Loving World

Feedback, how important and how?

2006-06-07T21:46:00.000+08:00

My heart sank and I got worried as I was checking my e-mail and learned some "constructive feedback" from one of the designated committee members on my thesis proposal. Actually, I haven't read any feedback at that point. But one sentence, There's a lot to think through, scared me a bit.
Later the day, I dropped by the professor's office and had a short discussion. As our talk progressed, I started to learn some good points from her feedback for me. "How come I never saw those blind spots in my own research," I pondered. Those constructive points can actually give quality thesis! I knew hard work is awaiting me ahead, but at the same time, I became more motivated to "cross" that "speed bumps" on the road...
This experience taught me how important feedback can be. Giving feedback is like work of art, which can either sadden people or lift up people. Bad feedback can produce no fruits, but good feedback can produce ripe fruits. There's no magic in this; it's simply a matter of attitude and careful thoughts.

Cynical, cynic, cynicism (my rites of passage)

2006-05-31T18:53:00.000+08:00

I always have a hard time with the word "cynical." My mind doesn't seem to get connected with the word; the word never came easily on me. Not until this morning did I get a complete understanding of this word. Yeah, from Advanced!
According to the magazine definition, "cynial" refers to "believing that people are only interested in themselves and are not sincere." Its broader definition tells us that what one sees always turns out to be something negative or damaging, not positive and constructive. To put it more simply, cynical people (called cynics) are likely to see the bad side of everything. These people do not see things in perspectives.
Now you might wonder how the word definition has something to do with my "hard time" with this word. Because I connect the word with certain contexts I just underwent these past few months! From where? From some school visits and discussions with my friends.
Some people seem to by quite cynical. For example, some might say those "good and well-equipped" schools are the minority. Most students still don't have the luxury of using those high-tech stuff. Or, some might say students in those schools come from higher social status families and of course have better language proficiency level. They are more motivated in terms of learning. Well, all these are true. A person's family background definitely will affect how that person grows and develops intellectually. However, we don't need to be cynical about that. Though the world is not fair and not every student gets the same chance, still as an educator, I firmly believe our job is to be there helping them become better no matter what family backgrounds they're from. We can guide them to be as confident and motivated as those students from good schools (even without high-tech equipment). We're working with people, not machines; machines can be optional (better if do have them), but people are not.
Honestly, I used to be a cynic myself. I didn't seem to put things in perspectives. Luckily, all around these years, I have a couple of "not-so-cynical" friends. I do learn a lot from them and via lots of self-reflection and training, I do change. I'm so happy about that! Yeah! I guess it's not something born (well, for some people, it is), everybody needs to work at it every day.
Now I probably have truly gotten a complete understanding of the word "cynical." I've used this word in my writing for so many times; surely I won't forget this word. My mind is delicately connected with the word. Another "YEAH"!

Keep being optimistic about my teaching (YES)

2006-05-30T22:14:00.000+08:00

After all the preparation and hard work, still I couldn't meet the required time limit in today's microteaching. As the alarm went off, I got shocked and my heart sank down to the bottom. "How could that happen?" Was I too talkative and spending too much time chatting with students? But, NO WAY, time's up and the game was over!
That sounds weird! In private, I was quite silent. But when on stage, I became taciturn and even talkative. I love to respond to my students' thoughts and chat with them if possible. I hope by doing that, I can bridge a closer relationship with my students and make the classroom atmosphere less intimidating. Also, students and I need to use the language for real, authentic communication. Great, isn't it? Well, for microteaching or future teaching demonstrations, I shouldn't take them too lightly. Maybe I should turn that chatty nature into time consciousness.
Another thought might help me relieve a bit. I used to read a book about a veteran teacher's testimony. She asserts that no teachers always have perfect teaching. We shouldn't let that dwell on us; instead, we need to learn that lesson the hard way. Next time when we walk into a classroom, come across as being confident and whisper, "I'm going to have a wonderful class today." YES, I learned that!

Reminiscence!

2006-05-24T09:54:00.000+08:00

I can't believe it's been a year since I came back from Winona, MN. Now I have known that there will be two more graduate students who are going to fly there this coming August. I miss all the friends, teachers, and students there so much. Oh, the food and the fun...everything turns out to be so reminiscent...
One picture shows the last two days before I came back home and I was with some students from China and Malaysia for a dumpling party. We made the dumpling wrappers and stuffings (just everything) by ourselves. A lot of hard labor work? Sure, it is. But the taste of truly home-made dumplings smells just good and tastes even better. With the breeze blowing on our face in the rural Winona town, it surely makes our party much more fun!
Hope I will be able to come back sooner and have another good dumpling party with my good friends!

Thoughts on Goodmans' short talk

2006-05-23T20:14:00.000+08:00

Keneeth Goodman's short talk helped wrap up this quarter's teaching methodology class perfectly. It's been all around that belief (autonomous learning and independent thinking) that Alice has been preaching.
Keneeth Goodman, along his wife, have been considered one of the founding fathers of "whole language" concept. Whole language is more inclined to be a philosophy rather than one kind of pedagogy. While our students are learning a foreign language, they're also learning the art of communication embedded in that target language culture. Furthermore, students learn to use the language as a means of world exploration. And that capability is not going to be assessed simply by a paper-and-pencil test. That kind of test is not a once-in-a-lifetime decision-maker.
One idea from Goodman's wife is the act of letting kids talk about language. In the process of exchanging ideas over the target language, kids will be able to learn the most. Perhaps it's high time we all treat our high school learners, more or less, like children, who are out there finding a way to language use in the midst of interacting with other peers.

My third school visit at 台北市私立復興中小學

2006-05-19T08:44:00.000+08:00

Students at this school learn in a lap of luxury. The decor, graceful lighting and the air conditioners made the learning environment appealing. Everybody wants to learn in that environment, if possible.
And it did make everybody want to learn. The class I visited was seventh grade. It's a girl's class. Most of them were not only strongly motivated but also very proficient in the English language. For example, the English teacher went about her lectures in English and students found it a breeze. While being asked to answer questions, students came across as being confident responding in English. Even a couple of them were able to verbally produce some advanced terms such as "forbidden city" or "sphinx." That truly amazed me! I didn't even know "sphinx" until my college years!
Amid great participation and good command in the target language, I somehow sensed peer pressure among the class. The teacher was helping her students learn "present perfect tense" via sentence patterns with blanks to fill in on the slides. There were a few students who volunteered to give a response, and there were those who were given a cold call. Each student would be standing before presenting an answer based on the sentence structure. Some did well and immediately got the answer; some did not and waited and saw how other classmates gave an appropriate answer. I hence assumed that the teacher's intention of doing so was to encourage the climate of mutual learning, which sounded quite effective. However, one single incidence occurred and I was very shocked and was not happy about that. Let me tell you what happened:
As the whole class were practicing the sentence pattern "I have been to + a country/city name," most of them did well and quickly by responding like, say, "I have been to Japan." One student, sitting in the first row, was called and had a hard time making her own sentence. Obviously, that student's proficiency was a bit below the average. At that moment, I held my breadth and prayed that she could do okay as well. Then, that student said, "I have been to Taiwan." The class laughed, and the teacher furthered by asking her whether or not she has ever visited a country or city overseas. "If not, what about a city in Taiwan, say, Kaohsiung or Tainan?" the teacher continued. Then the student replied, "I have been to Tainan." Out of the blue, I heard one student utter out, "好爛喔(That sucks!)." Oh, my goodness! I looked at my classmates sitting next to me and confirmed if I truly heard anything like that. My classmates said they heard that sentence too. I was really shocked and felt a bit sad and irritated.
I am not sure if the teacher heard that awful comment. She didn't say anything about that. If she did hear that, she should really say something. As to the student who gave that "destructive criticism," she might still be learning how to respect people's ideas and give encouragement instead of poking fun at others like that. Once again, I saw the necessity of character education amongst a class of highly-motivated and language proficient students.
I always feel that when we are better than others, we should be much more humble, rather than being pushy and arrogant. However, that's the most difficult "subject" to master. Even today's political leaders mostly "fail the subject and get flunked." That's where interpersonal problems start to kick in.

Helpful ICT presentation

2006-05-09T20:34:00.000+08:00

Today's group presentation on Information Communication Technology (ICT) was a hit! Congratulations!
I personally learned a lot from their demonstrations of Yahoo Groups, Hot Potato, and IWiLL. All the three online instructional tools hold different features and have different functions for various purposes. Teachers can definitely choose from a wide variety of these tools to best accommodate their own teaching and students' learning.
Thank you again, for Lisa, Lin, and Virginia.

The sky's the limit...

2006-05-03T11:20:00.000+08:00

My instructor at "Adolescent Psychology" class brought me food for thought. He reminded us of the importance of having farsightedness for our own future--the sky's the limit.
Many of us are at the teacher training program, which means after school practicum, we'll be out there striving for our teaching position. Now this high school teaching market has been saturated. Fewer and fewer openings are left for those would-be teachers. After listening to my instructor's words, I also started to think about more than being just a teacher. "There should be more I could do," I pondered.
Many of my college classmates keep pursuing their master's degrees in business. Some of them immediately got into this corporate world and were doing quite well. Sometimes I think it might be fun to work in a corporate world. Well, it might just be my flights of fantasy. Literally getting involved might be a different story. However, what I admire is that they're going through this rites of passage--they have experiences and these invaluable experiences could help them grow and make better decisions on their next life stage. They're out there exploring a wide range of possibilities of their own future career.
As the saying goes, "The sky's the limit." It means there's no limit. My career options should not only be high school teaching, even though that's something I enjoy doing a lot.
If you're reading this article and are grappling with your future career life, you definitely want to also take my words as food for thought. Wish all of you out there good luck and remember, the sky's the limit...

An enlightening reading and writing class

2006-05-03T11:03:00.000+08:00

Always, reading seems to be a very personal activity. It's the internal talk between a reader and a writer. Teaching a person how to read is almost impossible. Therefore, reading is the last thing I want to teach, if possible!
But my view changed as Alice introduced and demonstrated a new way of approaching teaching reading (sounds mouthful with lots of -ing!). Basically, Alice grasped the primary spirit of reading--a personal internal activity. Humans read on their own and comprehend out of the written texts. What makes teaching reading different, in Alice's approach, relies much on those follow-up activities, including scrambling storyline, writing up a summary, drawing fishbone diagrams, etc. Those activities, in my mind's eye, truly make reading class more intriguing and much much more relevant to writing. It's like killing two birds with one stone, isn't it?
A lot of times students complain about not knowing what to write; well, write what they read! Write up a summary or a personal reflection! Alice's approach definitely caters to the worries of those students.
And Alice's approach caters to my lack of knowledge of how to teach reading!

My second school visit at 中山女子高級中學

2006-04-26T10:23:00.000+08:00

Stephanie has the best teaching job in the world! Her students took charge of 80% of the class session. Group after group, the students stood behind the electronic podium presenting the products for auction. Slide after slide, the students introduced their products, presented significance of the products, reminded audience of the target prices when at the last moment, a sales logo—WHY NOT BUY IT NOW—popped up in upper case and in bold face. Afterwards, other groups who were not on stage made group evaluations based on a scale of point 1 to point 5.
Particularly I noticed that each student, whether or not she was the presenter or the listener, was attentive to the speaker. Rarely did anyone chat during the presentation session. When the presenter cracked a joke, everyone laughed. When the presenter had difficulties producing the language, everyone seemed supportive. “Rapport” is the exact word in that context. Everybody showed decent respect for one another’s hard work and creativity in the presentation slides. What’s even more interesting was that a sudden glimpse of Stephanie made me realize the teacher was so attentive to the presentation that at one point, she was like a student. What I mean is that everybody in this class is on equal ground. It’s a context for sharing as well as idea exchanges. Every single member was appreciated, respected, and supported by one another.
In terms of the context for learning, I truly believe that there’s almost no drawback. Both the teacher and her students learned something, and both sides had the time of their lives. If I could exclude the concern for time limit, I would say it’d be the best to allow each group time for brief oral comments on other groups’ presentations. For example, students could talk about the effects of the slide shows based on the order or the color of presentation. Another one could be on students’ body language (e.g., eye contact, voice tone, etc.). I think these basic presentation skills would help those students who need to present their math and science projects some time during their high school years.
Students at ChungShang Girl’s Senior High School are blessed. They have an edge over many other high school kids on this island. Students’ average competence and campus resources are a few steps ahead. However, these are not at all main factors that make them have an edge over others. I believe that all lie in the teachers’ courage to make a difference and students’ good self-discipline to hold themselves accountable for learning. Personally I teach freshmen listening course at Tamkang University. Beginning from this semester, I schedule part of every class session for student presentation. I do not worry so much about students’ limited English oral proficiency than I’m concerned about the rapport and respect. Some of my freshmen students don’t seem to understand the value of showing rapport and respect when listening to others’ presentations. That’s what sometimes drives me up a wall. Therefore, my visit at one of the most well-known girl’s high schools in Taipei does shed new lights on why students at the school excel and have an edge over others.

Life is a gift

2006-04-14T22:35:00.000+08:00

I feel so touched as I heard the song "Life is a Gift" today from my daily Enlgish radio program. I love the message the lyrics bring. It kinda goes like this,

Life is a gift, life is a gift,
A gift from God, a gift from above.
It is so wonderful,
Don't throw it away;
It is so precious,
Treasure it every day.

I'm not trying to make everybody a Christian. But such a faith can bring people peace and a love for life. It can bring people different perspectives in the time of predicament. I hope the song is contagious. All the teachers are contagious in terms of positive and constructive attitude toward life, and our students will follow similarly!

My first school visit at 芳和國中

2006-04-13T08:22:00.000+08:00

In terms of effective teaching, the school we first visited (芳和國中) provides the nearest optimal context for both students and teachers. The size of the school and the number of student population lead me to believe that any teacher in this school could possibly cater to each student’s needs. Hereby, every member seems to be happy.
As the school principal addressed at our meeting, students in this school come from varying family backgrounds. Different backgrounds directly or indirectly result in various learning styles and learning competence. Therefore, it’s extremely crucial to track each student’s learning pace and give a boost on that pace appropriately. There is something for overachievers, and there is something for underachievers as well. The nicest part lies in that everybody has an ultimate goal in the end whatever the process is. Based on this understanding, I start to realize that things are changing nowadays. Secondary educators are making a lot more progress than those in the past. They’re becoming more patient, more professional, more caring, and more loving to our next generations to come. I’m really glad to know that.
Now let’s switch the discussion to the practicum section in this school. I observed Emily’s class. To start with, I am impressed with how amiable Emily is. She’s just like her students’ sister but amid that, there’s a sign of authority as she’s talking with her class. Students are quite respectful. Though students’ motivation was not at high peaks throughout the whole class, yet they were not too noisy and naughty. I always believe that classroom learning ambience is important. Naughty behaviors, if not corrected, can often lead to misery for those who want to be attentive in class.
Emily’s class was primarily teacher-centered. She guided the class to first review learned grammar points and sentence structures. Then they had a class quiz on sentence translation. It was during the quiz that I saw how Emily catered to each individual’s learning needs. She walked around and offered necessary helps for those who were underachievers. There were two male students sitting in the back of the classroom. Be it laziness or lack of competence, they sat there staring in the sky, leaving the quiz sheets blank until Emily approached them and had them open up the textbook to look for hints. However, time limit made it impossible for Emily to be with the two male students all around and tutor them one by one. As Emily walked away, both stopped looking for hints and became non-motivated again.
Later, as we asked Emily about how she dealt with the situation, she replied that she needed to schedule some other time to talk and tutor the two male students. Apparently, they’re not motivated at all in terms of learning. And as a teacher, it’s really unwise to force them to learn. That’s why Emily never asked the two students to do as well as the other classmates did. She oftentimes gave them simpler questions, chunk by chunk, hoping that this approach would gradually arouse their interests in learning.
On my way back, I thought the issue over and over. I might end up teaching in a much bigger class than Emily’s. If there are several students like the two male students aforementioned, what approach I should take to deal with it? Maybe I could copy Emily’s approach. Or maybe I could make my classroom more learner-centered. As students all mingle with one another to solve a given problem in class, they might start to realize how important learning is to them and motivation would start to grow in the process.

Vamos de compras en el centro comercial (we go shopping at one department store)

2006-04-03T06:40:00.000+08:00

We all relished in yesterday's Spanish class. It was a cloudy afternoon, but no rain. After shopping at 新光三越 Department Store, we headed to Helen Coffee for an afternoon tea and talked about political history in Spain. It might sound quite serious to many, but it's very thought-provoking.
Well, political history is not the main point. The one I relished and appreicated most was our shopping. We went window shopping, actually! Since our previous class were about clothes and buying clothes (shoes included) in Spain, our teacher (Luis) took seven of us to the department store to literally shop!! Many passersby stared at us as we're using Spanish for communication. Kinda weird, isn't it? But it's really interesting. And the department clerks didn't seem to be bothered while we're there talking about the color and the price of their clothing items.
That's the advantage of having a small class. The teacher could possibly take the students out of the classroom and do something that'll require all the learners put their target language into use. What a creative idea! Maybe next time you could also try to do the same with your English classes!

Origin of "it rains cats and dogs"

2006-03-29T08:56:00.000+08:00

One day, it poured somewhere in the world. The next day when the pouring rain stopped, people came out of their houses and surprisingly saw lots of dead corpses of cats and dogs. These cats and dogs had been drowned because of the pouring rain last night. So, people thought that it had rained cats and dogs last night.
This idiomatic expression, "it rains cats and dogs," is later used to describe really heavy rains.
Another rain-related expression in English is "When it rains, it pours." This expression is used to describe a situation when everything goes smoothly as suddenly something bad or shocking takes place all at once. For example, "My family has been all well for a week, but we all got sick now. When it rains, it pours!"

Do we see the core essence of education? At least people in Finland do.

2006-03-24T16:47:00.000+08:00

If you read recent newspapers, you may read about education in Finland. That's what I have done recently.
Education in Finland is autonomous, inspirational, enlightening and most important of all, perseverant. What do I mean by "perseverant?" Well, all educators in Finland hold this belief of "having no-one lag behind" philosophy. In other words, they value each individual. Every adult tries his or her best to cater to each single kid's needs in learning. I really admire how they perceive education. Unlike Taiwan, people in Finland are seeing the core essence of education.
Back to Taiwan and let's examine our way of perceiving education. Many teachers, though they're passionate about lifting up those stray kids, become worn out after some try. I always feel sad upon seeing that happen. But I don't put blames for the teacher. They're human beings, and they can get tired too. Whether or not we're able to enlighten our next generation to learn depends not only on teachers but also on the general public, parents, political leaders, etc. Sadly, many of those people let us down. Mass media are always reporting negative side of the society. Many parents never truly understand the value of whole person education. Political leaders are only thinking for the sake of their own benefits. Rarely do they stand among the public and say something encouraging to all of us. What presents in front of our next generation is nothing more than fighting, argument, and sarcasm. To be honest, I really don't admire any one of them, and I feel ashamed of most of political leaders in Taiwan.
If one day most of our population move to countries where education is highly valued, our government should not put them to blame. They should examine what they've done to get these people out of this country.
Though I sound quite pessimistic, still I'm optimistic. At least I know some teachers will still be in the battlefield and continue bringing more and more stray kids back. For those teachers, I want to say "thank you all." You are true heroes, and those political leaders should learn something from you all.

Everything comes alive in today's listening

2006-03-21T20:00:00.000+08:00

I really enjoyed today's listening group presentation. All the handouts, powerpoint slides, and props featured very authentic ambience. The decor of dining table in a restaurant was wonderful! Everything seemed to come alive!!
As everybody agreed, time control would be a big problem in real-life classrooms. At that point, I guess teachers would need to break up all the activities into different class sessions.
The other thing I came up with is teacher's demonstration prior to role-play. We had four teachers co-teaching today. What about in regular classrooms? There's usually only one teacher, who cannot possibly be four characters at the same time. In that situation, how could demonstration be achieved (I personally think demonstration is very important)?

A lesson from a mom and a boy on MRT

2006-03-19T20:08:00.000+08:00

"No, please don't! My boy is no longer a kid. He can stand right next to me," a mother said to me on MRT as I was ready to give my seat to her boy.
Dead tired, I took MRT home from downtown Taipei after my Spanish class. I was half asleep and half awake in a seat. Suddenly, a family of three came in and the 8-year-old boy (I guess) almost took a tumble. I saw him and was ready to give him the seat. At the moment, her mom stopped me from doing so. I could see that she didn't want her son to be pampered. For her, her son has grown up and he can stand there as all the other adults do. I felt awkward at first, but later learned that the mom did a wonderful job!
She's teaching her son something. She gave him a lesson that not everybody in the world will give you something sweet. You've got to learn something and know how to give as well. From her facial expression, this mom was very very firm about me not giving her son my seat.
Fortunately, the boy didn't make a scene. He quietly obeyed his mom. A couple of minutes later, as the train stopped at another station, the two seats right oppposite were left available. The mom took her son to the seats. Soon, the mom slept like a baby, and her son was playing game on a cell phone.
I don't know, but I just feel that the mom was truly setting a good example for her son. When something is not ours, we don't need to go for it with all our might. But when something belongs to us, it will come along. No need to go for it...

Autonomy still beats everything...

2006-03-13T21:59:00.000+08:00

I think both the teacher and the students should build up that interdependent relationship when it comes to learning. Of course, the main entity is our students. They're the ones who have this urgent need to learn and gain basic knowledge on a variety of different subjects. Teachers are primariy helpers (or facilitators) who design activities that trigger learning motive. Therefore, the nurture of learners' autonomy becomes extremely important.
However, it's kinda unfortunate to see that nowadays, even college kids do not seem to understand the importance of autonomous learning. I was reading a piece of news the other day and learned that half of our college students in Taiwan spend less than one hour studying per day. How shocking it is! Obviously, our learning autonomy expectation doesn't work as thought.
So, developing students' autonomy in high school years becomes an important task. Students should learn to be diligent and self-interested, but not lazy!!
In terms of language learning, I guess I'd try my very best to have my class listen, speak, read, and write as much as possible. Besides the regular English input from me, if possible, students should be guided to use English for communication and negotiation. Activities can be designed to prompt reading something and maybe writing something down. I believe the whole process will ensure the best quality of learning, rather than listening to my lectures all along.

Teaching as a craft

2006-03-07T19:57:00.000+08:00

I wouldn't use the term, "top-notch," to describe our practicum this afternoon. But it was not poor in quality either. After last week's discussion, all our group members have understood how we're going to go about the process. I do appreciate Grace and Helen's hard work. The making of e-handouts and flashcards is truly valuable handcrafts, filled with love and enthusiasm.
Of course, handcrafts are not without flaws. They're objects far from perfect. Handcrafts are tools that help a speaker show and tell. I noticed that as Helen took out those handcrafts and post them onto the board, the class were captured! However, Helen might be a bit nervous, so she wasn't aware that she could've done her job better via inviting students to help her complete word spellings.
Furthermore, the interactive T-S role play wasn't as satisfying. Our original plan was to have students voluntarily help fill in the blanks by orally saying aloud a word. But things turned out to be that the teacher was in total control. She picked up certain students to say the words out loud. Upon completion, it might be important, too, to have the whole class go through the T-S-created dialogue again.
I'm sure we all learn some lessons from this one-hour presentation. When we're teaching, we're making a craft out of our hands, our thought. Our accompanying handcrafts help, but our heart and composure play an even bigger part. I really appreciate the hard work my group members have performed, but I guess we all need to let that experience teaches us how to teach as a craft.

My presentation ...

2006-03-07T19:35:00.000+08:00

In the beginning, I thought it shouldn't be too challenging. As I pushed myself up onto the stage, faced a host of my peers, and started my lecture talk, I felt differently. No doubt, subtle nervousness came to me and occasionally, I made slips of tongue. Then, gradually, things got better. I was happy to be aware of that my tone was by no means monotonous! My class did not get sleepy syndrome at that moment (well, some did, but not too many).
The experience made me think about one article featuring how to avoid putting your audience to sleep. One comment on that article states the importance of making analogies that are relevant to real-life situations (hence your audience might appreciate how close that analogy is to their own lives). The commentator exemplified this idea by drawing a relationship between learning English and learning how to ride a bicycle. When riding a bike, one needs sufficient equipment, such as a bike, pedals, good hand brakes, and perseverant drive. Like English learning, one needs good environment, good resources, and of course, perseverant drive to hang in there. Once the analogy is established, the speaker went back to the main theme of that talk--tips on learning English. How fascinating!!
Maybe I should have thought of similar analogy to start my presentation. And during the talk, proper use of boardwork might enhance my peers' attention span. Asking questions to quest for interaction is another good idea as well.
Anyway, my presentation has "gone with the wind," but the good news is that the wind left some invisible footprints for me to grapple with. What a loving trial and error!

Teaching philosophy

2006-02-23T09:50:00.000+08:00

Anyone would say how cool it is to have a knowledgeable, scholarly, loving, caring, and patient teacher. It seems that people set high expectations for their ideal teachers. Yes, it's truly nice to have a teacher of this kind!
In a short, a teacher should be a well-rounded person. I won't say I'm that kind of teacher presently, but I do look forward to becoming a well-rounded teacher. My idea is that a well-rounded teacher not only brings happiness to students but also passes on inspiring life lessons. Take language teaching for example, besides teaching the language structures, I expect myself to be a teacher who understands the langauge cultures. And just understanding language cultures doesn't seem enough either! The more important task is to trigger students' cultural appreciation capability and if necessary, to form personal critical perspectives on culture differences.
Deep down, I truly believe the most valuable asset I can leave to my students is the ability to think for themselves, instead of just going along with the crowd. Only at the point will students be intrinsicly motivated to explore more on their own.
But don't forget, all that requires the teacher's constant enthusiasm, scholarly knowledge, and a loving heart.

Good sites

2006-02-22T16:34:00.000+08:00

Language audio:
1. 空中英語教室 http://www.studioclassroom.com
2. 愛樂電台 http://www.e-classical.com.tw

Libraries:
1. 國家圖書館 http://www.ncl.edu.tw
2. 淡江大學圖書館 http://www.lib.tku.edu.tw

Travel and cultures:
1. Taiwan in English http://202.39.225.132/jsp/Eng/html/search/index.jsp
2. Jane Austin's House http://www.janeaustenmuseum.org.uk
3. Bronner's Christmas store in Michigan http://www.bronners.com

Hello

2006-02-22T16:00:00.000+08:00

Welcome to Gabe's blog spot!