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. (more…)
Archive for October, 2008
A Visit by Former Students
Friday, October 31st, 2008To Etta
Friday, October 31st, 2008In response to my “Homosexuality” entry, Etta invited me to read an article written by her on her blog recently. It’s her comments on a recent issue in the States “Yes on Prop. No. 8,” which is intended to illegalize gay marriage. Here, Prop. stands for “proposition.” If you are interested in this issue, please read her blog:
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: (more…)
Teaching Collocation
Thursday, October 30th, 2008
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.
Homosexuality
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008This morning in Class 313, when we came to the word “homosexual,” I told them we should not have a bias against homosexuals. When I was studying in the US, I watched a news report on TV and came to realize that homosexuality is biologically determined. Those gays and lesbians are wired to be so before they are born, with something additional in their brains. That news really impressed me because it totally changed my attitude toward homosexuality.
An Essay by a Student
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008Students in Class 314 like to write extra compositions for me to read. Among them are some good works. Here is an example: (more…)
A Happy Encounter & Teaching English Through Songs
Monday, October 27th, 2008
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.
A Good Website for Teaching English Through Songs
Sunday, October 26th, 2008I 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!
An Interesting Website–Songs for Teaching
Saturday, October 25th, 2008Last 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
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The Aim of Education–Part 2
Friday, October 24th, 2008“The aim of education is not knowledge, but action.” I’ve kept thinking about the topic since yesterday. The following is what I wrote but didn’t put on my blog yesterday: (more…)
The Aim of Education
Thursday, October 23rd, 2008Tracy 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?