PART 4 --- Colored cards

We can combine what they have learned and the new stuff into another activity as following. But, before you get to start the game, remember to review the relevant things, like PART 3.

What’s your / her / his name?
My / Her / His name is _______.
What color is your / her / his name card?
My / Her / His name card is ______.

Teacher makes students be in the group of about 3, and numbers the students in each group. Later, he/she hands out the colored cards to each student and has them to write down their own name on the cards with marker pens. Then teacher could decide which team takes charge of asking questions first, and start the activity with any number. For example, the no.2 of group A should ask the no.2 of group B “What’s your name? What color is your name card?” And the no.2 of group B has to answer the question “My name is Allen. My name card is green.” Besides, during this exercise, students have to show their name cards. Then, the next student would be expected to replace “your” into “her” or ”his”, and the answerer of the other team should also change the personals according to the sentence he/she hears of.

PART 3 --- Color

As students have learned the colors, teacher could play this game for enhancing them.

What color is it?
It is color.
red / pink / beige / orange / yellow / green / blue / purple / gray / brown / black
Is it color?
Yes, it is.
No, it isn’t. It is color.

Teacher can play two activities for this part, and the first one would be easier. Teacher requests the class to sit in a circle and stand up, preparing the colored cards and puts them on the board. Then teacher points out a card and asks one of the students “what color is it?” The student would be expected to answer the color of the card（e.g. ”it is yellow.”）, and teacher takes the card away. Later, the student who has questioned has to ask different card to another student in the same way. If the next student answers him/her, then the first one can sit down. The rest can try to remember the color by doing the same manner.

Before doing the second game, teacher could practice the dialogue briefly. Next, teacher sets apart the circle and gives the question “is it red?” Here, students have to raise their hands to answer it.（e.g. “Yes, it is.” or “No, it isn’t. It is black.”） Teacher may calculate the scores of each team by students’ replies.

PART 2 --- Ask the name

While students have learned how to do the simple greeting, teacher may start the lesson and play the activity with greeting someone, including asking and replying one another’s names. Teacher could teach students how to greet people in the morning, afternoon, at night or before people go to bed, and how to ask other’s names or reply themselves’; later, teacher could have well practice with them. Then students can be requested to sit in a circle and begin the activity. But students should remember to change the way of greeting in time order and their classmates’ names. For example:

Good morning
Good afternoon
Good evening
Good night
What’s your name?
My name is _____.

The first student has to say “Good morning! My name is Amy. What’s your name?” Then the second student replies the question “Good morning! My name is Bob.”, and ask the student sitting next to him “Good afternoon! My name is Bob. What’s your name?” So the third student replies in the same way, but has to change the greeting into “Good evening” when he asks the next one. And the rest can do it in the same manner. As you do the activity clockwise for the first time, you can play it again counterclockwise or in other kind of sequence in which everyone can participate. Finally, teacher has to ask the same question to the students.

PART 1 --- Greet people

For the students who just finished learning the alphabet, teacher could teach students to do the simple greeting. The aim of the activity for this part is to train the oral speaking by making students to say something when they meet their friends.

How do you do? （reply in the same way）
How are you?
I am fine.
Good-bye.

The first step is that teacher divides students into 2 groups, A and B, and numbers the students in each group. In round1, the student no.1 of team A（or B） has to do the conversation with the other group’s no.1. Teacher can use any way to decide who’s going to ask the other one first, then count the team in which, by judging his/her reply, the student is questioned. Therefore, if there are 5 members in each group, there will be 5 rounds. Teacher could assess the situation whether they should play it again or not.

The Purpose of This Blog

Today we are asked to write down the purpose of our blog in Blogger.com, and that was really hard to decide what I could share with others. However, I thought about some alters which happened to me recently, and I considered they could be what I was proud of. That is --- teaching games and methods I have used in my teaching.

I am an English major and I mainly take Teaching and Learning courses at college, so, in order to put the theory I’ve learned into practice, I started teaching primary school students English at a cram school last October.

Before I began this part-time job, I have some experiences of teaching English to children since I’ve been learning the relevant lessons and I had to teach English in the elementary school. I used to teach kids in team work, so I was really nervous when I was standing on the stage alone.

I remember one thing I thought of at that time is to teach as much as I could within the short class. Hence, I made great efforts on thinking about increasing kids’ knowledge, but skipping doing the activities and games. And I never thought I would decrease their interest in English by doing so.

When the winter break came, I realized the way I had been doing is like that I was teaching a crowd of high school students. Therefore, I decided to give it a crack and adjust my lesson plan.

In this semester, I spend more than half of the class time in playing the games. Then I find something has changed. Smiles come back to those little faces again, and the attitude the kids take in the class become active. Most of all, children get easy to concentrate on lesson and they can do more and more efficient learning.

I’m very impressed how this happened due to playing the games. And now, “playing is learning” becomes the goal of my teaching. That’s why I want to share the teaching methods and games I have used here. Besides, any one who wants to exchange different ways of teaching is very welcome too.

Conversion Program

At first, I want to talk about Riva FLV Encoder, a conversion device used to switch the file of FLV to that of MPG. I think it is really practical because the type of the FLV video cannot be viewable in some common broadcast media. However, as we use Riva FLV Encoder to convert the form of the file, it would be watched via most of the media programs. It reminds me of another device I learned last week, a web site for downloading the video of Youtube. It is another amazing skill as well. We just post the video’s URL into the site, pushing the START bottom and wait for a while, then we could download the file and watch it without on-line condition.

Through these useful equipments, there might be some effects on the learning situation. For example, perhaps someday there will be no need for teachers to stand on the stage and repeat the same lesson every semester; instead, those teaching process could be shot, recorded, and put on the network. By doing so, students may not have to attend the class（and the school will not be needed too, haha!）but just choose the recorded video they want, and download and keep them for themselves.

Also, this week we are requested to decorate our new blogs in wikispaces. Differ from the blog in blogger.com, the purpose of the new one is to display our resumes. Besides, we keep learning new skills by arranging the blog, including posting the textures, pictures, videos, etc. Therefore, it is no doubt that this blog will be the wonderful electric resumes for me, since web site has large capacity, and it is convenient, quick and accessible. I believe such on-line profile would replace the traditional profile and be a main trend for people who want to distribute their resumes.

marmaladecookie.wikispaces.com

PODCAST

A podcast is a term compounded from the words iPod and broadcast, and it refers to content itself or the method by which it is syndicated（聯合）. It is a collection of digital media files for playback（錄放裝置）on portable media players（PMP） and pc. And the podcasting scripts, first developed for PMP, allow podcasts to be automatically transferred to a mobile device after they are downloaded. Some specific specialties of a podcast are, with RSS or Atom, an aggregator for reading feed（傳送）formats, its capabilities of being syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added.

The feeds are distributed to the podcasting client which is the software for making full use of podcasts’ syndication functions. By liking to the audio file in an RSS feed or web page, users can download directly. Podcasting listeners can listen on the computer using media player software, through MP3 player, a specialized hardwre device, or with VoIP technology（Voice over Internet Protocol, a protocol optimized for the transmission of voice through the Internet or other networks）by calling to a virtual phone number.

Initially, podcasting was to allow individuals to distribute their own radio-style shows, but it is use in school lessons, official or unofficial affairs, such as conference meeting or to distribute some important messages. Furthermore, podcasting is playing a significant role in education since its convenience of sharing information anytime and anywhere. Teachers can record their and communicate the curriculums or anything else complementary through podcasting, while students absent in class could download the recorded lesson and assignments.

Another useful skill for students

Remember last Wednesday I learned how to put Youtube audiovisual into the blog; this week, I learned the skill of putting the film we found on the web sites or the WMV into the Power Point. This is what I dream of for so long because, for students, it is a perfect technique which could make the presentation more colorful and help express the ideas more directly, while for teachers, utilizing such method will be able to make their lessons vivid and interesting.

For example, in a cooking class, when the teachers want to show how to cook a new recipe, they can shoot the cooking film beforehand, and then showing the students the film in class. By ding so, there would be no need for teachers to cook and explain at the same time. Instead, they only have to focus on narrating the cooking procedure. Besides, teachers can give a test or homework to let the students do some practical operation together in class. The students can shoot their cooking films and record them down. What they have to do at the end of the class is to bring their productions, and afterward ,put the films they shoot into their reports and append the reflections on their cooking. Then the teachers will not have to busy around during the class but score the taste of dishes immediately. They can take time to evaluate the processes of students' cooking. Frankly speaking, I just imagine what I could plan with posting audiovisual in PPT, but now I really want to take a cooking lesson...

Jimmy Kimmel is Fucking Ben Affleck

Sarah Silverman "I'm F*cking Matt Damon" on Jimmy Kimmel

Discovery

To be frank, I was terrified by the first week because the attendance regulation is quite stressful. Besides, I have no talent for computer at all, so I was nervous about whether I could pass this class at the end of the semester. But since I believed this lesson would be very important for all of us, I decided to join it. Today, I attended the class, and I am gratified and convinced that this choice is absolutely right.

I learned what kind of on-line methods I should download, such as Yahoo mini pen and delicious bookmark, which lets my computer benefit my work. When I was browsing the Internet page and saw any word I didn’t know, I had to use my electric dictionary or open another new Internet explore page to look it up. And I used to encounter a situation that I couldn’t find some important and often-used websites while I was not using my private computer. These problems are very inconvenient, but, from now on, it is different.

On the other hand, we were showed many web sites and some people’s blogs in which some computer-assisted relative problems were discussed. I think they are very useful and we can contact more and more information through accessing the internet. Furthermore, it would be another kind of self-learning---learning without teachers.

For the homework of this week, we are assigned to leave a message in a blog. We have to think about how we should weigh the pros and cons of the computers and the real teachers. And we have to surmise the tendency of teaching and learning and the future of these two as well. Although my view point has no certain conclusion on this, I was glad to share my opinion with everyone.

The Aim of Learning CALL

As the development of high-technology, nowadays, we can easily see beyond what the people wanted in the past. In teaching field, no matter what kind of the class is, we used to try different programs and utilize various audiovisuals ourselves in order to make the students understand the content. However, those methods are sometimes still halting to support our teaching. Fortunately, things like computer using are getting thriving in our lives. Through the Internet, we are simultaneous with the people from all of the world. We have more opportunities of knowing what is happening outside and become able to keep pace with the advanced countries’ knowledge. In other word, it will not only save lots of time of preparing and displaying the materials for the students, but increase the efficiency if we could give play to the computer skills into our teaching. Therefore, I am looking forward to obtain diverse brand-new teaching materials from CALL！