My experience of using blog

I wrote Chinese journals in blog to write down what happednd in my life before using Blogger this semester. This was my first time to use a blog to write down and do reflection on what I have learned in class. I wrote about three journals each week. There are more than 25 posts on my blog till the end of the semester. I wrote down my thoughts, experience and criticlal thinking of technology I have used. Theses journals are valuable to me. When memories fade away, these journals will remind me of what type technology might be useful for a particular setting.

As a prospective Chinese teacher, I may have students at intermediate to advanced level write weekly journal on the blog. I could take blog writing as the free-writing assignment. Students can write whatever they want to write, and I give them comments mainly focusing on meaning instead of forms. I could also invite my friend who is teaching EFL in China to join me. That way, American students who are learning Chinese and Chinese students who are learning English can correct each other’s journals. Student may easily get motivated to write when they know there are audiences looking forward to reading their writings. I believe this will be a good way to do free-writing and language-exchange by using blog.

'Makeuseof', a new method of editing photos in to comics

As teachers, we frequently find us in need of making interesting pictures, no matter in powerpoints used in classes or in handouts, to help students keep being interested and focusing in class. However, other than powerpoints, we don't actually have much of option to manipulate pictures. Now I have found a new method to do so: 'Makeuseof'. 


'Makeuseof' is a website that helps people to create comic strips out of their own photographs; enhance photo effects; add speech bubbles and text; and embed ready comics onto blogs or social networking profiles. 


To do so, it is fairly simple. All you need to do is register on their website: makeuseof.com; and start editing your photos as you like. There are many projects that are very interesting for teachers to do with the help with the website and present in class. For example: the teachers may keep the habit of taking pictures of their students when they are taking apart in course activities and presentations. At the end of the class, the teacher may choose one picture about each student and make all the photos into comics or video clips and present it to the students. Maybe the teacher can even post the video on websites, like 'youtube', so the parents of the teachers may appreciate it together with the students. 


To sum up, this new website: 'Makeuseof' is able to help teachers to edit photographs, make comics, and even make video clips. Therefore, it can be great help for teachers to keep their classrooms interesting by presenting funny pictures. 

Second life, might not be that suitable for teachers after all

The on-line 'game' Second Life has generated a huge fuss among people. Due to the nature of being a language teacher, I naturally considered the possibility of integrating this software to my teaching process through some approach. Therefore, I started my own experience in Second Life, only to find results that are not that optimistic. 


I have to agree that the introduction videos about Second Life is very cool. Just think about the fact you are able to experience the world without even going into the world is very exciting. After a rather simple design and tutorial about how to walk around, chat, sit and fly (!!) in the world, I directly started my exploration. 


The first impression of mine about this game is that it is not as easy to get started as you may imagine. One of the main concepts in the game is to communicate with other people. This is actually a great point that can be integrated into foreign language education. However, when I start talking to other virtual people, I was not responded warmly. The reason is rather simple, people tend to be less bounded by the morality in the virtual universe, and thus are more cautious about conversation with each other. 


The second thing I noticed about this game is that the lagging is quite problematic. The internet speed in my house is not very fast, so the problem might got aggravated. I wonder if other people are experiencing the same problem. However, judging from the animation in the welcome videos, everyone might be facing the same problem. It it not logical to require a free online software to be as fluent as a PC game that is from a disc or downloaded to the local computer. The only point here is that it might not be easy for students to use this program to practice language. 


In summary, I would like to say that Second Life might be a good choice is the goal is to relax and kill time, but it was not designed to meet the needs of educational purposes. Having students going into Second Life community to practice language might seem like an interesting idea in the beginning, but turns out suffering from serious problems mentioned above, beside the possibility of getting addicted to it and abandon study, which is the last thing we would like to see. 

Pixton: the World's best way to make comics

Everybody likes comics. From the most famous 'The Simpsons' to the nerdy type 'P.H.D', different kinds of comics are appreciated by different group of people. Integrating comics into classes in a very interesting idea, but not a practical one, considering the amount of work and effort one need to put into. But not now anymore!

The appearance of Pixton has changed almost everything we know about this field. Pixton brings the techniques that were normally used by profession people in the comics field to ordinary lives, and makes comic-drawing much easier than before. 


As can seen in the demo on Pixton's website, after a simple online registration process, you can get right started with the comic production process. The first things you might want to set for the whole comics is probably the main characters. The website has provided many different types of characters for your choice. If you are not satisfied with any of them, it is totally fine to start fresh and build your own characters from scratch. The best part of this software is that the characters are built in part and thus these parts can be reused easily in the future production. Therefore, you will be experiencing something that you can never get with paper and pencils. 



The website has integrate lots of functions to make your creation process easier. Many of the functions, like enlarging, rotation, are well known by people while using other software, like powerpoints. Thus, it is very easy to get started with. 


Imagine this, the students from a Mandarin course come to the class with their projects on drawing a full set of comics with all the conversation between the characters in Mandarin and present it to each other. In the process where they may read the comics drawn by each other, they are also reading Mandarin which is embedded in the conversation between characters. How cool is that! 

Skype: the education is just one click away

Skype, as a software for phone calls and communicating with friends, has been well know by people all over the world. It is probably one of the largest on-line communities for people to stay connected. Also, websites that provide online education services, particularly language education, for students and teachers have been introducing skype as one of the main communication tools between teachers and students. This idea has been carried out extremely successfully. 

However, the new program by Skype, Skype in the classroom, which is specifically designed for education, is not well known by people. This program, 'Skype in the classroom' is a free global community that invites teachers to collaborate on class projects where they mgiht use Skype, and share skills and inspiration around specific teaching needs. Teachers can easily join this community after the simple log-in process with the Skype account they already have. Afterwards, they are allowed to post any thing they maybe looking for help about online, and people will be able to see and perhaps respond.

The requests are in the project section. Right now, there are altogether 1941 teachers involved in the community and 28000 projects have been founded. Browsing the project names, you will be surprised to see how diverse the topics may be. It can range all the way from looking for people from Honduras to Skype with and learn about their lifestyle, to finding people to Skype with to understand how the weather condition in a particular region may impact their lives, to 7th grade New Jersey history class teacher interviewing people for the perspectives on the civil war. For each project, the request is specified for class or any individual person; the student ages, category of the subject and the communication language to avoid confusion. 

In summary, the program 'Skype in the classroom' is very helpful and beneficial for teachers looking for help that maybe found online. As a perspective teacher, I strongly encourage any one that might be involved to get look into this program and hopefully benefit from it. 

Classroom 2.0: a free, community-supported network

Classroom 2.0 is an excellent website for teachers who work in this technological society.
This website is a free, community-supported network. It's not only a supportive comfortable place for beginners to start using Web. 2.0, soial media and participative technologies in classroom setting, but also help educators who have been familiar with technology share experience and get new ideas. Users can find interesting discussions by tools (such as Google earth and PowerPoint), by subjects (such as arts, math, and foreign languages) and by areas (like elementary, Pre-K, and professional development).

One of the technological problems I did not know how to solve is that how to download Youtube videos. There are tons of great videos on Youtube.com which can be perfectly used in teaching. However, Youtube.com is blocked in some schools. Also, even though some schools can have access to Youtube.com, it's always safer to download the videos ahead of time. To seek for the solution to my problem, I typed two key words "Youtube, download" in the search bar of Classroom 2.0. To my surprise, there were a list of answers poping out. Some teachers suggested a website called Zamzar. I tried it and found that it is an amazing website. I just needed to paste the URL of the video, choose the format I prefer and leave my email address. After haft a minute, Zamzar sent me the converted video and I could easily download it.

If your problem has not been asked by other teachers, you could post your own questions on Classroom 2.0. I believe that there will be many experts willing to help out. I love Classroom 2.0, and I will definitely keep using it.

Lore: another excellent free "blackboard"

When this website was introduced by Mimi and Anna for the first time, its name was Coursekit. Now, it has a new name: Lore. Although I like the old name better, the convenience the website provides stays the same. I remember that when I student taught in a high school last semester, one day, my cooperation teacher looked depressed and asked me if there is anyway she could upload assignments' instruction and everyday's powerpoint slides so that students could download them for review. I asked her why the school did not provide students and teachers with the class management system like "Blackboard" used by NYU. My CT told me that due to budget cuts, the school cannot afford this kind of class management system any more. We tried different websites, but none of them was designed for classroom education. As a result, we were not satisfied with any of them. From then on, I noticed that how important a free class management system it is! After Anna and Mimi introduced several wonderful websites like Lore to us, I sent my CT an email and shared what I learned in the class. After trying out two of them, my CT called me and said she was so excited to find such useful websites!

I chose Lore to use for my own class. I am teaching in a language school at weekends. Every week, I teach kids Chinese songs, and we watch Chinese vedio together. Parents usually ask me if I can send teaching materials to them so that they can help kids review them. Although I would like to share all the teaching materials with them, I cannot say "ok, no problem". The reason is that some files are to big to be sent by emails. Now, I upload all the textbooks I use, songs I teach and many other stuff on Lore. Parents can easily download these documents. In addition, some of my adult students use Lore as a good community to discuss their learning experience with others.

In a word, as a teacher, I really benefit from using Lore. I want to thank my educators for introducing such a fantastic tool to us!

ePortfolios, a new perfect form of resume

Students are always facing the problems of finding the perfect way to present their resume, once they come to the end of campus life and start looking into their opportunities in the society. There have been endless efforts made in the process of designning the perfect resume. However, the appearance of ePortolios saves countless efforts and time of future students in terms of writing their resumes and present themselves.

The website of ePortolios basically provides people with a platform of designning their websites to introduce their personalities, educational backgrounds, goals, and almost anything else they like to present. There are many advantages of using this website comparing with conventional ways of writing resumes.

Firstly, it is easy for people to get know you before they actually have the chance of meeting you in person, and it is much simpler to carry around. Consider the situation below: if you are in California, while there is a job in Massachusettes that you are very interested in. Instead of sending over a word file writing everything about you in paper, it is so much better if you are able to send over just one simple link, so the recruiting people can know almost everything about you and see if you are a good fit.

Furthermore, many students, for example those majoring in arts and education, are required to provide materials that are very hard to present in conventional resumes. The platform of ePortofolios provides so much better opportunities to present materials, like art works, and videos of teaching in class.

However, it is equally important to realize that the website is not as useful if people are not able to design their website professionally and with highlights. I have come across some websites with lots and lots words in it, while almost no figures about anything. It becomes very exhausting and not much different from traditional resumes in that sense.

In summary, ePortofolios definitely provide people better chances to present themselves and get hired. However, people need to pay attentions what they put on the website: they need to make sure that it is attracting as well as professional.

Everybody can be from New York

People always say that it is best to learn from the most authentic environments. However, as we discussed before, it is always hard to overcomes the difficulties, both financial and time related, to create such environments for all learners. 'We Are New York' provides such excellent environments to aid language learners. 


As the project says on the website, 'We Are New York' is an Emmy Award-winning half hour TV show created to help people practice English. Each story highlights important and realistic situations, like go seeing to the doctor or talking with a professor. The stories capture the spirit of people who have come from all over the world that have made the Big Apple their home. The characters speak every day English, but at a slower pace. They also provide subtitles to help facilitate understanding of sentence formation and context. 


The project, 'We Are New York' uses conversation groups throughout the five boroughs to help immigrant New Yorkers practice English and learn about helpful City services. These groups are led by volunteers who are trained by the We Are New York staff. 


Besides all these TV shows people can watch, this project also provides opportunities for ESL learner to practice speaking English with volunteers from New York City for free. Detailed schedules can be found on their website. If ESL learners are able to make full use of all these features of this project, I am sure that they will benefit a lot during the process.  

Digital Stories

It is in a workshop for developing Chinese teacher in the US that I got to know how to use digital stories to teach languages. The presenter in that workshop showed us the video on the left hand side. This vedio was about the Latern Festival in China.  Since the objective of this course was to review different colors and learn the structure "color + item", there were many phrases such as "red latern", "green latern", "yellow latern", "grey latern" and so on. When a yellow latern appeared, the words "yellow latern" were sounded out. Different pictures enabled the drills not boring at all.
I once used this digital stories to teach kids after the workshop. After watching the video, kids could be able to figure out the structure "color + item". Also, since words were associated with images, students remembered the words very firmly.

After the first successful experience of using digital stories, I made quite a few digital stories myself. The reason why I made stories myself was that I was not quite satisfied with some textbooks, particularlly some textbooks for children. Those textbooks usually lack picutres, and therefore it's hard to attrat children's attention and interests. Even though some textbooks have some pictures, what I desired was to have each sentence or phrase correspond to each picture, which was hard to be realized. Thanks to digital stories, I can create my own textbooks. There are tons of amazing picutres accessible online, and I can select whatever I want to make the digital stories. Sometimes I even invite my friends to read the scripts, and my students are always excited to hear different voices. I really enjoy creating digital stories and also using them to teach students. Of coures, students love them as well.

QuestGarden: where great WebQuests grow

To be honest, I did not know anything about WebQuests until professors introduced QuestGarden to the class. After exploring QuestGaren, I was really impressed with tons of well-designed, thought-provoking and creative WebQuests, which can undoubtedly help our students deepen the understanding of what they have learned, develop research skills and critical thinking. Generally speaking, each WebQuest has six parts: introduction, task, process, resources, evaluation and conclusion.

In the part of introduction, teachers provide the description of the project students are going to finish. In the part of procss, teachers list the necessary procedures students need to go through in order to finish the project. I think this part is very important, because the list of procedures could guide students and enables them to be on the right track. The third part is resources, where teachers provide students with the websites they might use in the process of doing research. These websites are examined by teachers, therefore, the value of which for the project is guaranteed. Students only need to browse the websites recommended by teachers, and much time that might be spent in searching for information will be saved as a result. In the part of evaluation, teachers usually post a detailed rubric, which helps students to assess their work during the whole process. Overall, WebQuests can stimulate students' creativity and critical thinking. In the meanwhile, what they have done with the project are guided by teachers.

In addition, although it will take a lot of efforts to create WebQuests, teachers can use the WebQuest each year for different students after creating a WebQuest at WebGarden.One of my friend, who is teaching history in China, told me that he and his colleagues had started to use WebQuests to teach. Students really learned a lot in the process of doing WebQuests. I believe that more and more students will benefit WebQuests.

'Friends', a practice material for speaking English that never fade away (2)

In the last blog, I talked about my own experiences using 'Friends' as a supplementary material to improve listening and speaking, together with some of the suggestions to ESL teachers. Here I would like to argue about why I still think that 'Friends' is a good practice material for student. 


Some people may argue that this material is no more helpful or even a bit weird considering the whole show ended more than 10 years ago. However, if we look back in the lines in the show and think carefully: has English evolved that much during the past ten years? I agree there are new words generated everyday. I would not assume that some one knows about tweeter ten years ago, however, this has nothing whatsoever to do with helping ESL students learning English. It is the most basic and fundamental idioms and phrases that are used by ordinary Americans everyday that ESL students have problems with, not the fancy new words. On the contrary, they might know these new words better considering they have more access to what is generate in their ages. 


If judging by this rule, it is very simple for us to rule out many famous shows that some people might consider for the same purposes. 'House' is indeed a good show, and I like it a lot. However, with too many medical terms and jargon, it is very difficult for students to follow and pick out the ordinary-life conversations that are truly useful for them, let alone about the fact that I am not sure if everyone will like this arrogant, cranky, weird-looking doctor House. (no offense, I am still a huge fan of his, and it is killing me hearing that the show is coming to an end). For the same reason, we can rule out 'Grey's Anatomy'. Detective shows are also very popular, such as 'Castle' and 'White collar'. There is nothing wrong using them, but considering each show is about 40-50 minutes long, and most of the time the actors are following leads trying to crack some case, they might be better materials for students to have fun and relax themselves instead of trying to learn English with. 


In general, I would say that sit-com, like 'Friends', are usually better choices for fulfilling this purpose. 'Hot in Cleveland', 'Modern Family', or even 'Desperate Housewives' are all fine choices. With proper use and careful designs, I am sure that ESL teachers will be able to make the best use of all these materials and help their students improving their listening and speaking. Hopefully they will do better in English than Joey did in speaking French, Ross in playing electric piano, Monica in controlling her temper, Chandler in restraining himself from bad jokes, Phoebe in playing guitar, and Rachael in playing football...

'Friends', a practice material for speaking English that never fade away (1)

When I was in my senior year in college, preparing for TOEFL test, this show 'Friends' was recommended to me as a supplementary material to practice speaking English. I watched the whole ten seasons, once, twice and three times. Before watching this show, my TOEFL score was around 8,90; and it becomes 106 afterwards. I would not think that it is fair to say that this improvement is wholly due to watching this tv show, but I do think that it helped out big time. Many people nowadays find it useless or even weird to go back to this show which ended ten years ago, but I don't agree. Here is how I practice speaking and listening with this material, and why I think it still helps. 


I bought these the whole set of dvd from a seller, and I watched them on my laptop. The first time when I watched it, I had both the Chinese and English subtitle one, such that I can understand what is going on. It was easy and fun, which is nothing much different from watching TV series in Chinese. The second time was a lot more difficult. I had the Chinese subtitle removed, while still leaving the English subtitle on. This time, I tried to understand each sentence the actors and the actresses were talking. There are numerous idioms and phrases that I didn't understand yet would simply ignore if not checking so carefully. That is when I actually starts to learn the phrases, like 'let's play it by the ear', or 'I am just pulling your leg'. It always takes me a lot of time after each episode to look up phrases in dictionary and internet. The third time becomes easy again. I will still have the English subtitle one, but this time, I will try to read out loud the lines together with the actor. It was not easy at the beginning, but became much easier once I got used to it. 


It was not easy to go through all these three procedures, and I don't think it is appropriate for each ESL teacher to ask their students to repeat. However, there are certain lessons we are able to learn. Firstly, it is much more useful to ask students to watch one episode three times than to watch three different episodes one time. Secondly, during the second time of watching, students should focus on the details of the lines each actors say. ESL teachers can ask their students to write down what they have learned and share in class. Finally, during the third time of watching, students should follow the lead of the actors and actually say the lines out loud, which helps their speaking a lot. Another possible task ESL teachers may assign at this stage is actually asking a group of students to act out a few scenes or even the whole episode in front of the class. There is no need to focus on the details of acting, but repeating the lines should be the main point of this task. 


These are my own procedures of using this material, and some suggestions to the ESL teachers. In the next passage, I will be talking about why, to me, this material seems to be the most appropriate one in terms of improving English. 

Epals: World's Largest K-12 Social Learning Network!

For every foreign language teacher, there is a problem that has always been torturing and haunting them: how to make what students directly use what they have learned in classroom in the real life? There are some answers to it. Some teachers choose to make up conversations between students. In the process of listening, understanding, and responding to each other's words, students are able to learn foreign languages. Some teachers turn to the help of summer camps: by taking students where the language was originally from, students are presented with precious chances of talking to people speaking that language as mother tongue. However, it is not hard to find problems with these solutions. The make-believe conversation between students is not authentic enough, while dragging all students abroad presses high requirements on time and money. Is there a way to solve this problem? 


The answer is Yes. The appearance of Epal made all these possible. Epal is by far the largest K-12 social learning network in the world. After a short registration, you will have the access to many precious opportunities to social and communicate with all kinds of K-12 students and their teachers all over the world. My niece, for example, is a primary student in Beijing China. One day, she told me that one of her English teachers had assigned a project to them. The students have to register on the website of 'Epal' and get connected to their teachers' account. Their teacher has already found a Mandarin teacher from Boston looking for opportunities for her students to practice Mandarin with native speakers. My niece told me that the two classes had a social one day, and they were able to talk to each other with whatever language they like as if the two groups are right next to each other. 


There is no doubt that learning from the native speakers is the best way to improve, although this is an opportunity that people normally are lack to access to. The existence of Epal bring hope and solution to this problem. Therefore, as a future foreign language teacher, I would like to share with everyone that is interested in this subject and hopefully Epal will be of help to you as well. 

MITX, a new tool for ESL teachers

Many ESL teachers are constantly suffering from one problem: how is it possible to integrate their classes to what the students are learning in other subjects? If this goal is achieved, not only the students will be more intrigued to learn English, but also they will find it learning procedure easier and more natural. To solve such a problem, it was not easy considering students are from all kinds of backgrounds and are therefore interested in subject in a wide selection. The brith MITX, however, provides a precious opportunity to solve it. 


MITX is a free online program sponsored by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the top tier schools in science and technology all over the world. For now, there is only one course, 6.002x Circuits and Electronics, offered on the system. In the Fall 2012, there will much more subjects offered from many different departments. After a simple registration, you will be able to start enjoying the learning process of 'Circuits and Electronics', as if you are actually a registered student at MIT. Presentations slides of the professors in classes are posted online each time after class together with other materials, including assignments, tests and answers. Sometimes, official videos recorded in class are also posted to help people understand the professors better. 


Now, let's get back to the subject and take a look at how ESL teachers are able to benefit from such a program. For a college ESL teacher in an Asian country, for example China, there are many students from different departments. Students might get bored by the practices in English that are designed to learn about knowledge points in English. However, imagining if the teacher assign a project to the students from Electrical engineering department to present some content on circuits and electronics, which they are provided with MITX program to get help from. They will be integrating closely what they have learned in their major with their knowledge in English. This is a perfect experience for the students to practice their speaking, reading, listening and even presenting skills. Once more courses are offered at MITX, students from other departments will also have the chance to present their own majors. 


In summary, MITX has provided ESL teachers great opportunity to help their students learn English better, more naturally by integrating the students' knowledge in English together with their major. This program will be even more powerful once more subjects are offered.  

To Teach a Writing Lesson by Using Monet's Paintings

In my opinion, in a language class, we should not only teach students language itself. Specifically speaking,for example,I would like to integrate art education to general language classes. This attempt has been proven to be engaging to students. Here is a lesson plan of one Chinese lesson, in which I attempted to use Monet's paintings to teach Chinese writing.

Level: Advanced Chinese Writing Lesson for Ninth Graders
Time: 43 minutes

Previous classes: In previous four classes, students learned how to describe scenery, especially scenery of each season in writings.

Objectives:  To review scenery vocabularies and ways of describing scenery that students have learned and to finish a daft writing about sceneries of four seasons.

Technology resources that are used:

 http://www.monet2010.com/fr#/voyage/

Procedures:

1.Do now: What is the most beautiful season in your opinion? Answer the question and briefly explain the reason in Chinese sentences. (5minutes)

2.Open the website http://www.monet2010.com/fr#/voyage/ and show students how   Monet described sceneries of four seasons by using his pain brush. Since students were sitting in three tables, I ask each table to contribute at least one sentence to describe each painting of Monet. I copy every sentence they contribute on the board and we revise each sentence together. (23minutes)

3. Students who sit in the same table form a group and finish a draft writing to describe the paintings they just saw. (15 minutes) (Since this is a class on Friday, students will discuss with their partners on weekend to work out a final writing to be handed in next Monday.)

Vocabularies and grammar that will be reviewed in the Procedure Two:

1. The structure of “verb +了 (le)”
2. The present tense
3. Spring: 万物复苏(Life begins again); 暖洋洋(warm); 春暖花开(spring flowers are blossoming);
4. Summer:炙热(scorching);
5. Fall: 收获(harvest); 金秋(the golden fall); 秋高气爽(refreshing autumn weather)
6. Winter: 寒风(cold wind)；白雪皑皑(thick snow everywhere)

Dragon NaturallySpeaking

The software,Dragon NaturallySpeaking, is one of the greatest aids to teachers to finish their daily works. However, I am not sure it is also good for students. Here are some methods teachers, including me, may find this software helpful.Firstly, the most important purpose of this software is to help people create documents by voice. This software works with the applications users already have.Dictate directly into Microsoft Word and Microsoft Outlook Express and most other Microsoft Office applications running on Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Vista. This software also supports popular programs such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and AOL. Teachers can utilize this software while preparing handouts for students. Dictating using this software is about three times faster than typing. Teachers may save substantial amount of time using this software.

However, for students, this software might not be that useful. Nowadays, students type most of their essays and assignments instead of writing on paper. Software students use, like word or keynote, has auto-correction functions. If the students made a mistake, the software will catch that and correct it without the students even noticing. Therefore, the spelling level of students becomes worse with time. Take students in China as an example, since they have so much chance to type their essay with computers, there is mot much practices of writing characters on paper any more. Hence, the handwriting of most students has decreased, and more importantly, students may know how to pronounce some words while not sure about the strokes. Also, this software is not for free, therefore, for students don't have that simple access to it.

Online Forums

With the rapid development of internet, many forums are built online. Frequent users of this kind of forum are normally people who share the same interests, for example, music, food, traveling and etc. There are also forums focusing on academic purposes, such as English learning and Mathematics learning.


When I was taking English tests to apply for graduate students in the United States, I found it extremely difficult to prepare everything all by myself. Fortunately, one of my friends recommended to me a Chinese website (called TAISHA): http://bbs.taisha.org/, and it helped me a lot during my preparation. TAISHA forum originated from a smaller, non-profitable one several years ago. At the beginning, the main and only purpose was to provide a forum for examinees of TOEFL, GRE and GMAT to communicate and share experiences. At present, however, it has been developed into a forum for people to discuss knowledge/experience in other fields as well, including languages (English, French, Spanish, and etc), mathematics, and science.


Before I go too far, I would like to compare this kind of website to the "blackboard" website that we, as students from NYU or other universities, have been using. People having accesses to one particular course in "blackboard" are and only are students registered for this class. However, people using this kind of forums can be anyone that is interested in this subject from all over the world.


If we manage to take advantage of this kind of forums like TAISHA during our ordinary teaching and learning procedure, I believe it can help us from three aspects.                


To begin with, these websites can help to generate students’ interests into the learning subjects. Unlike "blackboard" is for teachers to post materials that are strongly related to the teaching contents, forums are more like a complimentary tool/source to help students. Students are only recommended but not required to visit these websites. Instead, teachers can post out-class fun/light-reading materials that might trigger students’ interests on here. For example, teachers in physics can post interesting results from modern physical experiments into the frontier of researches, like the latest results from supercolliders. These results are normally fantastic. It helps to teach students how these experiments can help people understand the mysterious beginning of the universe as well as why learning physics is interesting and important.


Additionally, these forums help teachers to hear more from students. Although there is already a feedback system included in the "blackboard", there is still reason to believe that students are afraid of saying their thoughts and suggestions about the courses out loud unless posting their thoughts anonymously. Having this forum where everyone is registered with their own nick names, which no one else recognizes, will help students have the courage to share their suggestions.


Last but not least, it can also help students feel less lonely and frustrated when facing endless assignments and papers during heavy course loads. Under such circumstances, students tend to complain about loneliness and frustration within small groups, like their friends. If they have access to such a website, they can share their stress and feelings with professors and other students from the same class. It helps them understand that they are not alone. Students can even discuss their confusions, ideas about problem without having to sit next to each other. From this point of view, these websites serve the same purpose as "Facebook" although with more focus on academic purposes


However, we cannot neglect the down sides of these forums while keeping an eye on the bright side. Firstly, these forums are only functional and efficient under careful and effective supervisions. Questions need to be answered in time, and topics that are not related to the subject need to be removed fast. All these tasks require a huge amount of time, attention, and efforts. Therefore, building up a successful, stable forum is a long-term project. Secondly, parents need to keep an eye on their children while they are surfing the internet, or children might look for things they are interested in instead of useful knowledge under the cover of “studying online”.


Overall, these forums focusing on academic purposes can support our teaching and learning system dramatically if we are able to use them wisely, and under sufficient control.

Itlaki, a new source for students longing for new languages

Italki is a website that can help people for picking up new languages. It is very helpful for people who are interested in learning new language, but might not be able to go to classes due to certain reasons, such as limited time or money. Italki is a good place for them to overcome all these difficulties.

For beginning, one of the functions of Italki is providing a platform for teachers and students. Students are able to register for online sessions provided by teachers. Usually, the sessions are about one hour long. The website also provides half hour sessions from teachers that enable students to meet with their teachers with less risk in wasting money. Students are allowed to rate their teachers after taking the class, and the grades will be recorded in teachers' profiles for further students' reviews. Based on this mechanism, students are guaranteed to have better chance of finding better teachers; while teachers are more obliged to prepare their classes more carefully to obtain higher grades and thus more students in the future.

Secondly, all the sessions provided by the teachers are conducted on modern communication tools and online, including Skype, MSN. Therefore, both teachers and students are relieved from troubles travelling to the classroom, therefore they can save both money and time, which might be limitation to some people. Also, sessions, based on these online forms, are much easier for students and teachers to reschedule for other times, if they have to cancel due to certain reasons.

Finally, for people not interested in paying money to learn new languages. The webiste of Italki also provides such possibility. People can find language partners to help each other learning new languages. Suppose one native speaker of English is longing for learning Mandarin, it is highly possible that this person is able to find a native speaker of Mandarin who happens to like to improve English. Additionally,  the website also provides platform for learners of the same language. For example, there are many ESL (English as Second Language) learners exchanging their experiences and posting questions that might be resolved by other learners or teachers.

All in all, the website, Italki, provides people, who are interested in picking up a new language while limited by time or money, a brand new opportunity. By taking the online sessions, people have much better chances to jump out of their obstacles to chase a new language, which will be helpful for them in their future lives.

Multicultural Education through Miniature

Multicultural Education through Miniature (http://www.coedu.usf.edu/culture/photo.htm) is mainly about a doll collection that highlights over 300 handmade miniatures from over 80 countries and districts all over the world. Each doll was selected to depict the culture of the native country or region. There is always an interesting English story involved about the culture behind each doll. The target audience of this website can be students from K6 to K12 and teachers who teach culture-related courses, such as ESL, history and social studies. ESL students at intermediate level and above will be able to use materials provided by this site. The whole website is very well organized and user friendly. Information in the website is clear, substantial and intriguing.

One of the main characteristics that differs this website from many other ESL websites is that contents in this site integrate cultures into English learning. As I mentioned above, there is a culture-related story after every miniature. In the process of reading stories, ESL student can not only practice English, but also get to know some cultural facts. Therefore, this site enables ESL students to learn real contents rather than the language itself, which can be considered as a great tool for content-based ESL instruction.

Another characteristic of this site is the part of ‘activities’. In this part, learners get to play very interesting and interactive games, which are based on cultural facts. In this way, learners are more motivated to use English and to learn cultural knowledge while having fun at the same time.

In order to integrate this site into lesson plans of ESL classes, I will go to inquire what my ESL students have studied in history and social studies classes. For example, if they have learned some basic knowledge about Africa in a social studies class, I may select a miniature from Africa in this site and have them describe the miniature orally. After doing so, I will have them read a cultural story behind the miniature. Teachers can use the same reading material in different ways so as to improve all language abilities of ESL students. For instance, teachers can create a cloze practice on the basis of the story, and ask students to fill in the blank while teachers read the story; Teachers can divide the whole class into groups. Each group is responsible for reading one paragraph, and group members need to orally summarize main contents of each paragraph. By doing so, we can take care of development of all language skills of students. Also, theses engaging materials in this site can be used as after-class reading materials and practices. Through reading these stories and playing the carefully designed games provided, students can practice English and broaden horizons while having a good time.

Personally, I enjoyed reading stories in this site and play games, such as Jigsaw puzzles of countries, crossword puzzles based on famous foods, Tic-Tac-Toe based on primary languages in different countries, which are novel and interesting .The two weaknesses of the website I noticed are: firstly, the information provided on this website is usually not most up-to-date due to the limitation of the format of doll collection exhibition; secondly,  this website cannot help students learn systematically and thoroughly on one topic, where additional resources need to be added.

To sum up, in spite of the downside mentioned above, Multicultural Education through Miniature is a great website which is appropriate for ESL instruction.

Website Review

The following websites are recommended for use in ESL or Mandarin Chinese language classroom.  Those that can be used in Mandarin Chinese language classrooms will include an asterisk (*).

Story Place: The Children’s Digital Library

http://www.storyplace.org/storyplace.asp

This site Provides children with a virtual library and activities including stories, riddles, craft activities, and reading lists for pre-school and elementary aged kids. Children can read or listen to multimedia stories firstly, do relevant activities provided, and then make use of suggested readings to deepen what they have learned in stories.

Time for Kids

http://www.timeforkids.com/

This site includes the latest news from around the world about world and national events, scientific discoveries, sports, entertainment and etc. The news in Time for Kids is tailored to children’s interests and English level, and can be used as authentic reading and listening materials for ESL children.

Yes! Chinese (*)

http://www.yes-chinese.com/

This site provides learning materials appropriate for young learners of Mandarin Chinese at different levels. There are contents of textbooks, multimedia stories, classroom practices, printable flash cards, and etc.

Confucius Institute Online (*)

 http://learning.chinese.cn/cn/

The website of Confucius Institute Online, is based on one of the most prestigious Mandarin teaching organizations, Confucius Institute, which is sponsored by the Chinese government to help people around the world to learn Mandarin. Due to this nature, this website provides materials for learners of all levels, beginners, intermediate and advanced. Not only language learning materials can be found here, learners can also easily find materials talking about cultures of China.    

Learn to Speak Chinese (*)

http://cctv.cntv.cn/lm/learningchinese/01/index.shtml

The website of ‘Learn to Speak Chinese’ mainly focuses on teaching children/Mandarin learners at the beginners’ level to learn speaking Chinese through a series of video clips. The video is recorded with several main characters. By learning from ordinary life conversations, students at beginning levels can easily pick up phrases and get familiar with Chinese pronunciation.

English Club

http://www.englishclub.com/

This website mainly provides three kinds of contents. Firstly, English learners at all levels can drill on a variety aspects of language abilities, including listening, speaking, reading and writing. There are also preparation materials for ESL tests. Secondly, the website provides an amazing platform for language teachers. Teaching tips, lesson plans, as well as job forums are provided. Finally, this website provides a place where both teachers and students have the chance of posting blogs and keeping a record of their progresses and experiences.

English as a Second Language

http://www.rong-chang.com/

This website provides mainly two kinds of information. Firstly, for language learners at beginner levels and intermediate level, learning materials and links to other high quality ESL/EFL sites and resources are provided. Secondly, for ESL/EFL instructors, information about ESL/EFL jobs, and ESL lesson plans are provided to aid them.  

Big Ear English

http://www.ebigear.com/

Big Ear English provides learning materials and free online courses to English learners in different fields, such as, student, test takers, businessmen, and etc. The whole forum is divided into different sections based on different needs of English learners. The website even provides the latest news to help students learn English better with the benefit of their attention.

Multicultural Education through Miniature

http://www.coedu.usf.edu/culture/photo.htm

This site is mainly about a doll collection that highlights over 300 handmade miniatures from over 80 countries and districts all over the world. Each doll was selected to depict the culture of the native country or region. There is always an interesting English story involved about the culture behind each doll. Also, this site provides many novel and interactive games. By reading stories and playing games, students can not only practice English, but also learn real knowledge rather than the language itself. This site is an excellent instrument for content-based ESL instruction.

Learning Chocolate: Vocabulary Learning Platform

http://www.learningchocolate.com/

The website of ‘learning chocolate’ provides interesting games and activities to help young children learn vocabulary in English. Children are able to pick up words organized into different categories, such as animals, amusement park and bedroom, easily through playing these games and activities. The website also provides student with incitements from many aspects, like visual recall. 

Excellent website for ESL teaching & Learning: Khan Academy

http://www.khanacademy.org/
There are tons of classes delivered in Ahan Academy. These classes cover various topics, such as science, arts, history and etc. Undoubtedly, Ahan Academy is an excellent website for ESL teaching & learning, especially for content-based teaching.

I remember that when I prepared for TOEFL three years ago, one big problem I faced was that I couldn't find enough academic lectures in English. Every TOEFL taker knows that there are many academic-related articles in the test. For students who are studying in an non-English speaking country, understanding English lectures in an academic setting will be really challenging. If students can make use of Ahan Academy, they can have access to a lot of lectures. There is no doubt that students will benefit a lot from materials in Ahan Academy.

Also, for ESL teachers, they are usually tortured by the fact that students lack motivation in ESL class since they just take it as a language class. Plus, many ESL textbooks are out-of-date and focus on language itself, which cannot help to stimulate students' interests and motivation. However, things can be changed by the existence of Ahan Academy. With the help of Ahan Acedemy, ESL teachers can relate what is taught in ESL classes to contents of students' regular classes. As a result, ESL classes are not only language classes anymore, they can help students to review and obtain a deeper understanding of what they've learned in other classes. I spent some time studying a history class about French Revolution myself, which was very interesting. I just felt I was sitting in front of a blackboard in class, and important points even popped out on the blackboard when the teacher was lecturing. Moreover, the lecture was delivered clearly and the lecturer was humorous. In a word, I really enjoyed having a lesson at Ahan Academy.

For ESL teachers in an non-English speaking country, they can select a lecture in English after students learned relevant contents in their first language. For ESL teachers in an English speaking country, they can still use materials in Ahan Academy, since different teachers have different teaching styles and ways to analyze. ESL students, no matter where they are, can benefit a lot from learning stuff in Ahan Academy.

Experience with VOA special English

In the technology class, the website of VOA special English program was introduced to aid ESL teachings. I have tried the website out, and here I would like to share my experiences with everyone that is interested. 

Firstly, the topics on the website are updated frequently enough, such that ESL teachers can help students learn English better with the benefit of their attention to the hottest news and topics. Only a few days after the pass of Whitney Houston, the topic of 'Remembering Whitney Houston' is already part of the website. I am sure that students that were fans of Whitney Houston will be strongly motivated on the topic. 

Secondly, for each topic, the website rates the materials as 'Beginner', 'Intermediate', and 'Advanced', in terms of difficulty level; therefore ESL teachers can easily pick materials that are most appropriate for their students' levels. 

Thirdly, the website provides interactive materials that students can learn about the topics and practice English from many aspects, including vocabulary, reading (summarizing main idea), and listening. As can be seen from the following example of the topic of 'Remembering Steve Jobs'. In addition to this, ESL teachers may give students additional assignments, such as writing a composition or giving a presentation on the topic. If so, students can improve their English level from all aspects: reading, listening, writing and speaking. 

In summary, the website of VOA special English provides a fantastic platform and amazing help for ESL teachers. Thereby, I would like to strongly recommend this website to any ESL teachers. 

Experience of using Xtimeline

The usefulness of the tools introduced in the technology class in ESL teaching has been proven. What I want to test out is the usefulness of these instruments in Mandarin Chinese teaching and learning. 

For example, Rbook is an effective tool for teachers to create their own big books to teach, but I just found out that it does not accept any other language except English.  As a Chinese teacher, I cannot add any Chinese character to the pictures I selected in Rbook. It's fine to use Rbook to teach young children since they do not need to learn reading and writing of Mandarin Chinese. However, for students who need to learn reading and writing, usefulness of Rbook falls into question because it can present pictures only.

The good news is that Xtimeline is also appropriate for foreign language teaching. It can show Chinese perfectly. I designed my own timeline and shared it with my intermediate students. They liked it so much. For the homework this week, I asked them to create their own timeline by using Xtimeline. All of them were excited to do that. I felt that Xtimelime really works well in foreign language teaching. I will highly recommend it to other language teachers.

Peizhu's favorite authoring tools

In last class, teachers introduced to us various authoring tools, among which, Hot Potatoes, Xtimelime and BookR are my favorite ones.

When I was in middle school and high school, I did countless Cloze practice. I feel that Cloze practice is very useful for students to improve listening skill and grasp grammar points, such as the use of preposition and articles. designing Cloze practice seems very easy,however, it will actually take teacher's much time given the possibility that every teacher usually has different classes. Hot Potatoes enables teachers to design Cloze practice within a really short time.

Xtimeline is anther interesting instrument I would like use in my classes in the future. At the beginning of a new semester with a new group of students, asking them to draw a timeline about their growth and education and describe it is a very good way to get to know them and build a good start of a nice relationship of teachers and students. With the help of Xtimeline, designing time lines will be an activity with a lot of fun. Also, students can use it to introduce themselves to the whole class.

The last one is BookR. I love it so much as a teacher who likes to teach kids but not good at drawing. With the help of BookR, I can make many beautiful big books to teach kids. Also, I can have students create their own big books and share them with classmates.

I like these tools very much and I believe they can definitely have good influences on my teaching and students' learning.

Lesson Writer

Our teachers introduced to us an amazing instrument which can help English and ESL teachers prepare classes effectively and easily. What teachers need to do is to copy and paste a short article. A couple seconds after clicking “continue”, the system will automatically display important vocabulary, grammar points and sentence structures and detailed explanations for each. Teachers only need to check boxes to select vocabulary, grammar and structures they want to include in that lesson. I am so surprised by the “finished product” at the end. It is entirely a perfect handout for students. The “finished product” does not only contain the language points teachers want to teach, but also include vocabulary, grammar and writing practice. Recalling my experience of student teaching last semester, my CT and I usually felt overwhelmed because we had five different classes in total and the process of preparing lesson was really time-consuming. However, with the help of Lesson Writer, the whole process only took me less than five minutes. Sometimes teachers really want to share some up-to-date articles with students, but it will take much time to connect these articles to language points students need to master. As a result, teachers can only stick to the textbooks. Lesson Writer enables teachers to share up-to-date articles with students. At the meanwhile; these articles will be closely connected with what they learned from textbooks.I feel it will be better if Lesson Writer can provide different languages so that foreign language teachers can also benefit from it.

The perfect happiness for Peizhu

To me, the perfect happiness is to live with my family. Honestly speaking, I did not think of staying with family as the best thing when I was in China. After coming to the US, living far away from my family, I usually feel homesick, particularly in some traditional Chinese festival or when family members get sick but I cannot offer any help.

My grandfather, who spent a lot of time with me when I was a child, was sent to the hospital two weeks ago. I can do nothing but worry about him. I sat in my own bedroom, recalling my childhood. At that time, my grandfather was strong and healthy. He took me to my teacher's home to have piano lessons when my mom was busy. Everytime I finished the class and came out of my teacher's home, he was always waiting for me outside. Perhaps he, I guessed when I grew up, was never leaving but to stand outside and wait for me for one and half an hour each time. I miss him a lot but I cannot go back to China right now. I really hope that my grandfather can get better and I can have more time spending with my family.