欣蓉的教學網誌

The day before yesterday I read an article in the United Daily News. The writer told his friend and his friend’s wife a story of his to remind his friend not to take his wife for granted.

A student in Class 310 asked me this afternoon why I didn’t hold any negative attitude toward studies or tests when I was their age. I told her because I have always been full of curiosity. I just wanted to learn more, not only from the textbooks, my teachers, but from the mistakes I made on the tests.

This evening, I got a mail from Konraad, a friend from the US. He has always been enthusiastic about charitable activities. The following is the mail:

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To boost economy, our government is going to distribute NT$3,600 worth of shopping coupons to each of the 23 million people next year.

"I had the blues because I had no shoes,

Until upon the street, I met a man who had no feet.”

According to The Secret, those who want to lose weight should not dwell on the thought “I have to lose weight,” because this would attract more I-have-to-lose-weight thought to them, and thus, they will always have to lose weight. What would really help is to keep thinking about their perfect weight, about how they look with their perfect figures. Then the dream will come true. I like this mindset. Very positive.

Last night before I went to sleep, I re-opened The Secret and read it. Here is a passage from the book that might help lift you up when you are feeling down.

Sanmin emailed me a reading comprehension exercise, with explicit explanations of the words and a Chinese translation. It’s about the recent global economic chaos. Those who are interested in this issue or who would like to test their reading ability may download it.

reading-comprehension-1

When I finish discussing and teaching a paragraph, I usually have the students do the read-look up-and-say activity in pairs. Then I ask them to tell me from their memory the language items they have learned from that paragraph. This is an exciting moment.

The following is a letter written by a student. The writing task requires students to write a letter to someone in the past or in a story.

For those who want to learn more about modal verbs, here are two old entries which might help you have a better understanding of these confusing words:

http://www.tiec.tp.edu.tw/lifetype/post/1130/25216

http://www.tiec.tp.edu.tw/lifetype/post/1130/25254

The best way to master them is to make sentences with them.

Dear Varren,

Well, we are using Sanmin textbooks now, too. However, there are some modifications. The lesson "Body Imperfect" is a new one. It's about the awakening of an amputee.

If you'd like to read it, I can email the article to you.

BTW, of course, you're welcome to come to my class and sit there for an hour. However, I believe that it would be more interesting if you would like to stand in front of the students and talk to them in English, sharing with them your experience of learning English.

This afternoon, after finishing Unit 6 “Body Imperfect,” I had the 314 students read an article together. The title was “We Never Told Him He Couldn't Do It.” It was about how a boy born with club feet acted as normal children and finally even made the cross-country team when he was in seventh grade. It happened because his parents never told him he couldn’t do what other children could do.

Parallel structures make a speech more powerful. We find many in Dr. King's "I Have a Dream." In Obama's speech in Chicago after winning the presidency, we can find some more examples. Here I'd like to list two: