Melody's Presentation, on the Calgary Study Tour and Writing Projects

This afternoon, Melody (陳美麗老師) gave a presentation on this summer's three-week Calgary study tour, based on her observation as one of the leaders. In her opinion, an important factor determining whether the students enjoyed the tour or not was the host family. Besides, she pointed out that to expect students' English to improve by leaps and bounds within three weeks is unrealistic. However, she added, the experience did plant the seed of love for English in students' mind.

Besides the study tour, Melody introduced her writing projects. As an English teacher, she keeps working on her writing skills. The following is what she does:

1. Journal writing

2. Summary of news or stories

3. Afterthoughts on articles or interviews

4. Guided writing.

Melody even works on details. For example, she jotted down verbs for various types of walking used in the book Number the Star, an outside reading for her summer class, and made sentences with these verbs. The verbs for walking she listed on her handout are as follows:

dawdle, scamper, plod, trudge, scurry, stomp, stumble, stagger, prance, strut, stride, and drag.

In fact, Melody is already excellent in writing. I believe it is due to her hard work.