A year-end activity

In today's 316 class, I gave back to the students the New Year's Resolutions they wrote down on Dec. 29 last year so that they could check if they've achieved them.

I asked them to check the one(s) they kept and put a cross before the one(s) they didn't. The students were surprised that I still keep the papers. (A perfect mess!) Since they seemed to be curious about what they had written, I was sure they've forgotten the resolutions, not to mention achieved them. Then I asked them to write down their resolutions for the coming year. I haven't read them, but I'm sure they must have put down "Go to a good college" on the list. Well, I wish them all dream come true.

2007, bye-bye.

An excellent blog to visit

Annie told me she visited my blog every day. In fact, her blog has more substance than mine. If you want to know more about what's going on in Taiwan's junior high school, not only in English education but also in many other aspects, I highly recommend you visit her blog. If you like reading, her blog provides you with a reading list, made by such an avid reader as her. And there are more....

詹麗馨的教學天地--樂多日誌

http://blog.roodo.com/anniechan/

Ming-nan's wedding banquet 蔡明男教務主任的喜宴

This noon I went to the wedding banquet of our Dean of Academic Affairs Office at Pan-chiao. It's also a happy gathering of the bride's and groom's families and friends. To my surprise, 8 of my 313 were there too. Of course, we hugged and greeted heartily, just as before.

Here are some photos taken at the banquet.

A speech on how to prepare for Chinese in SAT

The speech focused more on the writing part. In fact, the most important thing in taking the writing test is to read the instructions carefully before generating ideas. According to Mr. Chang, if students can follow the instructions exactly, they can get at least B (the highest is A⁺ and the lowest is C^-. This is true of English. Besides, Mr. Chang reminded the students to write neatly. This is also the same with English.

Mr. Chang's speech is of great help to the students.

Students imitating Martin Luther King

In today's class, I had the students listen to and repeat what Dr. King said in his speech sentence by sentence. It was fun! When they were trying their best, they knew how eloquent an orator Dr. King was. His voice was so powerful! Sometimes he said a long sentence (e.g. 4 lines) in one breath. 314 and 316 students were quite impressed. They did quite well in imitating Dr. King.

I enjoy teaching this way, making students "hear" the beauty of the language.

Even more model compositions

Here are two more compositions which got 14.

more model compositions

The following are three compositions. There is still room for improvement; however, they are among the best.

Li-chuan's visit to my class, plus reflection on being a language teacher

Li-chuan came to observe my class this afternoon. I was teaching Lungteng 510 to Class 314. My procedure is as follows:

I. Greeting the students.

II. Asking them to tell me the title of this lesson. (I Have a Dream)

A vocabulary website

The following is a website worth your visiting:

http://www.shute.kh.edu.tw/~t1248/voc.htm

Among others, it includes the 7000 words for the UEE, with Chinese translation.

You might find it helpful in reviewing vocabulary for the UEE. I have to thank Ms. Hsu (徐慰筠老師) for finding the website for us. Of course, my gratitude also goes to the website designer, Shu-Te Home Economic & Commercial High School.

Prof. Feng's speech

This afternoon, Prof. Ho-ping Feng gave a speech on "Teaching EFL Writing to Senior High School Students in Taiwan: Theories and Practices." It's a very well-organzied and informative speech.

Most important of all, she provided some sequencing activities for developing students' writing competence as follows:

Freshman year in high school:

1. Controlled exercises--sentence making (words, patterns)

2. Translation

3. Journal

4. Summary/Response/Reflection

Sophomore year

1. Controlled exercises--sentence making (words, patterns)

2. Translation

3. Journal

4. Summary/Response/Reflection

5. Picture wriitng

Junior year (Senior year?)

1. Picture writing

2. Exposition description

3. Description

4. Argumentation

5. The strategies for making transition between two genres.

Also, she gave some suggestions on providing feedback:

1. Controlled exercises: Accuracy is focused.

2. Journal/Response: Fluency is focused. Teachers don't need to correct grammatical errors; instead, they just give response. By doing so, they can lower students' anxiety and thus encourage the students to write more.

3. Focused feedback: When giving feedback, teachers just make some selective error corrections, for example, the verb tense.

4. Teacher-led discussion of the common mistakes.

Ms. Feng emphasized the importance of giving positive/encouraging feedback and comments.

model composition on the mock exam

On Sam's eighteenth birthday, Sam got a puppy from his parents. He was overjoyed for he had always wanted to have a pet. The next morning, Sam took his new puppy to the park. At the park Sam felt a little thirsty and went to buy a drink, leaving the puppy by a tree. But when Sam came back, he could not find his dog! What was left was only the pink-sparkling leash he had bought for the dog. Sam picked up the leash and cried sadly. He hadn't even introduced the puppy to his friends! The depressed Sam walked home mournfully, blaming himself for not taking good care of the dog. But when he got home, to his amazement, the puppy was sitting on the stairs waiting for him. Same was touched by the loyalty of the dog and swore that he would never neglect it again. Since then, Sam and his dog, now called Sammy, has been best friends.

(161 words) (Score: 15)

The Freedom Rides

Lungteng 510 I Have a Dream

Videos of the Freedom Rides

The Freedom Rides--Part 1

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=6w_FDixZ0Sc&feature=related

The Freedom Rides--Part 2

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=EAd6PO79KFw&feature=related

In Part 2, you can see Martin Luther King speak at a mass meeting in a church.

After seeing the videos, we would be more appreciative of not having to go through the hardships the black people experienced. We were born with our rights, while the black people had to fight for their rights.

Martin Luther King's famous speech: I Have a Dream -- Video

We are moving on to the lesson "I Have a Dream." This is a lesson all the three commonly-used high school English textbooks include. Thanks to the Internet, now we have a very easy access to the speech in the video.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

The part we read in our textbook starts at 12:05 and ends at 17:20. At this website, the complete speech text is given below the video.

To 314, plus life attitude

We didn't win the race and I knew how disappointed you felt. However, I knew you had tried your best and that's enough. You have more races to run.

 

I like what our principal said after the race: It feels good to have a goal to run for and that's the purpose of hoding the relay race. Indeed I felt so when I was running. Though being a slow runner and feeling sharp pain in the thighs, I felt terrific when I was running to hand off the baton to the next runner.

Everyone is a runner in the life race. Some run faster, and some run slower. It is very natural. As long as we keep running, we'll reach our goal.

Keep running, my dear 314.

students and me--photos

Another set of photos. In the photos are the students I have taught over the past two years. 303 and 313 are already sophomores in college, while 214/314 and 216/316 are now preparing for the coming SAT. They are all adorable.

第二堂Blog課--照片秀

Yeah! I've learned to put photos in my blog. That's the magic of learning. With the passage of time, you know more or can do more.

These photos were taken by our blog teacher and his assitant, who is his wife too. They are really good teachers. I couldn't believe that I can learn so much just in two classes.

To rack their brains

This afternoon, while I was teaching classes 316 and 314, coming upon the word "interpret," I mentioned an additional meaning of the word--to translate orally. To give the word life, I asked the students to interpret an English sentence into Taiwanese: I'm busy today and can't take any more work.

How to get students to read?

Today's United Daily News reported that some scholars attribute the good math ability of our country's students to cram school and they worry that students spent so much time studying in cram school and preparing for tests that they don't have time to read. I agree with them.

杭老師的演講 我的筆記

12/7 (10:10-12:00) 杭極致老師對314、315班做有關甄選的演講

(欣蓉的筆記)

學測前標57可上國立；均標45則私立。

財金資管競爭激烈，指考360分才有望，每科70分以上；若只採計三科，競爭更激烈。

本校學測通常平均54或55，第一次模考平均47，所以每人加8分。

推甄選填志願步驟 ： 1. 抓區塊 2. 寫出願意去的校系 3. 看合不合標準 (第一階段) 4. 第二階段最有優勢的1-4個 (5. 剔除第一志願?) 6. 12/12 貼上 12/13交。

先比第一志願再比第二志願 (?)。。

看關鍵報告，若第一階段錄取數學要11，你要12或13才穩。

第二階段注意： 1. 人數比 （只取3-5人要小心，不會是你） 2. 各部分佔的百分比（例如學測 50%）（成績不好的選在校成績只佔10％）

如何用第一次模考約估學測表現？

1. 第一次模考總級分加8，變為學測可能的級分，但會有黑馬出現。

2. 用人數 （例如：參加模考40000人，學測120000人，所以總名次 ＊ 3 à若為第10000名，參考去年學測第10000名的總級分為多少(網路上有資料： 如大考中心學測、指考；中正推甄；聯合分發委員會)）。

內中學測多落在50-70級分，65以上較少；建中全校平均65級分。

數學差距大，第一類組禱告數學不要太難。

社會組自然科平均8級分，看高一的四科自然科課本，高二的理化可以不看。

自然科考題規定為一、二年級必修：第二部分20題：一科5題，只要答對4題就滿分；一年級44題。

社會組不需考15級分，考10-12以上就可以。

社會組同學如何準備自然科？ 看課本抓觀念（學測考觀念，不考繁瑣計算）；做三年以上的歷屆考題，甚至同一年的做兩遍（做考古題以訓練看完很長的題目並會抓重點）。

數學2題沒做完就沒有15級分。

學測靈活，真不會要聰明地猜。

國文英文乘的倍數多盡量考高。

Annie, thank you.

晚上好友麗馨來電告訴我她買了兩本書送我，都是Chicken Soup系列，一本是about dreams，一本是for couples。我實在太感動了。麗馨常常送書給我，我們兩人都是書迷，她看書之多之快，更是我無法相比。真高興有這麼好的朋友﹗

Visual aids or not?

I like to bring pictures to class to make everything concrete. For example, today when I mentioned the exhibition "Machu Picchu" once held at the Field Museum in Chicago, I showed the picture of its web page to make students feel more involved in the real English world. How I wish I could use power point freely in the classroom! Every lesson would seem more insteresting.

On the other hand, do I really need to show so many pictures in class? Shouldn't I just let students imagine what's going on in the reading? Will too many visual aids deprive the students of their imagination?

the original text of Unit 9

Dear students,

If you are interested in reading the original text of Unit 9, just click on the following address:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/arts/design/21muse.html

The title of the original is "Who Should Tell History: The Tribes or the Museums?"

I have been wondering why the title is different from the one given by Lungteng on page 237? No wonder I couldn't find the original on the net in the beginning.

 

I enjoyed the discussion in today's class.

Today in both classes, we had a heated discussion about the relative pronoun. The students were confused about when to use "who," "whom," "whoever," or "whomever." I'm glad that finally they were more confident in choosing the right one. When, at last, all the 314 told me that in the sentence:

龍騰課本第九課 Should History be Told by Tribes or Museums? (Warm-up activity)

I started teaching this lesson by asking students about their experience of visiting museums. To my surprise, they don't often visit museums. And when I asked them to name some museums in Taiwan, they can only name National Palace Museum.

[有趣影片] 蟑螂保險業務員~

真是太好笑啦!!