assignment for week 8

Shall tasks be “open” or “closed”?
As a teacher, we face the choice of giving tasks to our students, and to be a good teacher, it is important for us to design the tasks properly.
I have lots of experience in giving tasks to my students. But most of the tasks are closed due to the requirement of the syllabus or the approaching tests for my students. While I also tried once or twice giving them open tasks and it was really successful.
I love the kind of trial and surely we always slide between the two extremes of “open” and “closed”; the principle shall be “the tests we design are up to our purposes”.
It is better to combine both creativity and constraints, and it is possible to put it into practice in our own classroom. We can do it if we want to J

Let's improve our English in enjoyment

My blog is designed for the purpose of helping my students to improve their overall English ability, and their listening and speaking ability in particular. My motto is to learn English in enjoyment. I hope the websites I introduce can help viewers get information about the world, about whatever they have interest in and improve their English at the same time.

I. Primeenglsih - where you can take a course

http://www.primeenglish.com.hk/

This is a website that can offer you information and courses on English listening and speaking. It is designed for English learners to improve their communication ability by systemic practice. If you have interest and need related help, this is a good choice. With a detailed description of the schedule and content of the courses, the website also provides useful information for learners. It can remind us from what perspectives can we improve ourselves in listening and speaking.

II. CBS - a website with information in varieties

http://www.cbsnews.com/

This is really a place which you can just sit in your sofa and enjoy. It is a live movie show with varieties of channels that you can choose from. The most prominent difference of this website is its richness in information. You can find the latest news of Anna Nicole, President Pukin or whatever kind of strange news in the world.

III. iteslj - a website to the whole world of English learning

http://iteslj.org/links/ESL/

This is a website that offers links to various websites. They are all about the four skills of English learning, and it is for second language learners in particular. You will be attracted by it when you begin to try just some interesting links. It is just a collection of all kinds of interesting aspects of the world of English that you can never imagine. You name it, it offers it. It covers various aspects which include culture, quotations, how to survive in alien places, so on and so forth.

IV. VOA homepage

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-02-10-voa7.cfm

Want to get to the world of “Voice of America” you listen to everyday? Get to this website and you will not suffer the regrets of not having being able to listen some programme by your radio because of your class schedule or because of the poor messages sent to your radio. Here you can here the latest news by the formats of Mp3, real player or windows media player.
In this website, you can hear the voices from the U.S.A. and you can compare the standpoints with other news report and check whether they are objective as they claim. It is interesting to have the latest information about the world.

V. ELLO - enjoy listening

http://www.elllo.org/


This is an interesting website for both improving English learning and the world knowledge about various activities. It includes games of listening comprehension, travelogues for different places, cooking, interview and songs.

It also includes various listening comprehension practice with test items in it. So it is a website for entertainment, knowledge and test preparation.

VI. Economist - a world of news from a different perspective

http://www.economist.com/index.html

If you would like to explore the native English speakers’ world, if you would like to know what they native speakers are reading for news, this is a good choice for you. And more importantly, you can get interesting information about how foreign people look at China from their own perspectives and about how they interpret the news happening in their own country, like the Hurricane in America, like the election in Iraqi.
You will learn more about the updated English usages, about what idiomatic English like and also you can broaden your world view.
And more importantly, to improve your English listening and speaking, here you can find audios of interviews and news :)

VII. BBC homepage

http://news.bbc.co.uk


Do you want to surf the world of BBC? This is the homepage of it –where you can listen to the radio programmes you would like to choose everyday, and more excitingly, it has the audios for listeners. You are not listening for sake of boring practices, but for information about the world, and for entertainment of life. The news comes to you with vivid pictures and narration from South Africa to Singapore, from Hawaii to Bali. You will never feel disappointed if you surf this website and you may think of throwing away your old tapes and news stories that are already out of date.

Distractions in the Classroom – A Problem faced by Teachers

When I read the article, I find that the situation is so strikingly similar in the classroom with internet facilitated. Students just cannot help surfing the internet, reading all the latest stories of their favorite stars, chatting or writing mails to their friends. It seems that people are so addicted to their laptop and internet that they often feel restless without their laptops.

I often feel sorry for the teachers in the this kind of situation. They prepare well for the class and expect students’ cooperation, but some students seem to be so indulged in their laptop that they have no extra attention for the lecture.

As teachers, we may face the same situation sooner or later. I have no definite confidence that I can handle the problem easily. Anyhow, I will try the following methods: making public announcements on when the students are allowed to be on themselves; making the class more student-centred to force the students to solve problems by internet; prohibiting them to use laptop if the lecture is significant and more theory-based.

Teachers' role in the new IT era

Teachers' role in the new IT era

Teachers have to rethink about their roles in this new era. The textbooks and reference books are not doctrines just for teachers anymore. Students can find much more learning materials and get answers to whatever questions they have. Being a teacher does not mean being authentic anymore. And they are facilitators, consultant, and motivators now, which makes different requirements for us.

The relevant policicy and Chinese English teaching reform

The relevant policy and Chinese English teaching reform

The widespread wave of IT began to touch us from about 3 years ago, when 180 key universities in China joined the program of “Cultivating students’ autonomous learning ability”. Our university established several large language learning labs as well as other universities. Several departments are assigned as experimental classes and they learn by the software and local network particularly designed for them. They can choose what they feel fit for themselves, and proceed their learning step by step.

IT and Chinese English Teaching and Learning

Nobody can refuse the impact of IT on our everyday life. And it seems impossible for us to live without internet nowadays. Its influence on Chinese English teaching is quite strong: it changes the mode of students’ learning; it changes the way of our teaching, and even some teachers are afraid of being replaced by computer and internet so as to lose their jobs.

A wonderful prediction of future in the past ---comments on Bill Gate's The Road Ahead

I really admire Bill Gate's intelligence, because his prediction 10 years ago have so many similarities with our teaching today.

In our university, we have a local internent network for the experimental classes, so the students can choose suitable materials by themselves instead of "one-size-fits-all learning". Problems do arise, but internet really helps a lot.

And also multi-media is widely applied in Chinese classroom, it can really arouse students' interest and motivate the students and teachers to invest more information.

While there is still difference, the white board or the blackboard online is not so popular now, as a way of interaction between teachers and students, the merits are enjoyed by us when we are learning here in NTU.

I hope to let my students to enjoy the kind of free interaction when I am back to China.