in Penn State

We'll leave this quiet and peaceful town -- State college -- 2 days later. We cann't help saying "Time flies". Now I feel a little bit emotional. I can't forget Barbielike Nikki, friendly Michelle, smart Jim and humorous Gena, also energetic Linda.

In this intensive program, we are familiar with some new technologies which can be adopted in our classrooms. After discussing the RDS today, I think long-distance exchange projects can be organized in a variety of ways, generally using e-mail but also using web-based conferencing systems or various types of software for synchronous chatting.

crazy sand

hi, Michelle, this is the address of the video "crazy sand".
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE5Njc2MDg0.html
 http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTE5Njc2MDg0.html

I miss Leon, Duoduo and my parents!

My lovely Duoduo!

enjoy the life

I don't know why I can't open my e-mail address recently, so I didn't receive the Nikki's mail and I cannot read any comments from others.
Tonight, Juliet, Sally, Xiaohua and I ate the icecream again. We saw some cute kids with their family members, chatting, playing.

We heard the music when we're wondering on compus. Then we found there is a live concert on the Old Main lawn. That's amazing, we saw a band singing on the stage. All of us felt coming back to our college days. We four are dancing with the music. This is an unforgetable experience in Penn State.

Is it possible to adapt the chatting system in Chinese language class?

Actually, I don’t think it is possible to use chatting system in Chinese language class. You know, there are more than 60 students in each English class except for English majors. Supervision is a big problem. How can the teacher supervise the whole class while the students are chatting through the Internet?


But on the other hand, that is a good way to provide more information or answer students’ questions after class. In China, I often encourage students to ask questions via QQ or e-mail. Most of them think that is useful in learning English because I usually stimulate them use English all the way.

What do I think about chatting system?

AIM chatting system is new to me. Actually there are some kinds of messaging system in China. Among the young students, they like using QQ, which is easy to chat with one or more people.

I think it’s a convenient way to contact with each other at the same time, even though the users are in different places. But I don’t think it’s necessary in class. We need face-to-face communication in class. But for the long-distance education, chatting system is an ideal method.

In Nikki’s class today, Nikki helped us learn how to use the AIM and gave us three tasks. I really enjoy it! I love this kind of activity in class. But is it possible in China? I puzzled.

Goals for this class

In China, we use less technology than America. So I’d like to be acquainted with the use of various technological tools. After Nikki’s class today, I’m interested in Postcards and Talking Heads, which place emphasis on the authentic sharing of information.

I created my personal blog years ago. my students often give me some comments on my posts. I think this is a good way to shorten the distance between the teacher and the student.

In the new semester, I will try to use the blog which created in www. blogspot.com today in my teaching.

I teach English majors in China, they want to know more things about Western countries. Cathy and I just instruct a student’s project which aims to be a bridge between the American students and Chinese students. We want to help them plan a bilingual web site on the World Wide Web and help them design and edit the web site, which includes textual information about their universities and also they can learn background cultural information about current events and attitudes in America and China.

Me, technology and English teaching -- Thoughts on using technology

When I was a college student in Xi’an Foreign Language University in 1995, the audio-tape was the perfect medium for the audio-lingual method, which helps students perform the dreaded repetition drills.

I am so envious of nowadays language students because there are more kinds of technologies offer learners maximum opportunity to interact within meaning-rich contexts through which they construct and acquire competence in the language.

With the advent of networked multimedia computing and the Internet, language teachers throughout the world have been warming up to using computers in the language classroom. The audio-tape is non-Internet technology tools which is also very useful aids for the language student and teacher.

As an English teacher, we now seek not only to teach students the rules of grammar, but rather to help them gain apprenticeship into new discourse communities. This is accomplished through creating opportunities for authentic and meaningful interaction both within and outside the classroom, and providing students the tools for their own social, cultural, and linguistic exploration.

In sum, I think technology assists language teaching in class and different technology can provide different environment for different levels of students.

hi, everyone

Welcome to my blog!