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.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
To Teach a Writing Lesson by Using Monet's Paintings
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/Technology resources that are used:
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:
- The structure of “verb +了 (le)”
- The present tense
- Spring: 万物复苏(Life begins again); 暖洋洋(warm); 春暖花开(spring flowers are blossoming);
- Summer:炙热(scorching);
- Fall: 收获(harvest); 金秋(the golden fall); 秋高气爽(refreshing autumn weather)
- 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.
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.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Itlaki, a new source for students longing for new languages
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.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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
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
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 (*)
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 (*)
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 (*)
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
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
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
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
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
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.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)