tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25158475522355414542024-02-06T21:23:18.825-08:00晓艳的博客华枝春满,天心月圆。Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-65585504422232623892013-03-07T21:52:00.000-08:002013-03-07T21:52:02.903-08:00My Philosophy of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">My
teaching philosophy came into being from my dual identities: I have been a
teacher of CSL (Chinese as a second language) for 17 years, and a learner of
ESL (English as a second language) for 30 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both experiences provided rich soil for the
growth and ripeness of my perspectives of good teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Center to all my beliefs, is a key that opens
many doors—<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Differentiated Instruction</b>:
there is no one-fit-all size with respect to efficient and successful teaching,
because there is always a need to differentiate our teaching, based on students
characteristics (age group, proficiency level, learning style, language and
cultural background, socioeconomic status, self expectation and purpose of
learning, etc.) as well as the characteristics of the language programs
students are put in (short term/long term, immersion, bilingual, weekend
school, high school, college, business, etc.).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">I
would like to outline some general principles I adhere in my classroom practice
as the following.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I teach with communicative methods focusing on students’ language
proficiency. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Second language is a
skill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I provide learning experiences
that help my students build up their language skills in listening, speaking,
reading and writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For beginning
students, I create scenarios that resemble real life situations such as
greeting and self introduction, dining out, shopping, asking for directions,
replying a letter, etc., to work on their BICS (Basic Interpersonal
Communication Skills); Intermediate to advanced level students need to develop
their CALP (Cognitive and Academic Language Proficiency), so I use tasks such
as question asking and answering, summarizing a text, writing or talking about
the pros and cons of a topic, debating, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
translating English text to Chinese language. The focus of my lesson planning is
to create opportunities for students to use their Chinese proficiency so they
can survive, communicate with others, express themselves, and conduct
educational or professional activities in Chinese language. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">2. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teaching vocabulary is the most fundamental part
in my teaching.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Vocabulary
size is the foundation on which language proficiency is built, the more words
students know, the better comprehension and language application they will
reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My approach to teaching
vocabulary is “repeat, repeat, and repeat”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Studies of human brains showed that in order to save a word in our
long-term memory, we need to review the word for 7 times across a period of
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my vocabulary teaching, I try
to present the key vocabulary in different modes and formats repetitively, and
provide students with opportunities to encounter and practicing using them
frequently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We watch pictures and videos
to learn the meanings of them, work on vocabulary brainstorm and word maps to
categorize them, we used flash cards, memory games, matching games and graphic
organizers to work on the definition, pronunciations, and parts of speech, we practice
using them in sentences, and compare them with their English equivalents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since Chinese language has a different
writing system from the phonetic one, being able to pronounce the word does not
mean students can read it, I created videos teaching students about radicals—
the semantic elements of Chinese characters, so they could get a fix of the
meaning of new vocabulary by reading the radical of it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Maximize “Comprehensible Input” is a concept overarching my class design.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Many
people believe that “immersion” is the best way to learn a second language and
teachers should only use target language in the classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, Krashen has mentioned that it is the
quality, other than the quantity of language input students are receiving that
counts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to learn a language,
students have to understand what is being talked about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From my own experience of learning English,
“total immersion”, without any support or aid from first language or other
forms, was frustrating and daunting, because I could not make any sense out of
the language I heard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Now
as a teacher, I try to provide my students with various supports to increase the
amount of comprehensible input. Pictures, comics, slideshows, videos and movies
help students visualize and understand concepts and contents; Music, songs,
art, games, and TPR strategies help lower students’ affective filters and
increase understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I incorporate
cooperative learning activities so students can interact with and learn from
each other; I allow students’ use of English so they can find support from
their first language and transfer their English knowledge and literacy into
Chinese language; I encourage them to compare Chinese with English, and find
out the similarities and differences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">4. I make efforts to support
overall cognitive and academic development of learners, which is especially important
for students of young age.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At Dallas Modern Chinese School, my students
are teenagers aged 12-17, a stage characterized by rapid physical growth,
earnest desire to explore life and the world, constant searching for their
identities and pondering “Who am I?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe a Chinese as second language course
for these students should be a lens through which they see and learn about the
world, not only Chinese language and culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Therefore, I work on bringing the real world into the classroom
(example: use authentic materials from Chinese newspaper articles and ads for
teaching, talk about current affairs and events that happen in both China and
the U.S.), and making connections between Chinese language and other school
subjects (example: use texts on a variety of topics such as world history,
science, politics, art, music and social study). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two years ago, when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Tiger Mom</i> by Amy Chua aroused heated discussions in the U.S., I led
a similar talk among my Chinese-heritage students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We compared the different parenting styles
between the west and east, shared their feelings about their Chinese parents,
dug into the cultural roots of both parenting styles, and eventually came to
realized that there was really no formula for a standardized parenting style,
and that good parenting is a balance. Throughout this activity, we practiced
Chinese language, made connection to their family background and the real
world, and most importantly, raised the awareness of their cultural identity,
which I believe would play an essential role in their future adulthood.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I promote global awareness and multiculturalism through teaching
Chinese.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Language
and culture are closely related and interdependent to each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The experience of second language learning
will be inevitably expanded to a cultural dimension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just like we cannot take for granted that
each English word will find an equivalent in Chinese, or each sentence in
English can be translated word by word into Chinese and still make sense (as
Google translator assumes), we need to be open-minded not only to the differences
of language, but also to those of culture, value system, religion, social
belief and so forth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In our explorations
of language and culture, I help students learn the equal importance of each
culture, and show respect to different views and opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe having this mindset will help them
effectively collaborate with people from other cultures, in this increasingly
globalized world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">6. Technology enhances second
language teaching and learning.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Technology
opened a new horizon of teaching second language. I am greatly passionate about
technology and use technology as my teaching assistant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I use photo editing and infographic tools to
create signs and posters, create videos to teach Chinese characters, make
podcasts on text recording, create online flash cards, word clouds, and games
to teach vocabulary, make Prezi presentations for culture events, offer online
learning experiences by making Sidevibes and Webquests, publish students’ work
on online blog, conduct online teaching via virtual classroom on WizIQ, and
create online learning groups on Voicethread.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I conduct assessment and surveys through online tools such as Google
forms. I also allow students to demonstrate their understandings in different
modes with help of technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Examples
of my technology implementation can be found in my online portfolio: </span><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/xiaoyanwangsportfolio/home"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;"><span style="color: blue;">https://sites.google.com/site/xiaoyanwangsportfolio/home</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Using
technology in teaching increases students’ interest and motivation; provides
visual and aural aids for comprehension; help students gather information fast
and easily; enable them to present their learning in various modes and creative
ways, share their products with broad audience, and make learning fun! It also
helps students practice their computer skills called for by the future work
places.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">As
I mentioned in the beginning, good teaching is all about
“differentiating”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am always prepared
to tailor my instruction to meet students’ needs and help them succeed in their
study of Chinese language, as well as being a good learner of the world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-12748739672648497912012-12-27T20:49:00.000-08:002012-12-27T20:49:54.884-08:00Happy Holidays!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-81819407976367598572012-07-01T11:18:00.003-07:002012-07-01T11:24:32.187-07:00Chunk & Chew: An Effective Strategy for Second Language Teaching<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNKfkPeLo3Ei9R7livA54uw3HhgDqRBvMuEixt_c5JhYGiyf-0r1zcp7ASBhJJXaV4NE39QDscwxNft4ieaGNbk3rW-FKIByGAh5l1n36mPGKlDIRWjo8XIU6zqIeJcehOljnClGejohE/s1600/cookie" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNKfkPeLo3Ei9R7livA54uw3HhgDqRBvMuEixt_c5JhYGiyf-0r1zcp7ASBhJJXaV4NE39QDscwxNft4ieaGNbk3rW-FKIByGAh5l1n36mPGKlDIRWjo8XIU6zqIeJcehOljnClGejohE/s200/cookie" width="200" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I am teaching Chinese at several local Chinese Heritage schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For this project, I chose my class of Advanced Chinese Reading at Dallas Modern Chinese Language School (DMCLS) at Richardson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>DMCLS is a non-profit, community-based Sunday school, with a history of 15 years of teaching Chinese language and culture, and 300-400 students (aged 4-17) enrolled. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chinese language courses of all levels in two different tracks have made our school stand out among other Chinese schools in Dallas area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides Chinese courses, we also offer interest classes such as chess, math, art, basketball, webpage creating, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The majority of students are of Chinese immigration background from Highland Park, Plano, and Allen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chinese is their home language, but their Chinese proficiency, especially reading and writing may vary, depending on the years of learning and the degree they are using it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">My class consists of 16 Chinese American students aged 12-14.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of them were born in the U.S., they speak Chinese at home and started going to Chinese schools since they were 5 or 6 years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The class meets on every Sunday afternoon for 2 hours and each week they need to spend an average of 2-3 hours on their Chinese homework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I took over this class, each student has at least spent 720-900 hours on Chinese learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, just like all heritage language learners, there is a discrepancy between their oral proficiency and literacy: they could carry on chatty and hilarious conversations with me in Chinese (although mainly in simple sentences), but when it comes to writing, the simple (sometime babyish) oral tone, undetailed descriptions, loosely connected text, and frequent errors appeared in their writings all indicate that their writing proficiency is at intermediate level (ELPS).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The textbook we are using this year is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Boya Chinese (Intermediate Spurt I),</i> by Peking University Press, China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Originally designed for international college students who learn Chinese as their second language, this textbook includes more academic language materials and discussions on up-to-date social/cultural phenomena and issues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am feeling my students are at the transforming stage from BISC to CALP (Cummins, 1978).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a language teacher, I think my role is to help them learn academic language through reading and writing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Chunk and Chew<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Chunk and Chew means the teacher pauses after delivering a “chunk” of lessons, and allow students to “chew” the information in the “chunk” either individually, in small groups, or whole class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chunk and Chew has been one of the most effective teaching strategies I use in my classroom, because it allows the teacher to tap into students’ understanding frequently along the way of teaching, as well as gives students time to think, reflect, and discuss the information and lead to better and deeper understanding of both language and content. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I decided to use Chunk and Chew strategy in my teaching of the text <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Joking about Chinese</i>.</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">This article summarizes the characteristics of Chinese people, how overseas Chinese strive to keep their heritage, and what the essence of Chinese culture and philosophy is. The text is written in a tone of banter.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I chose Chunk and Chew for this class, because my intermediate level students <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>will need more time to pause and think about the academic vocabulary, process and practice using the academic and complicate language structures in the text, they also need to pause and reflect on cross-cultural communication questions related to their own experiences and respond to open-ended questions. Through activities of small groups or whole class discussion, they need to develop their higher order thinking skills, as well as the language skills to express their opinions, to agree and disagree, to compare and contrast etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In addition, reading and writing abilities are closely related, the more comprehensible input students receive from their reading, the more language output and better language use would show up in their writing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chunk and Chew will help my students gain better understandings of the text and provide more opportunities to practice their language skills which will in return help with their writing in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">These are things I do for building background before the Chunk and Chew:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 31.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">New vocabulary. I require my students to pre-study the vocabulary list I hand out each week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each lesson starts from checking on the vocabulary, in which each of them receives a sheet with Pinyin (the roman letter phonetic system) on which they are supposed to write the Chinese characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 31.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Check on pre-study language exercises.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Students are required to finish some language exercises on the book with a pencil. When we meet each week, we will share how each of them did on these exercise in whole class.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 31.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Brainstorm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will brainstorm the common stereotypes people have for Chinese and categorize these stereotypes under positive and negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will talk about stereotypes are not necessarily true.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 31.5pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Following is a sample lesson plan for using Chunk and Chew in my reading class:<o:p></o:p></span></div><table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: currentColor; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;"> <td colspan="2" style="background-color: transparent; border: 1pt solid windowtext; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 6.65in;" valign="top" width="798"> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lesson 7: Joking About Chinese <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div></td> </tr>
<tr style="height: 58pt; mso-yfti-irow: 1;"> <td colspan="2" style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; height: 58pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 6.65in;" valign="top" width="798"> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chunk and Chew<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-text-fit-id: 118183168; text-fit: 385.9pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="background: rgb(217, 217, 217); mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-font-width: 92%; mso-pattern: gray-15 auto; mso-shading: white;">V: Vocabulary<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>LP: Language Point<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>RQ: Reflective Question<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A: Activity</span></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 167.4pt;" valign="top" width="279"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chunk <o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 311.4pt;" valign="top" width="519"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chew<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 167.4pt;" valign="top" width="279"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paragraph 1, 2<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Chinese are addicted to work.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 311.4pt;" valign="top" width="519"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">crazy, nationality, labor</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LP:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">there is nothing more…<o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>simply (for exaggeration)<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">RQ: What examples are offered in the text to support the main idea?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whole class discussion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 167.4pt;" valign="top" width="279"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paragraph 3, 4<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Chinese love land.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Chinese love saving.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 311.4pt;" valign="top" width="519"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">figure out</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LP:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no matter…</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">RQ:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What Americans plant in their backyard?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why do a lot of Chinese Americans plant vegetables in their backyard?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are the social/economic roots that bond Chinese to land?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How Chinese and Americans differ in terms of spending?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A: Think Pair Share<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 5;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 167.4pt;" valign="top" width="279"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paragraph 5<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Chinese don’t care about privacy.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 311.4pt;" valign="top" width="519"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">privacy, inquire, break up, psychiatrist</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LP:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">RQ:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are considered as privacy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do Chinese and Americans think differently about privacy?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do you respond to inquiries of your privacy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whole class discussion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 6;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 167.4pt;" valign="top" width="279"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paragraph 6, 7<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Chinese are moderate.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Chinese are proud.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 311.4pt;" valign="top" width="519"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">traditional, moderate, confident, well-educated, compliment</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LP:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">call…as…</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">RQ: What is the characteristic of the Chinese –style moderate?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What are you expecting to respond to the Chinese moderate?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A: Insert Method (Students mark on the materials they already know, they didn’t know before, and they are surprised to find out)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 7;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 167.4pt;" valign="top" width="279"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paragraph 8<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Overseas Chinese try to keep their heritage.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 311.4pt;" valign="top" width="519"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LP: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">RQ:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What traditional traits can you find in your family?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whole class discussion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 8; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext; border-style: none solid solid; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 167.4pt;" valign="top" width="279"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paragraph 9—end<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Chinese philosophy.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: transparent; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0) windowtext windowtext rgb(0, 0, 0); border-style: none solid solid none; border-width: 0px 1pt 1pt 0px; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt; width: 311.4pt;" valign="top" width="519"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">philosopher, survive</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">LP: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">RQ:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was the moral to the story? What do you think is the major difference between Chinese and Western culture?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>whole class discussion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Each “Chunk” is 1 or 2 paragraphs in the text. I usually have 1 student read through the chunk, during his/her reading, the other students are required to underline words/phrases they either do not understand, feel confused, or they think important.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For most of the times, the students can accurately pinpoint the words/phrases I planned to have them “chew” on. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vocabulary and language points are the first things we look at. I will write these words on the board, ask the students to explain them either in English or Chinese, and practice using some language structures in relevant context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some common exercises we use are: finishing the teacher’s sentence, answering teacher’s question, and translating between Chinese and English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After chewing on the language, I will pose some reflection questions on the content for students to discuss and encourage them to use the newly learned words in their speaking. The discussion will be carried either in small groups or whole class. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the above lesson plan, the whole text was divided into six chunks. For each chunk, we will spend about 10 minutes to chew on. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Assessment<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will assess the effectiveness of Chunk and Chew through the following means:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">1. An end-of-class activity “Stand Up and Sit Down”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this activity, I will ask students to listen to a list of statements made based on the text we just learned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some statements are about the meanings of words, such as “The word </span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: SimSun; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">民族</span><span lang="ZH-CN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">means nationality”, while others are ideas and opinions expressed in the text such as “The author believed that the essence of Chinese culture is soft from outside but tough and durable in the core”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Students stand up from their seats if they agree with the statement they hear, and vice versa.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This activity functioned as a summary of the language and content objectives and can check everything from small words to big ideas. The teacher will have chances to find out students’ confusion or misunderstanding if there is any, and fix these problems if necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">2. The after-reading homework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Usually I hand out a class review sheet for the students to finish as homework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the review sheet, I would include a list of sentences excerpt from the text with important words underlined, the students are supposed to explain these words either in Chinese or in English. Or, I would include some language practices such as finishing sentences with certain language point within given context. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I make students write a short passage to recap our class discussion on one question. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Assessment Results<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">According to the result of assessment, I think Chunk and Chew works well in my classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the language part, the students had at least learned the essential academic words and language points for 4 times—through pre-study, Chunk and Chew, end-of-class activity, and homework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the students showed correct understanding of these language elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the content objectives, most students had no trouble organizing their language and expressing their ideas on the topic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chunk and Chew strategy was effective at helping students build up their academic vocabulary, deepening the understanding, and supporting the practice of language use.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Summary<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Chunk and Chew is good for language learners of all levels, because it reflects the way human brains process information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through this activity, language learners are allowed to process materials step by step, without being overwhelmed in the ocean of information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Chunk and Chew supports both direct instruction and student-centered instruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I recall the progress of my learning of English as the second language, many of my English teachers had been using this strategy in their direct instruction and it worked well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe those are the reasons that make it a long lasting and effective teaching strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-38925519450041160642012-03-09T07:18:00.000-08:002012-03-09T07:18:52.173-08:00Prezi Presentation for Chinese School<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lZPpOajG9f9DFGORPBjLDtDoT4OLsGIPW_Yc94ZP6XSRqij1ksiLz9WhKS1V2dxKKWaSW4vBWgik_jiZDH86qDV-zK6B8nrlfYbbcSnBZZ1rUp7bdkKLvSIxU2Hfalj7HT2WCOoL9Wg/s1600/prezi.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lZPpOajG9f9DFGORPBjLDtDoT4OLsGIPW_Yc94ZP6XSRqij1ksiLz9WhKS1V2dxKKWaSW4vBWgik_jiZDH86qDV-zK6B8nrlfYbbcSnBZZ1rUp7bdkKLvSIxU2Hfalj7HT2WCOoL9Wg/s400/prezi.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><a href="http://prezi.com/wvernsgzzekx/presentation/"><span style="font-size: large;">http://prezi.com/wvernsgzzekx/presentation/</span></a>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-16280533216020753312012-02-22T21:52:00.000-08:002012-02-22T21:56:23.384-08:00Powerful Free Online Photo Editors!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCyArXW4utSEFNPvFhqHa6Ns54C5rcyKKPUD7Ie3YM0OsPxX5x__gfMIMfTZtvWo10yc4nqbwkdk2UT8NmpEuls9C3Y3BB7TGuyIp9cszm9OmSmzy8sCKeQ0lT82iCbEdI8LYkpnYfQo/s1600/DSC00215.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiCyArXW4utSEFNPvFhqHa6Ns54C5rcyKKPUD7Ie3YM0OsPxX5x__gfMIMfTZtvWo10yc4nqbwkdk2UT8NmpEuls9C3Y3BB7TGuyIp9cszm9OmSmzy8sCKeQ0lT82iCbEdI8LYkpnYfQo/s320/DSC00215.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The original picture. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Give the original picture different looks through online photo editors----FREE!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB0XiLoXg6z3qcOjV9YTWr4aOaXIKVtMzC2hDQ5uLCgw8G6NrlUU79EcQtm8kUPtRDnVcDuiDsm0AexCd6IUCHZHQ0ETDp5gm-2E3K1SdMWNGo65tSixD5grBAg2NlX6QxLsW31JTmIjI/s1600/blog+picture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB0XiLoXg6z3qcOjV9YTWr4aOaXIKVtMzC2hDQ5uLCgw8G6NrlUU79EcQtm8kUPtRDnVcDuiDsm0AexCd6IUCHZHQ0ETDp5gm-2E3K1SdMWNGo65tSixD5grBAg2NlX6QxLsW31JTmIjI/s640/blog+picture.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Comic Sans MS";"><o:p><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Program used:<o:p></o:p></span></span></o:p><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman;"></span></span></div><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman;"></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>befunky:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>http://www.befunky.com/create/#/photo-effects<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>lunapic: http://www.lunapic.com/editor/<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>fun photo box:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>http://en.funphotobox.com/<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">•<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>picnik: http://www.picnik.com/</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: "Comic Sans MS"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"></div></span><br />
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</div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-33662669439066515932011-12-22T20:25:00.000-08:002011-12-22T20:25:19.582-08:00Heart House Dallas Tutoring Project Report <div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHjzoWKSOXg3fyJx-runtPe9EUBAWq3mzQr8fo18X4rtPzwi17cWLw51uyigzWzezJl9uvRAv6-PIGWgUPjVAipQ7OjGIJkuLCo2Yw4X46YpzRAU_pX17brBT23fGNkZ2fQ4gG2Nze930/s1600/DSC00593.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHjzoWKSOXg3fyJx-runtPe9EUBAWq3mzQr8fo18X4rtPzwi17cWLw51uyigzWzezJl9uvRAv6-PIGWgUPjVAipQ7OjGIJkuLCo2Yw4X46YpzRAU_pX17brBT23fGNkZ2fQ4gG2Nze930/s200/DSC00593.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Founded in 2000, Heart House Dallas is a free after-school program serving at-risk students of Northeast Dallas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since many parents work two jobs, their children had to stay home alone afterschool from 3 to 6 pm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These students </span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">are “at extremely high risk due to gangs, crime, violence, teen pregnancy, predators, drug trafficking, and other dangers that threaten to destroy their lives” (Heart House, 2011).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As a non-profit organization located at Wildflower Apartments complex, Heart House is currently serving hundreds of students of low income, refugee families from Thailand, Burma, Nepal and other Southeast Asian countries. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To be illegible for the free after school program, students and their family have to be residents in this complex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The application process is easy: parents only need to fill out an application form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bus transportation is provided from the public schools the students attend to the afterschool program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>During the 2.5 hours each day, students receive snacks, helps with homework, and academic support from the program staffs and volunteers. </span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">For the first 3 weeks, I served as a volunteer ESL teacher at Wildflower clubhouse, where the students are in grades K-3. The first day, I was impressed by the new playground outside of the clubhouse, as well as the clean and neat classrooms with lots of books and art supplies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was amazed by how much Heart House had done for the children with limited funding from foundations and donations.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">My learning group consisted of 6 children aged 7.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They spoke 3 different home languages: Chin, Karen and Nepali. Most of them showed a strong sense of identity, frequently offering to tell us how to say an English word in THEIR languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their oral English skills varied greatly, from almost zero output to near-native proficiency, depending on the time of arrival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I noticed that the students with low English proficiency were the ones that stayed quiet for the most of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides language and cultural difficulties, they also need to deal with things happened in their families: Cece’s mother just left home, and Cece had no idea of when she would come back again; Dominic tried hard to draw my attention, by requesting to sit next to me, and expecting to be treated differently from other children, which I believed derived from the lack of attention from his parents/guardians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although apparently they are as happy as the children in Highland Park, their refugee experiences, language and cultural background, family structure, and SES will inevitably affect their learning and academic achievements. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We worked on the poem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Naughty Word</i> by Bill Dodds to go along with the Poetry Karate at Heart House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since their English proficiency is at the beginning level, they read with high frequency words, and concrete words represented by pictures (ELPS), I decided to employ pictures, visual supports (highlighters), card games in the vocabulary teaching. We started with highlighting the interesting/difficult words in the poem, and drawing pictures to illustrate these words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we played a flash card game with the high frequency and sight words in the poem and a rhyming game to help them learn the pronunciation of words.</span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I think pictures, drawings, illustrations, even highlighters and markers worked well with these young children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They showed great interest in learning vocabulary and found clue of meanings through these forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Games are good strategy, as long as the class management is effective. Playing game was a sweaty experience for me, because I (had never taught young children before) had a hard time trying to control their voices and keep the game going smoothly.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I had to adjust the content and language objectives of my instruction, because it would be impossible for most of them to memorize the poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried to help each of them know how to read the whole poem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also learned I should break down the whole poem into several parts and work on one part at a time for these young children.</span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The students at Pineland location are older than those at Wildflower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My little group had three girls and one boy aged 12-13.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their first languages were Chin and Nepali.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They also had some literacy in their first language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The time of their residence in the U.S. ranged from 3 months to 3 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The boy who just arrived 3 months ago could understand and speak very limited English, but luckily, he sought help from Sui, a girl speaking the same language and had been here for 3 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sui was also the interpreter between me and the boy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From this I learned the support of the first language is very important for ESL students of older age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">My Asian face brought me closer to them, and made them very curious about my first language and background.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They found a book written in multi-languages and invited me to read the Chinese part, while they read in their first languages.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They asked me how to say “hello”, “goodbye” “Where are you going” in Chinese and made me repeat again and again, even asked me to give each of them a Chinese name.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Later, I had to remind them I was here to teach English, not Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, these interesting interactions indicated that these students were very self conscious about their culture and language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to lower the affective filters of ESL students, their culture and language, their first language skills should be valued by the teacher.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">The theme of our first class was the poem <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I Don’t Want to Do Homework</i>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I started planning for the instruction by looking at my ELPS for their language proficiency level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The boy was definitely at beginning level, while the girls are at intermediate level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried the following 3 things in my group:</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since the poem goes well to the tune of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Take Me Out to the Ball Game</i>, I used the music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ISrRTpqSJE) of the song.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I chose the version without lyrics so that the students could match the music and the poem perfectly without being distracted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I brought my laptop to Heart House and led students to sing out the poem with music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The students were excited and enjoyed the singing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think using music to teach English is an effective strategy, especially for younger learners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Music helps with their memorization of the poem, and helps them retain the memory that related to the leaning of language.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used graphic organizer in the teaching of vocabulary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As one type of instructional scaffolding, graphic organizers help students organize and visualize the information they are learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used a revised Frayer Model to teach vocabulary such as “math” “parade”.</span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For the third class, I prepared a work scramble game on the theme of Thanksgiving. I chose this game mainly based on the consideration of differentiated instruction. I wanted to use something that allows both my beginning level boy and the intermediate girls to create their answers of their levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This word scramble game provided us with this flexibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">I also prepared a reading article on Thanksgiving for the very last class, and included 2 reflection questions, “ </span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Did you ever move to a place that was very different from your former home?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it hard to get used to?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did anyone help you find your way around?” “Thanksgiving is an American holiday celebrating harvest and giving thanks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there an important holiday in your culture?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Use the Venn diagram to compare Thanksgiving with a holiday in your home culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider the difference of their names, time of celebration, tradition, history, foods, purpose, etc.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to use these materials since the children were making art projects and we felt hard to interrupt them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, I think I had some good thoughts on relating the learning materials to the students’ real life circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Tutoring at Heart House was an unforgettable experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Children benefited from this after school program.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ms. Jenny in the Pineland location said she witnessed great progress children are making months after their enrollment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The safe environment and academic support provided by Heart House made these immigrant children’s adaption to the U.S. easier.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Heart House also helped build a community where these students can speak their home language, make friends, and find support from their peers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, Heart House also benefit the employers since the working parents could remain focused on their jobs in the afternoon knowing that their children are safe and supervised (Heart House, 2011).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Through the tutoring at Heart House, I learned in order to help ESL students, an ESL teacher should:</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 4.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Respect and value their first language, relate learning with their prior experience and real life circumstance, praise their bilingual skills, celebrate their culture and build their confidence and self-esteem.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 4.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Focus on teaching vocabulary, because learning vocabulary is essential for learners of all proficiency levels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Provide visual support for younger learners and learners at beginning level.</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 4.5pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Allow the use of first language among students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Provide support of first language when possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">References:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 31.5pt; text-indent: -27pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Echevarria, J., Vogt, M., & Short, D.J. (2008).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Making content comprehensible for English learners: the SIOP model (3<sup>rd</sup> ed.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 31.5pt; text-indent: -27pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">English Language Proficiency Standards (ELPS). (2011).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter074/ch074a.html">http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter074/ch074a.html</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 31.5pt; text-indent: -27pt;"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Heart House (2011). <a href="http://hearthousedallas.org/">http://hearthousedallas.org/</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></div></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-49961770238040480542011-12-01T21:05:00.000-08:002011-12-01T21:15:53.147-08:00Final Reflection--Technology is Awesome!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjqDHEP2b97d-E0Xx5leFfwYG9rPL_-3XdizHbl0ObHjqH7JD5y6uObEiWLTdI_9LTbEGM3TvMII7_cUNnBwai2HZeHv0JwjNecXaxnzfhFFtJRjVytUCyUvvfSW-WZZgNgPRWaBrudHE/s1600/technology.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjqDHEP2b97d-E0Xx5leFfwYG9rPL_-3XdizHbl0ObHjqH7JD5y6uObEiWLTdI_9LTbEGM3TvMII7_cUNnBwai2HZeHv0JwjNecXaxnzfhFFtJRjVytUCyUvvfSW-WZZgNgPRWaBrudHE/s320/technology.png" width="320" /></a></div> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Along with the fast progress of human innovation, technology provides today’s education with new horizons and unlimited possibilities for technology use in schools and classrooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe this technology course helps prepare today’s classroom teachers with current and wide knowledge of technology uses in educational settings, as well as chances to learn and practice their technology integration to serve their teaching works.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I would still recommend using the same textbook (Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, by Boblyer & Doering), organized, based on solid educational theories, including rich and up-to-date information of software and websites, which is one of my favorite parts of this course (my most memorable moments are those when I was playing with the technology tools, software, and exploring the websites recommended in the chapters).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is great when you don’t have to search aimlessly and take lessons from your failures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the guidance, you are simply learning the best and most successful practices of technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I have better and clearer pictures of the categories and types of educational technologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my area of teaching, I know where to find these technology resources and what websites and software are reliable and top-rated.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I also learned the foundations of effective technology integration are learning theories, essential conditions and Technology Integration Planning (TIP) Model.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>TIP model is central to the successful technology implementation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Classroom teachers should always use this model to guide through their practice, starting from self-assessment of their knowledge, determining relative advantages, deciding on objectives and assessments, to designing integration strategies, preparing for the instructional environment, and evaluation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The best thing I took out from this course is I actually started using some of the technologies in my teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I tried using Voicethread, the digital story telling tool, to model reading for my students who speak a different home language, and provide opportunities for them to learn each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I created podcasts and uploaded the recording of text and stories in second language for students to listen and finish assignments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I polished my skills of using Microsoft Word Processor, in the preparation of teaching materials and test papers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel like I am no longer afraid of using technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I also received positive feedbacks from both my students and parents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I took one of Dr. Tiffily’s courses in the spring, and she closed our course by recounting a true story happened on her:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>trying to save a failing marriage, she went to a book store and started reading a book that was supposed to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As she browsing through the pages, she noticed the book offered strategies such as writing little love notes and hide them under the pillow, or having a romantic dinner in a fancy restaurant to recall the old memories and so forth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Nothing special, everybody knows these little tricks”, she came to the last page, which seemed to respond to her thinking, “These small things might not be big deals, but how many of these things did you actually TRIED to save your relationship?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am always inspired by the story and believe this also suits the situation of educational technology integration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ask yourself: How many of the technologies and strategies have you actually used in your teaching? Keep in mind: It is good to think big, but it is also important to start small.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-62154757227121973372011-11-12T14:17:00.000-08:002011-11-12T14:19:20.591-08:00Professional Development Networking with Technology<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq6hckjs2H8m2KoO336Pr5GO5wS05W5UX72PZtoiOUEGM1lFPk4xWdQjnLQnypZg_xi7ZVBN5qQYHI_mJFswe-GvGydPL-ZEL6_2QWyHhYBaSD2FRFEoF35JVxZ-2kYEsl5-0QhBHqMg0/s1600/Online_Community_globe1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq6hckjs2H8m2KoO336Pr5GO5wS05W5UX72PZtoiOUEGM1lFPk4xWdQjnLQnypZg_xi7ZVBN5qQYHI_mJFswe-GvGydPL-ZEL6_2QWyHhYBaSD2FRFEoF35JVxZ-2kYEsl5-0QhBHqMg0/s200/Online_Community_globe1.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> As </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">John Cotton Dana said, “<span class="st1">Who dares to teach must <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">never cease to learn”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is imperative for teachers to constantly update their knowledge and learn new skills that could be applied in their classrooms and make some positive change immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Schools and districts usually provide regular opportunities of teacher professional development, and actively encourage teachers to attend workshops and conferences. Research has shown there is a positive correlation between teachers’ seeking professional development and their students’ performance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> One of the latest trends for using educational technology to improve professional development is learning through online communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Online communities for teacher professional development may take the form of forums, chat rooms, bulletin board, web blogs, or taking an online course through class management software such as Blackboard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Online learning communities allow teachers to connect to and facilitate with their peers outside their work place. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Duncan-Howell conducted a study among 98 teachers who participated in online communities for professional development (2010). These teachers reported the following advantages of learning through online communities:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc"><li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Online communities provided flexibility of time and convenience of place. <o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">The asynchronous nature of online communities gave teachers time to think, reflect and compose their answers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Online communities offered wide range of communication and rich experience with educators across the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
</ul><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Online learning communities also offered economic advantages: teachers can make use of the freely available online resources and networks, and save the cost of traveling and hotel if they attend a conference somewhere else. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Online learning communities are especially effective for meeting teachers’ needs for immediate classroom application and problem-solving. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could suggest good novels for grade-level reading, discuss behavior management strategies for particular problems, share useful online resources and websites, exchange experiences on technology implication and ask for advice on technique problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The topics are closely related to teachers’ real life classroom practice, and the responses through online communities can be very fast.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">According to the same study of Duncan-Howell (2010), the disadvantage of using online communities reported by teachers is interestingly the same as the one of the advantages: the flexibility of time may cause time management issues. It seemed that careful management is needed to sort through the emails and threads.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">From my personal point of view, I am attracted by online courses because I could save my time spent on traveling to classrooms, and manage my own learning based on my schedule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Blackboard, as the class management software we are currently using for most of the graduate courses, has provided many benefits that support the collaborative learning among students. I like the features that allow students to share their thoughts, questions, and products, as well as the features of recording everything in the system for me to look back later, even when I am finished with a course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span class="st1"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As a non-traditional learning mode, Blackboard SMU is not necessarily accepted and liked by all professors and students. It gave me a bad time when I first try to be familiar with it, but now, I am very glad to see I have learned how to use it and make the best out of the community created by it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-38107951553105379382011-10-29T16:11:00.000-07:002011-10-29T16:13:19.088-07:00Assistive Technology in Second Language Teaching<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkvp8gZKHFg3Pxjm4APAPeGAcjdAGs1KrTVwwN-OnhGiHYVPWVZoqxbEO8EDdbB75UoQpl1eOTtNGF0O2gFQCXwG4O_uGBJW-UgYiteCXEYlgY_7feM_Ym-xPW23lgPg9JM4FgZq31A0/s1600/Capture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjkvp8gZKHFg3Pxjm4APAPeGAcjdAGs1KrTVwwN-OnhGiHYVPWVZoqxbEO8EDdbB75UoQpl1eOTtNGF0O2gFQCXwG4O_uGBJW-UgYiteCXEYlgY_7feM_Ym-xPW23lgPg9JM4FgZq31A0/s320/Capture.JPG" width="244" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> In my 10+ years of experience as a second language teacher, I had never taught any “special” student until 2 years ago, when Matthew came into my classroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An 8<sup>th</sup> grader of Chinese heritage, Matthew speaks English at school and Cantonese at home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His dad was very proud of his intelligence in Math.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike other students who usually come to Chinese school under the pressure of their parents, Matthew showed strong interest in picking up Chinese Mandarin. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, I realized Matthew was far behind the other students in terms of his language proficiency from the first class: he seemed to have trouble identifying different sounds and tones, as well as linking words and their meanings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a teacher, I really appreciate Matthew’s enthusiasm and his parents’ kind support, but 2 years passed, Matthew’s oral output is still incomprehensible, most of his writing is a strange mixture of English and Cantonese structures plus literal translations from English to Chinese.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a matter of fact, the way he speaks English and Cantonese is also “different” from other kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Matthew was diagnosed with brain tumor and had a minor surgery, which I believe are the roots for his talent in Math and incapability in languages. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not hard to imagine students with learning disabilities, hearing or vision impairment experience difficulty taking in, retaining, and expressing information of language in second language classrooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teaching second language to these special learners could be a daunting task.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange provided guidelines and tips on teaching foreign language to students with disabilities, and recommended the following uses of assistive technology for students in learning a foreign language (<a href="http://www.miusa.org/ncde/tipsheets/foreignlanguage"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.miusa.org/ncde/tipsheets/foreignlanguage</span></a>):<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 63.35pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">JAWS screenreading software. (<a href="http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp</span></a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 63.35pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span class="link-external"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="http://www.kurzweiledu.com/kurz1000.aspx" target="_blank"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Kurzweil</span></a></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> screenreader. (<a href="http://www.kurzweiledu.com/kurzweil-1000-v12-windows.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.kurzweiledu.com/kurzweil-1000-v12-windows.html</span></a>)</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 63.35pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span class="link-external"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">ZoomText text enlarger and screenreader</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(<a href="http://www.aisquared.com/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.aisquared.com/</span></a>)</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 31.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Another topic related to both special education and second language teaching is the sign language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sign language is considered as one type of second language used by deaf or hearing impaired population.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Assistive technologies on sign language recognition and translation are being developed by researchers. Apps of learning sign language are available in the market for iPhone and iPad users.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-indent: 31.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In the area of second language teaching, I believe there are more opportunities than issues for improving the access of assistive technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The prices for most assistive technology products are affordable, ranging from several dollars to hundreds of bucks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A variety of funds and grants is available for disabled students to apply for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With the progress of in-depth research and the fast growth of technology,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the special needs and educational rights of students with disabilities would be better met and protected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-35852195234173870872011-10-01T15:17:00.000-07:002011-10-01T15:17:09.051-07:00Research Trends: Podcasting in Second Language Teaching<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwRVmtIRptL7W7W0MxSva8OPbNBPU5sRSxO694lLie0KrpJPQdu1giuddNlol8MMAaf7xz97mgcofbfNxgQHw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As the technology of computer and the Internet changed communication capacities in ways that shaped our lifestyles, offices, as well as educational practices, one of the recent developments of the educational software support tools is web-connectivity features: the basic tools (e.g. video, audio, movies) allow “live” web page links, and allow documents to be exported and viewed on the Internet (Roblyer & Doering, 2007). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Podcasting, the recording of class lectures to make them available online, so students can download to their iPod/MP3 players for later review, is a web-based technology appeared in colleges recently. Purdue University (2006) has delivered their podcasting of lectures from more than 70 classrooms; both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2007) and the University of California at Berkeley (2007) allow for studio and video streaming of some campus lectures and events (O’Bryan & Hegelheimer, 2007).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What are the potentials of implementing podcasting into second language classroom?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>O’Bryan and Hegelheimer (2007), researchers of Applied Linguistics and Technology at Iowa State University, conducted a small sized study on using podcasting with language learners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Six college and graduate level ESL students participated in this 15-week-long research project on academic English listening strategies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hosted on a course weblog, 14 podcasts (12 audio, 2 video) designed specifically for the listening course were assigned throughout the semester to coincide with the topics covered in class: academic and general listening strategies students would use as they listen to the lectures, take notes, and address difficulties that may come up in class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Students had the choice to either listen or view these podcasts on a computer, or download to their personal computers or MP3 players.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After each podcasting assignment, students completed a quiz or task over the content of the podcasts in webCT, a course management system, in order to assess their comprehension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The researchers’ instructional goals of utilizing podcasting included:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Make language input salient by having vocabulary repeated and more likely to be acquired by the language learners;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Provide multiple modes of input (verbal, audio, and video), so that students have access to the same information in different modes that bring out better understanding and retention;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Offer outside and authentic perspectives, through interviews of other language learners or professors in real life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Increase intrinsic motivation, by embracing the motivational appeal inherent in many multimedia-based language learning tools.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The project was evaluated at the end of the semester, both instructor’s and students’ reflections were investigated: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The instructor reported two main benefits of using podcasting:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Podcasts extended class time by allowing students to spend additional time working with the concepts taught in class <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">outside</i> of class.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Students have the opportunities to gain more exposure to different types of spoken English since some of the speakers on the podcasts have accents.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The students’ feedbacks were collected through an 18-item survey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They responded that podcasting is interesting, closely linked to the class content, formative, and helpful, and they believed podcasts were a positive component of the course.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The researchers concluded that although small-sized (6 students and 1 instructor), this research provides a detailed example of how computer-assisted language learning can be achieved through the technology of podcasting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Researchers also raised 2 issues that were important in implementing technology into classrooms:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The instructor needs to be well-trained in realistic uses of technology.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 58.5pt; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Face to face meetings between students and instructor is helpful to bridge the gap between what goes on in class and what they are doing outside of it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Useful inks:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.apple.com/education/podcasting/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.apple.com/education/podcasting/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://www.itap.purdue.edu/learning/tools/boilercast/"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.itap.purdue.edu/learning/tools/boilercast/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><a href="http://webcast.berkeley.edu/"><span style="color: blue;">http://webcast.berkeley.edu/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-81581056319883183252011-09-10T18:42:00.000-07:002011-09-20T08:17:18.797-07:00The Need of Integrating Technology into Second Language Classroom<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHQmVg_TaKYxzDxfmKAtpVW3jjuM0ZKedKpXXhnrwsfb38oOHsLPn5nWB-6Lk7jkez2qsV_BfqLuMyoX02T2ZLPviGYgRfCWA7GXlGs8LeX-e361dS8i7y6RbyiEXmcGXlN-p64muxIs/s1600/tech%252520ed.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHQmVg_TaKYxzDxfmKAtpVW3jjuM0ZKedKpXXhnrwsfb38oOHsLPn5nWB-6Lk7jkez2qsV_BfqLuMyoX02T2ZLPviGYgRfCWA7GXlGs8LeX-e361dS8i7y6RbyiEXmcGXlN-p64muxIs/s200/tech%252520ed.gif" width="200" /></a> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I had some trouble helping my son with his 4<sup>th</sup> grade math homework one night: neither of us understood the term <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Front End Estimation. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I received education from a different country and there was no such a term in any math course I have taken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My son wasn’t sure if the teacher had explained it to the class, or he was not paying attention when she did that. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, as what we usually do, we googled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Front End Estimation </i>and found this: <a href="http://www.nutshellmath.com/textbooks_glossary_demos/glossary_content/front-end_estimation.html"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.nutshellmath.com/textbooks_glossary_demos/glossary_content/front-end_estimation.html</span></a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thanks to the modern technology, both of us were enlightened within less than 1 minute. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Technology has been increasingly essential to both learning and teaching, as technology opened a new horizon where teachers and students can access to knowledge in various pathways and modes, find answers in seconds, finish their assignments and projects in productive ways, and share their learning process and results with a broad audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Ten years ago, when I started teaching as a second language teacher, the integration of technology was limited to TV, cassette recorders, CD and VCD players, and the language laboratory which basically served as a listening classroom and test center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Students were carrying heavy and bulky dictionaries into the classrooms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Teachers were using textbooks and chalks/markers to teach. All the assessments and tests were based on pencil and paper.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is happening to the second language classroom in the new era of information and technology?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When cassette recorders, TVs, and bulky dictionaries have all become passé and gone with the wind, almost every modern classroom has access to internet and computer software developed for language learners, a wide collection of on-line teaching resources pertaining to textbooks is available, teachers are bringing their laptops to the classrooms, and students are looking up words on electronic or on-line dictionaries. The methodology of teaching second language is also experiencing innovations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Researchers at New York Institute of Technology, Hsu, Wang, and Comac designed and implemented audioblogs into the curriculum of a college ESL conversation course (2008). (<a href="http://languageaudioblog.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: blue;">http://languageaudioblog.blogspot.com/</span></a>) Through the use of affordable and easy to use websites and recording software, the students were able to receive feedback fast and frequently from the instructor, while the instructor was allowed to chronically record and monitor the learning progress of each learner.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27.35pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">The other benefits of integrating technology into second language classrooms include: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 63.35pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">motivating learners of all levels and age groups<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 63.35pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>helping students visualize underlying concepts in unfamiliar or abstract topics (Roblyer & Doering, 2007, p15)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 63.35pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">giving language learners access to the language environment which could be outside the classroom or faraway abroad.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 63.35pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">providing practice and drills related to specific language skills, such as listening and speaking<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Along with the trend in which teachers and educational researchers acknowledge the great impact of technology on education and have been progressively studying the theories and practices of successful implementation of technology into education, researchers and language teachers have agreed that technology cannot replace good teachers and face-to-face interactions between the teacher and students. “A pencil is high tech as long as our students are concerned” (Wrigley & Guth, 1992, p95). <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Simply having students use technology does not raise achievement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The impact depends on the ways the technology is used and the conditions under which applications are implemented (Roblyer & Doering, 2007, p13).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 27pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-1712333603965203582011-08-22T21:45:00.000-07:002011-08-23T07:53:20.620-07:00Galveston, TX----Escape from the heat of Dallas!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYT8LZDR_NYRJhAHEYYR0kt35oG5u_J5dywc3IWP_0PwfbJ45e4Ykztr8uLgeNuWQC3uC3DVWhqbtN-idgv1orNrYZryGDORiGKZsjUYho_3VbxLrZYXaa12PR2JFZPsb3HpBMs0vStQc/s1600/DSC00379.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYT8LZDR_NYRJhAHEYYR0kt35oG5u_J5dywc3IWP_0PwfbJ45e4Ykztr8uLgeNuWQC3uC3DVWhqbtN-idgv1orNrYZryGDORiGKZsjUYho_3VbxLrZYXaa12PR2JFZPsb3HpBMs0vStQc/s640/DSC00379.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: small;">Brother & Sister</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzwx4PFaYjrFV2g1womJFKcq0jfS7a-oRqxmShUpLfNWTNCP3Li6VnPjU9hn3dd8e4dyK5EtQKphiKLlISSbp2B1h0ukEa-XlkjOkMaQ9sj3C1tLMTJcM7pk76j2BU9iqZPRIH6-bVQA/s1600/DSC00356.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzwx4PFaYjrFV2g1womJFKcq0jfS7a-oRqxmShUpLfNWTNCP3Li6VnPjU9hn3dd8e4dyK5EtQKphiKLlISSbp2B1h0ukEa-XlkjOkMaQ9sj3C1tLMTJcM7pk76j2BU9iqZPRIH6-bVQA/s640/DSC00356.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Water fight!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wThGoDoaZWX3eXJHBsKn49roX9kily__eVYxYMQe_1btB5KNXYcxLwuiM0SBNVEnRvpLbJ2sbPeARXunj0F48LpEidyqRNRCxEL8dVtpMu5VcEnODGWRMho9CaFTXH3hN2IGEq-PDwo/s1600/DSC00383.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4wThGoDoaZWX3eXJHBsKn49roX9kily__eVYxYMQe_1btB5KNXYcxLwuiM0SBNVEnRvpLbJ2sbPeARXunj0F48LpEidyqRNRCxEL8dVtpMu5VcEnODGWRMho9CaFTXH3hN2IGEq-PDwo/s640/DSC00383.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Seagull</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1D2-xZXsIv-OS8OfDwLRiBgKFcx_HxQ_q_BAZQLKTp-43RAJY39ynxtW9UZU-hLyQ2URvHapZ3dEo8z7xMLxM72W8Go-JzviMgjBDYuydscNCtgLJdTJ0vdUph9fMjNnP6GDXTOhYeew/s1600/DSC00162.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1D2-xZXsIv-OS8OfDwLRiBgKFcx_HxQ_q_BAZQLKTp-43RAJY39ynxtW9UZU-hLyQ2URvHapZ3dEo8z7xMLxM72W8Go-JzviMgjBDYuydscNCtgLJdTJ0vdUph9fMjNnP6GDXTOhYeew/s640/DSC00162.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">My mom is paying a short visit from China.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH6yKjvp6S_dP3xjNGmZvvDg5HVKrypYRVojBG76TpFiC7DGGHjBKv19-hrRHTe0KH9A5VYhnaM88ju_HBntuPY6NydG59Yy4Petp2r5n2vUPFp4WBFHQ_1evlyEHoVaAJ3yn7IRbtOIc/s1600/DSC00289.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH6yKjvp6S_dP3xjNGmZvvDg5HVKrypYRVojBG76TpFiC7DGGHjBKv19-hrRHTe0KH9A5VYhnaM88ju_HBntuPY6NydG59Yy4Petp2r5n2vUPFp4WBFHQ_1evlyEHoVaAJ3yn7IRbtOIc/s640/DSC00289.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Feeding Seagulls</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYv7Eb8j9IrnJHXwNTJLkaEo8kZuTyIwJtwDg6wAW2QduBd5NV_VqcKOiL3hEeorngl-BIoKSikcc4CFsJhO6kgDEjFBJiQzqakI_8pCD6o_5mOp5mY56Fs4hUiFkE3L5Asj84wUnYuO4/s1600/DSC00324.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYv7Eb8j9IrnJHXwNTJLkaEo8kZuTyIwJtwDg6wAW2QduBd5NV_VqcKOiL3hEeorngl-BIoKSikcc4CFsJhO6kgDEjFBJiQzqakI_8pCD6o_5mOp5mY56Fs4hUiFkE3L5Asj84wUnYuO4/s640/DSC00324.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Grandma & Weiwei</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiewYtCLfwjrSTgEWDp5-cXMMg7pbro7PtbHf6PKjuO83to0iqrmZUbY7TAGqMWui6wm1plMnC7xHw1oAircsf4PPWQLgeHGQTCNSkoDr857d7CgGVLR8HS3YpzaZ3_lGv-AifzVI6kRqM/s1600/DSC00308.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiewYtCLfwjrSTgEWDp5-cXMMg7pbro7PtbHf6PKjuO83to0iqrmZUbY7TAGqMWui6wm1plMnC7xHw1oAircsf4PPWQLgeHGQTCNSkoDr857d7CgGVLR8HS3YpzaZ3_lGv-AifzVI6kRqM/s640/DSC00308.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Ahhh! Now I can finally release my energy!</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0e16rLsLldVdPpQNxYmYJwNMbfPIYlr2mWx9G0OGMZuUxiEY5Xo5O0Na0h16I7KqclBU64vE9_ojVrEbHNBY2_PDMDxA0vIkcyeQn2x9dYQb5DWNv2ZV8aMFNlzCeal21WqWUTZY5BgQ/s1600/DSC00362.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0e16rLsLldVdPpQNxYmYJwNMbfPIYlr2mWx9G0OGMZuUxiEY5Xo5O0Na0h16I7KqclBU64vE9_ojVrEbHNBY2_PDMDxA0vIkcyeQn2x9dYQb5DWNv2ZV8aMFNlzCeal21WqWUTZY5BgQ/s640/DSC00362.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Grandma strolling on the beach.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJzaa_GgJRz68uWDpeHM0alx4NgDfrFt0pQTHrC-MnGtr0PGayBNHutgt3IsdtX0uhQnQ_zBOwO3zEuI-xbJetwpUg77pOHYBPSvze4AA9czxAvGQDQS4MmyiZ8_R9ba3gq4DQzi04oM/s1600/DSC00326.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJJzaa_GgJRz68uWDpeHM0alx4NgDfrFt0pQTHrC-MnGtr0PGayBNHutgt3IsdtX0uhQnQ_zBOwO3zEuI-xbJetwpUg77pOHYBPSvze4AA9czxAvGQDQS4MmyiZ8_R9ba3gq4DQzi04oM/s640/DSC00326.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Husband fishing</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZ7wfocv9WnP6g_ZR_r2L-7EUNqVqwgIcotTEhlpgjEiEFJLad4c0ljVt3KZ-HIGs7326h3X5ioDq4jsvSSouL2-ERiniR-TC2hnTyU7dEsexkMBDvUhGQuRGxo7k9aZ5wI3RgkeB2eQ/s1600/DSC00329.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeZ7wfocv9WnP6g_ZR_r2L-7EUNqVqwgIcotTEhlpgjEiEFJLad4c0ljVt3KZ-HIGs7326h3X5ioDq4jsvSSouL2-ERiniR-TC2hnTyU7dEsexkMBDvUhGQuRGxo7k9aZ5wI3RgkeB2eQ/s640/DSC00329.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">40 Sea trouts overnight</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEARvIUDMGjxkaymRNm5aonuQrX-xkva97WOzAg43VcWiSHk08AnP8fLCeKn1WEM6h1zuOHPkKd9juTrB4VDE0QNXLFawb1VbToOQnbtORf1prHu6qhfFHByjwejzOXuGYFhNugsc3Uvo/s1600/DSC00384.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEARvIUDMGjxkaymRNm5aonuQrX-xkva97WOzAg43VcWiSHk08AnP8fLCeKn1WEM6h1zuOHPkKd9juTrB4VDE0QNXLFawb1VbToOQnbtORf1prHu6qhfFHByjwejzOXuGYFhNugsc3Uvo/s640/DSC00384.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The fish ended up in here!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVojTGT1-jSOnZ1SoyOr_STXe2f1Wr5qGAmfGPYznWfK5M5aVLG5iBh7csuw9K0l8RVm-3Kw_ZB4nRPoYe-o1u6foYCbJs5k-vSqeWtcNoKwL7gzwqfE3YI6aJdOJMAlRRkuLn32s0i2Y/s1600/DSC00340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVojTGT1-jSOnZ1SoyOr_STXe2f1Wr5qGAmfGPYznWfK5M5aVLG5iBh7csuw9K0l8RVm-3Kw_ZB4nRPoYe-o1u6foYCbJs5k-vSqeWtcNoKwL7gzwqfE3YI6aJdOJMAlRRkuLn32s0i2Y/s640/DSC00340.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Hermit crabs can only survive on rocky beaches.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmm5SH7Il4_fYfjTscuT5A5-KwwZZotHWQaills_SHFoqQa41MxQGt-HxN59CPW0sgQykuSQbSvSxYfdteCzjJ1Qa6JfIXg2nZJ-8AbiEK3iv9iTk7R78z61IsLj29ri0GQq2mV9gH7d8/s1600/DSC00168.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmm5SH7Il4_fYfjTscuT5A5-KwwZZotHWQaills_SHFoqQa41MxQGt-HxN59CPW0sgQykuSQbSvSxYfdteCzjJ1Qa6JfIXg2nZJ-8AbiEK3iv9iTk7R78z61IsLj29ri0GQq2mV9gH7d8/s640/DSC00168.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Quiet Morning</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNQRVs-pTBJoMMfzyvrJ7hyfG7xZivffegn5Lsai3F3T2awJ8gR_Ypfmzt796cxlYd8_tx73IfljD-lyuU8HwDsAvC50USFoGf4ev6NTsN_tSRk1HiDp6zZQY6mWvp9jcZENu-oU2JZw/s1600/DSC00127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuNQRVs-pTBJoMMfzyvrJ7hyfG7xZivffegn5Lsai3F3T2awJ8gR_Ypfmzt796cxlYd8_tx73IfljD-lyuU8HwDsAvC50USFoGf4ev6NTsN_tSRk1HiDp6zZQY6mWvp9jcZENu-oU2JZw/s640/DSC00127.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Ms. Little Beautiful</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rC0uIOLpxe2nFVnEVy8HE9ZWiDQXV5mlBIns7zW0XrkBO1azbmWCWj3ziGU7hyJqcP3XGlJoz4FSabgjXSVY3FhToT0Xybc8p1W3eo3WJLxofBnbgnG57tkN9yAgd8J8Dd599lzOz_w/s1600/DSC00367.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7rC0uIOLpxe2nFVnEVy8HE9ZWiDQXV5mlBIns7zW0XrkBO1azbmWCWj3ziGU7hyJqcP3XGlJoz4FSabgjXSVY3FhToT0Xybc8p1W3eo3WJLxofBnbgnG57tkN9yAgd8J8Dd599lzOz_w/s640/DSC00367.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: small;">Simply happy!</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC2vC6T17PYXcDERrsI1SOCjlexBXztsRA5qPhEqrlHq-IJAjWLrQDp-yoIbDr8au3dlZBjYkbUIyJv2zuWrRC3-5PqT-55x6zxgEE16O4fU4144DrZbti8cc-glTuU8IVhzQ6sxa88vM/s1600/DSC00399.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC2vC6T17PYXcDERrsI1SOCjlexBXztsRA5qPhEqrlHq-IJAjWLrQDp-yoIbDr8au3dlZBjYkbUIyJv2zuWrRC3-5PqT-55x6zxgEE16O4fU4144DrZbti8cc-glTuU8IVhzQ6sxa88vM/s640/DSC00399.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Our favorite Mexican restaurant</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4u7mOkzGGRl8k_5pKPt92JFPftAwMS84WWQDQ0DwGCEg6Am7dcNGHaK0765VWpawq_EDy1ST_mz0eWHwQegNIXu2PdU3ZHVYBlscLPuO9klfU0XcX_nj6_0LImiEz9yCbOIIdo_K-1U/s1600/DSC00394.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4u7mOkzGGRl8k_5pKPt92JFPftAwMS84WWQDQ0DwGCEg6Am7dcNGHaK0765VWpawq_EDy1ST_mz0eWHwQegNIXu2PdU3ZHVYBlscLPuO9klfU0XcX_nj6_0LImiEz9yCbOIIdo_K-1U/s640/DSC00394.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">All wet feels good!</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3huvdJaHMY0CLF56fgjb8rVTAAN6NIeIXTyKRgilVkXYWWZb_qMOrcRmE64JQ9YO9k2c9cQAlzN2OoCOlFsnPY0Z7bD-jdqBhAwgV5QuHBCGrFRXJnMAktNbmdm454ynKg7yPOYmquY/s1600/DSC00210.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG3huvdJaHMY0CLF56fgjb8rVTAAN6NIeIXTyKRgilVkXYWWZb_qMOrcRmE64JQ9YO9k2c9cQAlzN2OoCOlFsnPY0Z7bD-jdqBhAwgV5QuHBCGrFRXJnMAktNbmdm454ynKg7yPOYmquY/s640/DSC00210.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Scarlet Ibis----Rain Forest, Moody Gardens</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31RLWkX1KzH8WgVt2oPCrSgiz7Fk2ZNJlFkPgofVx75Tuq4NDZXvtpkMtb7q57rO7jO4wu-OZiCNgEKENv1GqUvUDbmw5Gn_KBD4TShVqwnwLnnho2f1kMRSbuqkVZvmjhQKbYXCgv2o/s1600/DSC00266.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31RLWkX1KzH8WgVt2oPCrSgiz7Fk2ZNJlFkPgofVx75Tuq4NDZXvtpkMtb7q57rO7jO4wu-OZiCNgEKENv1GqUvUDbmw5Gn_KBD4TShVqwnwLnnho2f1kMRSbuqkVZvmjhQKbYXCgv2o/s640/DSC00266.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Rain Forest Plant</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HXIEgjkQAfZaVpi_TM_FKPQsFFUIWrvGo3_kKNE-6BeaI2HHvSuYLBlOPz8uHHOl-d3NxwcgkVeTh0p3JcgOtvB7HbkwHdzedH-SopKvbK_Zsim5EwzJYhwPfE0RglkvUutRcJ2f7KI/s1600/DSC00263.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0HXIEgjkQAfZaVpi_TM_FKPQsFFUIWrvGo3_kKNE-6BeaI2HHvSuYLBlOPz8uHHOl-d3NxwcgkVeTh0p3JcgOtvB7HbkwHdzedH-SopKvbK_Zsim5EwzJYhwPfE0RglkvUutRcJ2f7KI/s640/DSC00263.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">White-Faced Saki</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ze4dO-uE47Imgp4R7NEow0MIqHiL1FPmX0FwlUCTRb9tEmqUppDxLVCP9yxr3NDwzgoMzKkCnwXvaZo78IgudqrAjl-p5WfVrcmyth-2X84OF8lYrHJA2H4eqRO00jz2zCZQmolNmZs/s1600/DSC00242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_ze4dO-uE47Imgp4R7NEow0MIqHiL1FPmX0FwlUCTRb9tEmqUppDxLVCP9yxr3NDwzgoMzKkCnwXvaZo78IgudqrAjl-p5WfVrcmyth-2X84OF8lYrHJA2H4eqRO00jz2zCZQmolNmZs/s640/DSC00242.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Rain Forest Flower Idonnothename</span><br />
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</tbody></table>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-81343535176398231182011-05-08T21:41:00.001-07:002011-05-08T21:46:20.789-07:00Heritage Language Teaching<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Differentiated Instruction in Heritage Language (HL) Teaching</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Introduction</span></div><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In one of her articles, Polinsky (2007) recounted the story of Jim, a student “at a prestigious American university.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is planning to go to law school and has many talents: he is a member of the debate club, and editor-in-chief of the school newspaper; he plays the flute, holds numerous winning titles in wrestling, has been on the dean’s honor list since his freshmen year, and is universally liked as a charming, articulate, caring person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is an all-American, well-rounded guy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim has a dark secret, though: he has not really spoken to his grandparents since he was five, he cannot write to them, and he cannot even sign his name” (p. 368).<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Jim’s grandparents speak no English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim’s birth name is Cho Dong-In.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a Korean American who can barely speak in Korean”(p. 368). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the early 21<sup>st</sup> century, about one third of incoming college students in America are like Jim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They “speak American” and their knowledge of the language they were exposed to from birth can range from limited to nonexistent (Polinsky, 2007, p.369). <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Heritage language (HL) is </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">the language spoken by the children of immigrants or by those who immigrated to a country when young</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">. HL can be r<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">efugee, and indigenous languages, as well as former colonial languages. HL is also referred to as “minority language” or “community language”(Pérez, 2010, p.71).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thirty years ago, HL speakers were called semispeakers or incomplete acquirers (Polinsky, 2007).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The U.S. as a country conducts bilingual education in a way that reflects an underlying theory that there is “something wrong with language minority students and that they need to be fixed through compensatory types of programs” (Pérez, 2010, p.72).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, with the use of the term “heritage language” appeared 10 years ago, and the progress of the in-depth study on heritage language teaching and learning, a shift of attitudes toward HL and HL learners is called for. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Researchers advocated that i</span>t is time to stop viewing language minority students as deficient or academically unmotivated, and it is time to start valuing their HL skills as assets that contribute to our classrooms, communities and country (<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Pérez, </span>2010).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although HL speakers’ learning experiences of their HL might be incomplete or interrupted, when being put in the same classroom as non HL learners, the linguistic advantages of HL learners will still be able to place them years ahead of non-HL learners. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, if our country and government needs some people with Arabic language proficiency to work in foreign affairs in the Middle East, teaching the HL speakers of Arabic and help them reach high proficiency will take shorter time than teaching other learners from the scratch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polinsky (2007) proposed that HL speakers are an underutilized national resource in the U.S. and it was an exciting and daunting task for educators to formulate the “proper” instruction in the classroom.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">As a long-term foreign language teacher, I have observed how HL speakers can easily excel their non HL peers in the same language classroom, and how individually diverse the HL speakers learning experiences and needs were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a part-time teacher at several community-based Chinese HL schools, I also observed the strong contrast between immigrant parents’ and their children’s attitudes toward HL maintenance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the parents usually held positive attitudes toward HL learning and make efforts to help the children maintaining the HL, the younger generation failed to recognize the necessity and importance of retaining their HL. The lack of support from the mainstream education system, the strong trend of assimilation to English language among immigrant families might have contributed to the HL’s being ignored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But at the level of classroom, is there anything that the classroom teacher can do to enhance the HL learning? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, the HL learners are not a homogenous group. The HL speakers’ learning experiences and language skills may vary diversely from individual to individual even within the same generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How to meet each individual’s needs in a mix-ability classroom?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am trying to seek answers from differentiated instruction.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Differentiated Instruction in HL Teaching (Outline)<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Differentiation Strategies:<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Use literature to engage HL learners and teach them the structures of their HL.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Critically analyze the moral and standards conveyed by the texts in relation to the mainstream value.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Utilize the HL in conjunction with English; work on the relationship between languages.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Use electronic media and computer-based instructional materials.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Make the HL learning relative to their real-life circumstances, to the mainstream culture to which they are exposed to.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">Respect the non-standard form of language while encouraging students to become proficient in the standard form of language.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">6.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">HL literacy instruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From “bilingual” to “biliteracy”. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">7.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%;">One-on-one coaching for students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Connect the HL learning to community.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Often entwined with immigrants’ ethnic identity and subject to the assimilative forces of English language in the mainstream education system, the questions in the field of HL teaching and learning has been complicated and not been fully explored.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Study showed that HL learners at college level are highly self-determined and motivated to retain their HL, either because they consider HL as a central part of their identity, they want to polish their language skills to be more competitive in the work market, or they feel that it their responsibility to pass their culture and heritage to the next generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Contrarily, HL learners of younger age are still experiencing considerable HL loss and are not motivated to maintain their HL although their parents made great efforts and even became the HL teachers of the children. The main factor that affects immigrant children attitudes toward HL is the pressures of linguistic and cultural conformity in the school environments, especially as the children enter adolescence. The younger HL speakers’ perception of HL being “useless” and “unprofitable” also reveals a lack of support for HL learning in the mainstream American schools and in the larger society (Zhang, 2009).<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-add-space: auto; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">To reverse the reality that HL teaching and learning is ignored in the U.S., policy changes are needed at both national and district level.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the classroom practice of HL teachers, they can seek help from differentiated instruction to engage the younger HL learners and increase their motivation to learn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For teachers of the mainstream classroom, one advice they can take home is that when possible, praise the HL skills of minority students and give them credit for keep learning their HL.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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</div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-30447198985121684292011-04-22T21:57:00.000-07:002011-04-22T21:57:03.170-07:00Easter 2011<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi51XRsFg3lVQRt-7-KRRlZ290QrwJmmOwAr9dSK6fp_dlBNvVu5gZ6XFdd6dP3NV50IMkbWbuKJ-8_dcxrqaUurP6QKc2HlyBMX2BK_M8hyCtJ9OeXVzmO4t-ZBBSKNL_Qd3-xwzzcLKQ/s1600/DCP_1827.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi51XRsFg3lVQRt-7-KRRlZ290QrwJmmOwAr9dSK6fp_dlBNvVu5gZ6XFdd6dP3NV50IMkbWbuKJ-8_dcxrqaUurP6QKc2HlyBMX2BK_M8hyCtJ9OeXVzmO4t-ZBBSKNL_Qd3-xwzzcLKQ/s640/DCP_1827.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9M3CLEURQ4ttkQH8BSFRmvJ0pyG6dTE_wozFKhyphenhyphenmakwNwiaDTQDCxWlPky8kx02v_Hew116OKi-3sDPhj0jaNww7hQZL7WO8UWq2PGM8hbHZSyPfG3QsAvvvJwXhyphenhyphenVNX4rf0025Dan_8/s1600/DCP_1825.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" i8="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9M3CLEURQ4ttkQH8BSFRmvJ0pyG6dTE_wozFKhyphenhyphenmakwNwiaDTQDCxWlPky8kx02v_Hew116OKi-3sDPhj0jaNww7hQZL7WO8UWq2PGM8hbHZSyPfG3QsAvvvJwXhyphenhyphenVNX4rf0025Dan_8/s640/DCP_1825.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-28894160785823676672011-03-24T12:19:00.000-07:002011-03-24T12:19:21.797-07:00Spring Break----Corpus Christi, TX<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfLxdvXvxp9IUpaeBAF9EfR9QCIGdr_3TjAi06jnIJn7qYHKS8Db-lkGDDgJq_K1t3Hkr3WDI9w94rlhyKDvoKEWp1JDcPoEUCUoqaa1Y-zebDcsekMd1c-ic9twjDmQjJKOBdQULPI0Q/s1600/T+Head.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfLxdvXvxp9IUpaeBAF9EfR9QCIGdr_3TjAi06jnIJn7qYHKS8Db-lkGDDgJq_K1t3Hkr3WDI9w94rlhyKDvoKEWp1JDcPoEUCUoqaa1Y-zebDcsekMd1c-ic9twjDmQjJKOBdQULPI0Q/s640/T+Head.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-size: large;">People's T Head</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ46IReywT4SmZJ5ufvmLPKKXg7LpC9GoUBMUqyrf3QL3NbHxOTmh9F9LNx8QZPZJx41I08OvyATxiiAoCLPTzgQM6kS8sh0P4CqJJAvBUcZklIQvHh2AAOFPy6v5dPBErHkHFQAzZCvs/s1600/Our+Catch+from+the+Sea.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ46IReywT4SmZJ5ufvmLPKKXg7LpC9GoUBMUqyrf3QL3NbHxOTmh9F9LNx8QZPZJx41I08OvyATxiiAoCLPTzgQM6kS8sh0P4CqJJAvBUcZklIQvHh2AAOFPy6v5dPBErHkHFQAzZCvs/s640/Our+Catch+from+the+Sea.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-size: large;">Fresh Catch from the Sea</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFKRU-36IIZUVm59BhhzfXb-2bUUVIBNPNs_XgDDaX7sfYfsUjlhxbmsYep-DGBY699VhM2MUJFgwb31lA0IPCccOPr2uxS_zweOg8PdzR6ovxVRYv4_M8bWbIvJmv09q_AtpwNezjSw/s1600/%25E6%25B5%25B7%25E8%25BE%25B95.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSFKRU-36IIZUVm59BhhzfXb-2bUUVIBNPNs_XgDDaX7sfYfsUjlhxbmsYep-DGBY699VhM2MUJFgwb31lA0IPCccOPr2uxS_zweOg8PdzR6ovxVRYv4_M8bWbIvJmv09q_AtpwNezjSw/s640/%25E6%25B5%25B7%25E8%25BE%25B95.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-size: large;">Kids Playing at Seashore</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwp1BUAlVn9P9z1UjUYsEcsL0a6pnlM_DnHawuiaOqnFiZ7IuxmAwS_6d2STo46Cqf1eGqh82ts4uDDYIrQDGxdD2vhtGJ4moAzXdz2KtbADHnFby-aR3kkICUJdHZ6gvF0GCAR2fxDg/s1600/Sunrise+from+the+balcony.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="425" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBwp1BUAlVn9P9z1UjUYsEcsL0a6pnlM_DnHawuiaOqnFiZ7IuxmAwS_6d2STo46Cqf1eGqh82ts4uDDYIrQDGxdD2vhtGJ4moAzXdz2KtbADHnFby-aR3kkICUJdHZ6gvF0GCAR2fxDg/s640/Sunrise+from+the+balcony.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Sunrise, from our Balcony</span><br />
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</tbody></table>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-48348033359345153452010-12-23T00:09:00.000-08:002010-12-23T00:09:56.488-08:00<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3nA4OyQUqKM0xTNSEyzxV1H5wR93iF-yzSaoF3F8A7wIvYxZHAomN2eB78pZXhUL59nES-7HXybCMSxrCHaUimZgZiXqAuPHkvUMwRPInOx-oVCwSh8h_HHb8OUFOe2MnaFMbZfUzmC4/s1600/DCP_1715.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="396" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3nA4OyQUqKM0xTNSEyzxV1H5wR93iF-yzSaoF3F8A7wIvYxZHAomN2eB78pZXhUL59nES-7HXybCMSxrCHaUimZgZiXqAuPHkvUMwRPInOx-oVCwSh8h_HHb8OUFOe2MnaFMbZfUzmC4/s640/DCP_1715.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weiwei, Santa & Alex</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-56803893265452943192010-12-14T19:36:00.000-08:002010-12-19T06:47:04.260-08:00Book Review: Funny in Farsi, a Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOeAiAS_jXdprGwZKKUFlS3Pr3X4gtluFENE3ArUSlr7VhsCwqRl8DKjT3BPkYQlefrSTAaLLZ1HFXFoKQnW25sK50kt21sTx_N3kF-3Z0jO5bvAm4-Eoi8thjwlVzH_UGZdLAMYfjOxA/s1600/funny-in-farsi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOeAiAS_jXdprGwZKKUFlS3Pr3X4gtluFENE3ArUSlr7VhsCwqRl8DKjT3BPkYQlefrSTAaLLZ1HFXFoKQnW25sK50kt21sTx_N3kF-3Z0jO5bvAm4-Eoi8thjwlVzH_UGZdLAMYfjOxA/s320/funny-in-farsi.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Funny in Farsi, A Memoir of Growing Iranian in America”, by Firoozeh Dumas, is a collection of unforgettable stories about the author and her family’s experiences as immigrants in the 1970’s. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Firoozeh Dumas was born in Iran, when she was 7 years old, she and her family moved to California.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book spans years from her childhood to her early adulthood, the author writes about not understanding English, getting lost in Disneyland, her nose being teased, horrible experience of summer camp, traveling in different places….<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The American life was pictured in the eyes of an immigrant girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another main character in this book is the author’s engineer father, Kazem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He spent his graduate years in America in the 1950’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To him, America is a place full of clean bathrooms and kind people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This book recounts Kazem’s attempts to seek riches through bowling and in Los Vegas, and his adventures on all kinds of American foods.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the 27 stories of identity, discovery, and power of family love are 27 shiny pearls, the string that connects all of the stories, is the sense of humor in this book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What is charming beyond the humor of this memoir is that it remains affectionate even in the weakest, most tenuous moments for the culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s the brilliance of true sophistication at work. ” (Los Angeles Times Book Review) </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think this memoir covers almost every diversity topic mentioned in our textbook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the most notable ones are:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>geography, language, and religion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The author feels sorry about the limited geographic knowledge of Americans, and is surprised at how this limitation has restrained people’s minds. When the author and her family first moved to California in 1972, most of the Americans they met didn’t even heard of Iran.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People had such a mistaken image of Iran, which often consisted of camels, tents and the Sahara, that they were disappointed at knowing Iranians actually had cars and electricity, just as in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Things got worse after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when the relation between Iran and the U.S. was on edge, Americans had bumper stickers that read “Iranians: Go Home” or “We Play Cowboys and Iranians”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These Americans felt that they knew all about Iran and its people, and they had no questions, just opinions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The author makes readers laugh about their experience of overcoming the language barrier in the chapter of “Hot Dogs and Wild Geese”, “moving to America was both exciting and frightening”, because they didn’t know English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her father was unable to understand spoken English and he himself was speaking a “private language” made up of thick Persian accent and pre- World War II vocabulary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They searched for “elbow grease” in hardware shop to clean the floor; they referred the restroom as “Vater closet” and were guided to the drinking fountain; the author’s parents still don’t understand why teenagers want to be cool so they can be hot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When religion for many people is a serious and heavy issue, the author’s father treats religion with hearty laugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a Muslim, Kazem fell in love with ham, which is the forbidden food of Islam. He believed “it’s not what we eat or don’t eat that makes us good people; it’s how we treat one another….people of every religion think they’re the best, but that’s not true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are good and bad people in every religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just because someone is Muslim, Jewish, or Christian doesn’t mean a thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to look and see what’s in their hearts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s the only thing that matters, and that’s the only detail God cares about.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The author believed this part is the soul of her book, in which I learned religions should function to unite people, other than divide them. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The stories in this book could “easily translates to the experience of immigrants from any part of the world” (San Jose Mercury News).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The motto of the book, I believe, is to treat diversities and culture shocks as laughing matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If someone had been able to capsulate humor in pill form, the pills would undoubtedly put most prejudice and hatred out of business.</span></div> Quotes:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Wingdings 2"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Wingdings 2"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Wingdings 2";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">—<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Often kids tried to be funny by chanting, “I ran to I-ran, I ran to I-ran.” The correct pronunciation, I always informed them, is “Ee-rahn.” “I ran” is a sentence, I told them, as in “I ran away from my geography lesson.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>---P34</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Wingdings 2"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Wingdings 2"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Wingdings 2";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">—<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…how sad it was that people so easily hate an entire population simply because of the actions of a few.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what a waste it is to hate, he (my father) always said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a waste.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>----P121</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: "Wingdings 2"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Wingdings 2"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Wingdings 2";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">—<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">[Father]I am a rich man in America, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just don’t have a lot of money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>----P187 </span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-46578166466764104812010-11-15T22:11:00.000-08:002010-11-15T22:11:11.274-08:00Blog 10 Young Teachers, Old Teachers.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4BhQQbpT93XyzuXHSPYwRLFDjQ7TmRczLrl6jJXDKch_gcbLER8ixYpM09RHZPaq0m3Vj1SeCK82NtLqT7UkOa9tPdNvU5pTIXnfpbg-qC12t1AQ4XqTD2gzYFQ_gmGmuv7Bpqb3XfoM/s1600/teacher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4BhQQbpT93XyzuXHSPYwRLFDjQ7TmRczLrl6jJXDKch_gcbLER8ixYpM09RHZPaq0m3Vj1SeCK82NtLqT7UkOa9tPdNvU5pTIXnfpbg-qC12t1AQ4XqTD2gzYFQ_gmGmuv7Bpqb3XfoM/s200/teacher.jpg" width="185" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The focus of this chapter is the age diversity and development stages of school-aged children. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what about the teachers’ age? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What impacts of teachers’ age have on their teaching and their students? What are the strengths and downfalls of young teachers and old teachers?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are teachers the older the better?</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Young teachers are fresh off school and full of new concepts and ideas of education; their passion and energy make natural ties between them and their students; they are apt to use modern technologies both in classrooms and the communications with students (e.g. internet, texting, youtube, facebook).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could be teachers, friends, and role models for students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, younger teachers seem “immature” and need to grow up as well as the students. They may lack skills of classroom management, ability to handle emergencies, which were learned over the YEARS of teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since young teachers have not raised their own children, they might fail to understand issues from the stand point of parents.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are teachers the older the better?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Veteran teachers are often referred as “experienced”, “highly efficient”, since they have been teaching the same subject over the years and have extracted the best teaching materials and approaches to teaching. They have rich life lessons, which enable them to understand what parents are expecting from and worrying about their children. Older teachers are familiar with education policies, routines, procedures, resources, personnel that are helpful for dealing with general and specific cases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, old teachers may rely too much on their former experience when solving problems, other than try to learn new findings of education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they are not updated with the knowledge of all kinds of learning disability, they might easily label a child with learning disability as “trouble maker”, “do not follow directions” etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, I will conclude that a middle-age teacher (such as me), would combine all the strengths of being young and old and be the best teacher!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just kidding!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judging a teacher by his/her age, is “ageism”, and thus biased.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Best teachers can be from any age group, as long as the teacher is passionate about his/her job, listening to students and parents, professional in the content area, self-reflective about his/her teaching, and always ready to learn new things.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-35315029431172021642010-11-10T09:14:00.000-08:002010-11-10T09:18:47.019-08:00Blog # 9 East vs. West, South vs. North. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTn7Xc24FU6IHg1oOuSaIehGvInhpKiUIpknW0qya_UlVktcW6KwRZMIbGONF6XjsZrLsLJJuLa5pMCqda5Ve7yf62ZyJIWbXIXUCtc0v3X0rlVYxVVdnPVg5NHjOTTekYTuxP8-DGhEw/s1600/WorldRegions.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTn7Xc24FU6IHg1oOuSaIehGvInhpKiUIpknW0qya_UlVktcW6KwRZMIbGONF6XjsZrLsLJJuLa5pMCqda5Ve7yf62ZyJIWbXIXUCtc0v3X0rlVYxVVdnPVg5NHjOTTekYTuxP8-DGhEw/s1600/WorldRegions.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">World Map, English Version</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsTVVmmev9hZbip1T9_PMJCp_lHs26XX796zaJMrO0F3IakrI2AvU941I_iYlany35oTpSjlTpfdRVVgvU83ookf5L4_3ZtJfwiSaic7BVh7Lcwh_zWuemSqA3_7YBio3M9KFDlDQaFZQ/s1600/20070628184800155+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="263" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsTVVmmev9hZbip1T9_PMJCp_lHs26XX796zaJMrO0F3IakrI2AvU941I_iYlany35oTpSjlTpfdRVVgvU83ookf5L4_3ZtJfwiSaic7BVh7Lcwh_zWuemSqA3_7YBio3M9KFDlDQaFZQ/s400/20070628184800155+%25282%2529.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">World Map, Chinese Version</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Can you tell the “surface” and “hidden” difference between the two world maps above? Of course they are in different language: English and Chinese, but the in-depth implication of these maps is the different ways we view the world based on where we are.</span></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The entire childhood, I was exposed to the second map, and used to wonder why Asia is called the “east” or “orient” when obviously in the map, we are in the central part of the world!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The name “China” literally means “the central kingdom” in Chinese language. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ethnocentrism!)</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In high school and college, along with the learning of English as the second language, I started to tap into more topics and discussions of “East & West”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned that the west and east cultures differ in so many ways from greeting, conversation, eating habit, dressing style, facial expression, to the social norm, political opinion, religion, and the value system, that when east meets west, there is a “culture shock”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, China has a collectivist culture which emphasizes the benefit of people as a group, when necessary, people choose to sacrifice the individual for the group goal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However in the U.S., individual freedom and rights is the main focus of the culture, any harm to individual right is the violation of “human rights”.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“South” and “north” is another pair of interesting concepts. We assume people from the same country are identical, but within this country, there is always regional diversity, in which “south” and “north” are commonly involved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In China, although the geographical divide between south and north is Qinling Mountain and Huaihe River, the definition of “southerners” and “northerners” could be relatively different, I, as a Beijinger, was referred as “northerner” by people from Shanghai, but “southerner” by people from northeast China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “northerners” and “southerners” have all sort of stereotypes and prejudice to each other, just like in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used to have 2 Indian families as my neighbors, from them I learned there is “south” and “north” in India too.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Geography encompasses with ethnicity and race, language, religion and socioeconomic status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Where are you from” decides your accent, lifestyle, religion, as well as your understanding of other regions and cultures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is easy to cross the geographic borders of north, south, west and east, but hard to pass the borders across people’s minds.</span></span></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-15060195483313743302010-11-01T22:05:00.000-07:002010-11-01T22:05:41.266-07:00Blog # 8 Can an Atheist Like Me Love Christmas?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRlgstBl0S_LWOCxh1q97_wo2yoxJPY8Y4ODD3g7Xs90kEcEen49N1OQyjF4UxTW_HXL0toijWpMyPNhjvheu4FXOfw2eA9scXSuq8Q7seVFLrgiw8W064Nb1dSiSi0a1T_WjoWDfZhM/s1600/merry_christmas_3.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYRlgstBl0S_LWOCxh1q97_wo2yoxJPY8Y4ODD3g7Xs90kEcEen49N1OQyjF4UxTW_HXL0toijWpMyPNhjvheu4FXOfw2eA9scXSuq8Q7seVFLrgiw8W064Nb1dSiSi0a1T_WjoWDfZhM/s320/merry_christmas_3.gif" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Born and raised in a typically atheistic Chinese family and community, my early understanding of religion rested on the impression that Muslim people did not consume pork as the rest of us did, and they were very serious about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The schools I went in China did not teach us religion either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, we were taught Darwin’s theory of evolution, which has formed the foundation of my knowledge of the world and perceptions of human history and society. In China, many people share a common opinion: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">religion,</i> as a synonym of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">superstition</i>, was therefore the antonym of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">science</i>, and only those with vulnerable minds would believe in supernatural power.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">While in China, people with religion are usually judged and discriminated by the majority of atheists, it could be a totally opposite situation in the U.S.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">With ninety percent of the populations (2005) claims a preference to some religious group and 60% of Americans believe that religion can answer all or most of today’s problems, a<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">theists</i> are minorities in the U.S. and somewhat become an equivalent to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">immorality</i>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some published articles criticized China for being lack of religion, thus lack of morality and social conscience, which caused all sort of today’s social problems.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, I have confronted the sense of superiority from churchgoers and questions like “Do you know where you are going when you are dead?” </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is being religious or not the only criterion to define people as good or bad?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Of course </span>NO! Can I still be a good person without any religious affiliation? Of course YES!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All through my life, I learned the same values and virtues as those religious: love, care, honesty, sympathy, hard-working, responsible, humble, supportive, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only difference is: I am self-administrated. I am capable for making decisions and responsible for my actions, as well as taking all the consequences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not worship any God, but it won’t prevent me from being a decent person!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I respect all religions, as much as I wish to be respected as an atheist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I celebrate Christmas, because in my eyes, it is the most exciting AMERICAN holiday!</span></span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-5182154654579912592010-10-27T07:21:00.000-07:002010-10-27T07:34:12.777-07:00Blog # 7 What Are You Sinking About?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dzRmkF-52nTzL3wMOhrRzkQjSvK2G7l6g3yskfIQranJaqdngs1FVXauVpH6zb5VuRVIZsIuBbFrmf-EQ53ew' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Think</span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">sink</i>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is one of the common mistakes of pronouncing a foreign language word: replacing an unfamiliar sound with a familiar sound of one’s first language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some English learners from China may have the same problem, because we don’t have a<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> th</i> sound in Chinese, you may have heard Chinese learners say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sank you</i> instead of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thank you</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As a long-term English learner, I would say speaking is one of the hardest parts for many Chinese learners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back the time I started learning English, the predominant approach to instruction was grammar-translation, reading and writing were the focus of teaching.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not until college did we have native speakers to teach us Spoken and Listening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the gap between students’ writing and speaking proficiency had been long-existing and hard to be changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, opposite to the common belief that English learners would grasp daily communication skills before they reach academic language level, Chinese learners seem to reverse the 2 phases. A good example would be my husband: he has no problem conducting research and publishing scientific papers in English journals, but when it comes to daily conversations and phone calls, he is not as skilled as in written English. He is also very self-conscious of his accent, and dubs his English “Yunglish”, because he was born in Yunnan China.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another problem that frustrates English learners, is the difference between the textbook language and the authentic language spoken by the native speakers. We learned words such as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">wonderful, excellent, great, terrific, amazing, perfect</i> in China, only to found Americans are actually saying <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">awesome</i>!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slangs, idioms and phrasal verbs could be confusing too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Firoozeh Dumas, author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Funny in Farsi</i>, depicted a real story in which she and her mother went to supermarket in searching for “elbow grease”, because the American repairman who fixed their washing machine recommended in using it to remove the stain on the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Learning a second language is a long and twisted path.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When my Chinese and English are fighting in my brain, my tongue and teeth are fighting in my mouth, I couldn’t help lamenting when my English will be the same proficient as my Chinese, and when can I talk as fast and laugh as hard as my American classmates do!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am thinking, and do not want to be sinking!</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-20725313136074602732010-10-26T21:41:00.000-07:002010-10-27T07:47:02.059-07:00Blog # 6 My Book Choice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWCGzzDCPpDtLU9ihd5zDTKvem69zP7VKAoRkEp7nu1Fdk6oNtgH3ylf52n8AjGGeGgHFDplmU0s9nAIL0QVM8s_WVNoHByDkRAliAuGt9SWRjhMlJyMHOWdNcv9IoMxxEZOElgBY9OQ/s1600/book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPWCGzzDCPpDtLU9ihd5zDTKvem69zP7VKAoRkEp7nu1Fdk6oNtgH3ylf52n8AjGGeGgHFDplmU0s9nAIL0QVM8s_WVNoHByDkRAliAuGt9SWRjhMlJyMHOWdNcv9IoMxxEZOElgBY9OQ/s1600/book.jpg" /></a></div><div align="left" class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Up Close Media Queen:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oprah Winfrey, A Twentieth-Century Life, </span></i><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">by Ilene Cooper, provides an intimate portrait of Oprah Winfrey’s life and a rare, comprehensive history of an American icon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe this book is related to our diversity topics in the following 3 aspects:</span></span></div><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-add-space: auto;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Race and Ethnicity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1954, when Oprah was born, her hometown Mississippi was among the most segregated places in the United States, even drinking fountains and bathrooms were divided by race, so were schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same year, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled on the case of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Brown v. Board of Education </i>and opened the way to integrated schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The civil rights movement and the way the society had been evolving in the following 20 years benefited Oprah: she was offered a scholarship and went to a integrated high school and college, she won the opportunity to work as a TV reporter, which was mostly a man’s profession - a white man’s profession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oprah said she was “born at the right time”, because her success was based on the social trend that minority groups were being included by the main stream society.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gender.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oprah was sexually abused when she was young; she had her first child at age 14(the baby only lived for 2 weeks). Her own experience made the grown-up Oprah actively involved in programs that help abused children and train young girls to be the future leaders. One of the things Oprah had in common with many women was a battle with weight:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>she honestly talked about her dieting in her shows and shared her pains and sorrows as an overweight woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This society has been putting too much emphasis on people’s orthopedic characteristics, especially on women’s physical beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to be “perfect”, women are putting up with increasing pressures.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Socioeconomic Status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A black girl born in a farm in the 1950’s, parents never got married, spent early years helping grandma with heavy laundries, Oprah was definitely born in a low SES class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, she held a firm belief in herself: she believed she “belongs to someone or something bigger”, and she “could do anything”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her grandma taught her read and found her gift in speaking, Oprah herself at first considered speaking a means of getting attention and love, but later realized it was this belief that triggered all the changes in her later life. What should be learned by all the parents around the world is, an early exposure to literacy, a strong belief of “I can”, plus complete and formal education, would help the children achieve in the future.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The life of Oprah Winfrey is a reflection of American’s diversity. Her story of success exemplifies America’s can-do spirit and the best of its humanitarian impulses.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-26550655421590184842010-10-07T17:35:00.000-07:002010-10-13T07:21:18.294-07:00Blog # 5 To Be "Included" or Not, That Is the Question.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9DJDTxx-7ybctNqYnBe0NZmvpVWP9RjwOIZT0_s2txAn3iMr-aeFpAjvZgClcsYbb-_Y1TYUOTuOApYXgObLux34k8fGmCeMa8Si4yMSNvLP2vS7Ibs5lmpd7kLhRJ95bTgXckrAOBQ/s1600/DisabilityWlchair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ex="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_9DJDTxx-7ybctNqYnBe0NZmvpVWP9RjwOIZT0_s2txAn3iMr-aeFpAjvZgClcsYbb-_Y1TYUOTuOApYXgObLux34k8fGmCeMa8Si4yMSNvLP2vS7Ibs5lmpd7kLhRJ95bTgXckrAOBQ/s320/DisabilityWlchair.jpg" width="265" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-T7XfnS9it0WMLE1YyBz1Qz05iG_sPR2SQlbfWyMKIXFMwKzxWQCV5nRxlNAnKdhe80VCHIf8SEUGZdvqBLghBV2nEPEHtr2pmoG9jm6_dE_zz3Bmz7rqUvOBIsufGkg4bSO6m-NmJUE/s1600/life_is_like_a_box_of_chocolates_mug-p1685568572332125012opcc_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 19.4% of all Americans are affected by some form of disability. Among the population with disability, people over 65 years old, African Americans, single parent families, and low-income families are more likely to become victims of disability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> As a reflection in school settings, 12%</span> of school-aged children have been diagnosed with some type of disability.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“Inclusion” means that students with disabilities have a right to be integrated into general education classes regardless of their ability to meet “traditional” academic standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Although not required by the Federal special education law (IDEA), “inclusion” has been frequently discussed by educators and parents of disabled children. Inclusion has its roots in the belief that segregating students with disability from general education classes, is same as segregating African American students from “white” schools, thus is morally and ethically wrong.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">However, there are some issues and concerns related to full inclusion, such as “Are all children with disabilities feasible for inclusion, regardless of the types and degrees of their disabilities?” “What impact will inclusion have on nondisabled children?” “Are general classroom teachers prepared to provide appropriate instructional services to those children with special needs?”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I sometimes listen to “The Long Lost Love” at FM103.7, in which a detective would help people find out where their long lost love ended up today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One morning, a lady called in, instead of a “long lost love”, she wanted to find out a “long lost bully” who had been harassed her from 1<sup>st</sup> grade to high school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This lady was diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which made her the laughing stock of the bully. The trauma was so intense both in degree and length, that years after graduating from high school, the lady would had nightmares of being bullied again and woke up in panic in the midnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bully was found ended up in jail, which was not a surprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But one question hovering in my mind was, why the girl (and her parents) didn’t try to avoid the bully by going to a different school, or special education school/program? Maybe back then, children like her did not have other choices except for going to a public school and put up with the possible side effects of “inclusion”, which could sarcastically turned into a trend 20 years later. I wonder how this lady would comment on "inclusion".</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">Should children with disability be included or excluded?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, it depends on the types and degrees of their disabilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Second, it depends on the children’s needs and parents' choices. While some parents of disabled children consider “inclusion” as desirable, others may rather choose being excluded from normal school settings and turn to special education, where the children with disability could be better protected from harm, get full attention from their teachers, who are also supposed to have received special trainings on teaching these children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What education agencies, administrators and educators should do, is to make sure all children with disability have the right and freedom to make their own choices based on their own needs.</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana", "sans-serif";"></span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-30642632786294261442010-09-28T10:37:00.000-07:002010-09-29T12:39:04.196-07:00Blog # 4 Raised by a Feminist Mother<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpegJJiBfIEebJmpYpfszZg74dFVNvt9Gn8nNdzN9kG7VZVt_tu5_mf5_bFWDMBwhHKl5aC3_2qw44Sxaf0cYbxDijFrqPk-kquCqzWyfNO01vJj4ZzbRJXxyBpNGC88BVKhKSfmeyReY/s1600/flower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="200" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpegJJiBfIEebJmpYpfszZg74dFVNvt9Gn8nNdzN9kG7VZVt_tu5_mf5_bFWDMBwhHKl5aC3_2qw44Sxaf0cYbxDijFrqPk-kquCqzWyfNO01vJj4ZzbRJXxyBpNGC88BVKhKSfmeyReY/s200/flower.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mom is the most strong-minded, ambitious, and self-reliant lady I have ever known. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grew up in a 3-generation combined female-dominant family with no presence of men, she started her first job at 16, got married and raised 3 children in her 20’s, obtained college degree in her 40’s and master’s degree in 50’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Currently working in a court and actively participating in public affairs and civil lawsuits, she has won herself a prestige as an “Alpha Woman”, which is exactly her dream!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the same time, she also played her role as a traditional woman in family life, taking care of cleaning, cooking, child-rearing…… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The difference is, it was much out of her obligation, rather than her own choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For many times when I was little, I heard her regretting having started family (which includes the existence of me!), wasted her time and energy on the mundane house chores that would make the realization of her dream difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking back from now, I see the dilemma in which a woman struggled between her role as an independent individual who had a big dream in her heart, and the role as a woman that had been assigned to her by the culture.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Interestingly, my mom changed when she was older. Claiming her children and grandchildren the most valuable assets and most important traces of her life, she is happily playing her role as a loving mother and grandmother. In her words, she is making “compensation” for not being able to cherish us enough when we were young, and for our tolerance of her endless battles with my dad on “Who is the decision maker”!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Raised by my feminist mother, I was instilled with the beliefs that women can achieve as well as men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With her acute observation, my mom helped me make important decisions both in career and personal life. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As most modern women today, sometimes I see myself on the same track as my mom was: trying to find a balance between career and family life, struggling transforming across the roles of the different “caps” on my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then I thought of my mom, I told myself:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is meaningless to debate on “Man and woman, which is superior?” or whether you are "Fiminist" or "Anti-Feminist", what really count is how you view things as important in your life, you follow your heart and “just do it”!</span></span></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2515847552235541454.post-32772983812708196022010-09-20T22:48:00.000-07:002010-09-23T21:02:34.268-07:00Blog#3 Make the Connection.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZqVAi441LnBDTfSVzAohkftrN2jJms6sCYg1CVXztXoKtEZKyJ2zP8dMv-qWUecSjgi_aM_wY8EA-gvLF7EWbSUIOthMCzy9RHOLQmKyqFmxMToA7DhPa5CoW_s4onbUUrybzdEFN-xU/s1600/AboutSMU.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" qx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZqVAi441LnBDTfSVzAohkftrN2jJms6sCYg1CVXztXoKtEZKyJ2zP8dMv-qWUecSjgi_aM_wY8EA-gvLF7EWbSUIOthMCzy9RHOLQmKyqFmxMToA7DhPa5CoW_s4onbUUrybzdEFN-xU/s640/AboutSMU.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"> <span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> I just finished reading the biography of Oprah Winfrey, the now "Media Queen", who was born in a lonesome Mississippi farm, and had a humble childhood, in which her mother was always out working as a cleaning lady, and she was sometimes left home alone playing with the cockroaches that scurried around the boarding house they lived in. Throughout the reading, I couldn’t help trying to find the connection between the little girl in the above mentioned gut-wrenching scene and the successful, confident, and glamorous lady shown on TV and magazines of today. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"> In 1987, Oprah endowed 10 scholarships to Tennessee State University where she graduated from, in honor of her father, who had always encouraged her to pursue an education, telling her it was the keystone to a successful future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Oprah’s story perfectly recounted what our textbook states, “A college education is the most reliable step for moving from a low-income to a middle-class and higher status”.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another example would be Chinese immigrants.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of all the minor ethic groups in the U.S., Chinese immigrants are the rare species that managed to maintain a higher socioeconomic status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Traditional Chinese culture highly values the significance of education.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the early immigration in the 19<sup>th</sup> century in which the immigrant were mainly labor workers from southern China, to the most recent immigration that started from the 1980’s in which the immigrants were mostly highly educated professionals, higher education has been viewed as a necessary safeguard against potential racial discrimination and a means to reach affluent life for both the individuals and their families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All in all, it was education that helped Chinese immigrants make the connection, in the long process of assimilating into American culture.</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 18.0pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Education is helping all of us sitting in this classroom make connections as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me, it helps me reach my career goal and fulfill my dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What connections are you making through education?</span></span></span><span style="color: #000033; font-family: "Georgia", "serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"></div>Xiaoyan Wanghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15059201018206208819noreply@blogger.com1