Three former students paid me a visit today: Yi-wen, Chia-ling, and Chun-chieh. They graduated 9 years ago and are pursuing their dreams in different fields now.
2008年10月31日 星期五
To Etta
http://blog.ettachou.com/2008/10/26/california-prop-no-8/#comment-19330
After reading her article, I left my comments on her blog as follows:
2008年10月30日 星期四
Teaching Collocation
After the discussion of the reading, we finally came to vocabulary study today. Now I don't avoid speaking Chinese. Instead, I will say the Chinese chunk and ask students to find the English equivalent in the example sentence. For example, the students see the following example sentence for the new word "resist" in their textbook:
The robber was hurt while resisting arrest.
2008年10月29日 星期三
Homosexuality
2008年10月28日 星期二
An Essay by a Student
Students in Class 314 like to write extra compositions for me to read. Among them are some good works. Here is an example:
2008年10月27日 星期一
A Happy Encounter & Teaching English Through Songs
This afternoon I was invited to share my experience with members of Taipei County English Education Advisory Group at Chiang-Tsui Junior High Schol. My topic was Teaching English Through Songs. I talked about the reasons for using songs in class, what songs to teach, and how such an activity can be conducted.
2008年10月26日 星期日
A Good Website for Teaching English Through Songs
I found a good website for teaching/learning English through songs. The URL is a little bit scary, though.
This website belongs to Yuanlin Senior High School. It contains songs with their lyrics, Chinese translation, vocabulary, and sentence patterns. Amazing!
2008年10月25日 星期六
An Interesting Website--Songs for Teaching
Last night, I found an amazing website, Songs for Teaching. Though it's a commercial one, intended to sell CDs and books, it's worth visiting. There you can find songs written to teach certain things, for example, character building, geography, math, classroom management, science, holidays and seasons, etc. I even found a song for the 43 American presidents, another for the 50 states in the US with their capitals, and still another for Michelangelo's biography! Here is the website URL.
http://www.songsforteaching.com
2008年10月24日 星期五
The Aim of Education--Part 2
2008年10月23日 星期四
The Aim of Education
Tracy told me this afternoon the topic of this year's citywide speech contest is "The Aim of Education Is Not Knowledge, but Action." We discussed it and tried to define the topic.
In my opinion, this idea is like the saying "Instead of giving someone a fish, teach him how to fish."
What do you think?
2008年10月22日 星期三
Is Grammar Helpful or Harmful?
2008年10月21日 星期二
Chit-chat & Memory Power
On today's test, there is a passage about how to improve our memory. The sentence "Now it's proved that it can be easily achieved simply by chatting ten minutes daily" sounds quite shocking to me. I've never associated such social activity with memory enhancement. At the end of the passage, the writer suggested teachers do some chit-chat with their students before starting a lesson. This is interesting and I'd like to give it a try.
2008年10月20日 星期一
You see what you want to see
I came across an envelope this morning when I was looking for one. On the envelope was a line of words: 你的心,決定你所看見的。Seeing the sentence, I thought of a photo taken at Mr. Wei's wedding a few days ago. Here is the photo:
At first sight in the camera, I was shocked because I coudln't tell what was behind me. A man in black standing against the wall, with his arms crossed in front and no head?
2008年10月19日 星期日
A Visit to the Palace Museum
Today I went to the Palace Museum with three high school classmates. We spent most of our time on three current exhibits: Masterpieces of Chin and T'ang Dynasty Calligraphy (晉唐法書名蹟), Tracing the Che School in Chinese Painting (追索浙派), and Stunning Decorative Porcelains from the Ch'ien-lung Reign (華麗彩瓷). Huai-su's (懷素) cursive script puzzled me because I could barely understand what he wrote. Here is an example:
Can you recognize the words on the first line?
2008年10月18日 星期六
Advice from An-yu, a former student
Yesterday morning, An-yu (彭安愉), a former student who graduated 5 years ago came to visit me. We had a long chat until around 3pm. In our talk, she said it was not until she graduated from college and went to work that she realized how wonderful and easy it was to be a student.
2008年10月17日 星期五
Wang Yung-ching, God of Management
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2008/10/17/179042/Hard%2Dwork.htm
2008年10月16日 星期四
If
We were reviewing if-clauses today, which seem very complicated to students. However, there is only one principle to follow:
Real or Unreal:
2008年10月15日 星期三
"I Have a Dream"--an old entry re-posted
I'd like to re-post an old entry for the lesson "I Have a Dream."
http://june.ettachou.com/2007/12/23/martin-luther-kings-famous-speech-i-have-a-dream/
Watch the video, and you'll be touched by the power of language. I remember a former student of mine told me that, while we were discussing this lesson last year, she went to the entry every time she turned on her computer. She then watched/listened to the speech and read along with Martin Luther King. She is now majoring in English at National Tsing Hua University.
2008年10月14日 星期二
The Carpenter: A Story
2008年10月13日 星期一
Perseverance
2008年10月12日 星期日
Words from Mr. Yang Chen-ning (楊振寧) and Mr. Chu Ching-wu (朱經武)
Mr. Yang Chen-ning, a Novel Physics Prize Winner, and Mr. Chu Ching-wu, President of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, had a talk on the allure of physics yesterday. The following is a news report by the Liberty Times:
2008年10月11日 星期六
Mr. Wei Kuang-liang's Wedding (魏光亮老師的婚禮)
The upward spiral
2008年10月10日 星期五
To Ms. Hung on how to spark enthusiasm for the English language and literature
Here is my response to Ms. Hung, who left a comment on my Oct. 8 entry Ithe Life Type blog) as follows:
Re:Enthusiasm
I have to find the enthusiasm of Foreign Language and Literature. God bless me. haha
Posted by hung at 10/10/2008, 11:34
Dear Ms. Hung,
Definitely, to enjoy your life now, you've got to love what you're doing. Remember Steve Job's "You've Got to Find What You Love"? He had every reason to tell those college graduates so, right?
2008年10月9日 星期四
SMART students
Today I got an article from our principal 吳正東先生 through his secretary by email. The title is 協助孩子成為一位SMART學生, written by Mr. Wu, Ching-shan (吳清山), commissioner of the Department of Education, Taipei City Government.
Here, SMART is the acronym of
Smile, Morality, Action, Respect, Tolerance.
The following is the article.
2008年10月8日 星期三
Enthusiasm
Yesterday when we came to the word "spark" in Unit 3, I told the students that without a spark of enthusiasm, one couldn't learn English well. Then I mentioned a former student who is a junior at NTU now. I told them about the passion she showed in learning English.
2008年10月7日 星期二
Quotes from TIME on the virtue of thrift
2008年10月6日 星期一
英語看圖說故事比賽注意事項 --Words from Brandon Bryant after the speech contest
This afternoon the school held the annual English contest, story-telling for the freshmen, picture-telling for the juniors, and composition for the seniors. I was a judge for the picture-telling contest. We had a guest judge from Studio Classroom, Mr. Brandon Bryant.
To Ben
2008年10月5日 星期日
Live on!
Today's United Daily News runs a column "自殺防治 用閱讀找回感動," intended to remind people of the meaning and value of life.
http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage.jsp?f_ART_ID=152381
2008年10月4日 星期六
What It Takes to Be a Good Doctor
Last night, before I went to sleep, I read an article in Reader's Digest (Oct. 2008). Its title is "My Unexpected Teacher," with the subtitle: Sometimes the best thing a doctor can do is to listen. It's a true story about the encounter of the writer, then a medical student, and a stroke patient in the hospital.
2008年10月3日 星期五
To Ya-han
Ya-han (曾雅韓), a former student who graduated this summer, sent me a note through my LifeType blog, telling me that she missed me. She is majoring in Engish at NTU.
Here is my response to her:
2008年10月2日 星期四
The Art of Leadership
This is an excerpt from Unit 3 "What It Takes to Be a Good Leader" in the Sanmin textbook, Book 5. A very powerful passage. It can serve as a reminder for all kinds of leaders.
2008年10月1日 星期三
A Simple But Inspiring Sentence
Today I introduced the book Harvard Style to Classes 313 and 310. And I read the following sentence from the book.
只要徹底盡到應盡的義務,往前跨一部就會比想像中更容易。
An Article to Read on Leadership
I once posted an entry in my blog about leadership. That was after I read an article about Mandela "The Secrets of Leadership" in Time. Since we are discussing Unit 3 "What It Takes to Be a Good Leader," I would like to re-post that entry here. With a click on the URL offered in that entry, you can read the article in Time.
http://june.ettachou.com/2008/07/15/an-article-on-leadership/