanese culture and current events. There are also links to archived articles and resources from past years. The website is extremely user friendly and includes videos and other media useful for teaching. The diversity is what makes it worth posting. There are articles for elementary teachers such as stories of animals that are used in Japanese fairy tales and even a video on "Cat Island" which exists in Japan and is a place people go to watch and be entertained by them. There are also more serious articles. For example, I read one article on the legal system in Japan. It compared the American jury system and the death penalty "innocent until proven guilty" with the conviction rate in Japan which is approx. 99%. The article went on to explain that there are actually 9 judges in the Japanese system for this. Three are professional and six are "lay judges" chosen from the people. There is so much variety and this website is definitely worth checking out if you work at a high school or with older students to provoke thought and discussion.
edited by dsciarrotta on 12/29/2012
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