PART 9 --- Number, color and countable word

As students have learned and been familiar with number, color and some countable words, teachers could enhance the word structure and even add some vowel-initial vocabulary and its usage.

an / a / one + color + countable word
number(2-10) + color + countable word

The game would be quite easy for teacher to operate. Teacher divides students into groups, which would be better to be 3 students for 1 team, and number every one in each team; then teacher put word cards or just writes the vocabulary on the board, including the words of number, color and the countable words students have known. Next, teacher would call one of the teams comes to the front, and each of the members has to point out the words he/she hears. Teacher, beforehand, lets the members to decide which one would be going to find out the word of the number, color and the other kind, and they have to change the sequence next time. During the game, teacher limits the time when a team is finding the words. When the team in which all 3 of the members choose the right words in time, it will be added the point.

PART 8 --- Sentence about number

When students memorized the words of number, they can join another activity by using complete sentences and the vocabulary to express the number of the stuff.

number + countable noun
What is it?
It is a ____________.
What are they?
They are number + countable noun.

Teacher puts flash cards or draws the learned countable vocabulary and the number 1-10 on the board. The countable words should be placed in a zone and the numbers in the other part of the board. And students do the pair work and come to the front. When teacher say a sentence, such as “they are four birds,” then one of pair has to point out the number 4, and the other one has to point at the picture “bird.” Teacher gives a few seconds to let students to find out the words, and then calculates the score according to their performances. Later, teacher can mix those numbers into the words’ zone and play the game again in order to level up the difficulty.

PART 7 --- Number

This time, the activity covers the number. Teacher could start with units 1-9 and 10, and let students familiar with the number first. This activity could be used for students’ number memorizing, and be repeated for many times.

one / two / three / four / five / six / seven / eight / nine / ten

After teacher is sure that students have known the number, he/she could draw or put the flash cards on which printed the numbers on the board（that means number can be showed in pictures or words）. Next, students could be divided into 2 teams, and one of each team would be assigned to the front and hold the little bars（teacher can prepare other materials）. And first of all, teacher says a number and the 2 students should use the bars to point at the number on the board. At the meantime, teacher should watch out students’ safety standing in the front, and other students have to see which of the representatives the quickest one is.

PART 6 --- Flash card

Here, as students have learned another crowd of vocabulary, we could use the closed questions and the flash cards to play a game.

monkey / snake / butterfly / bird / flog
Is it a _________?
Yes, it is.
No, it isn’t. It is __________.

Teacher could make the class become 2 groups at first, and both two groups have to sit and face to each other. This game would be supposed to cover a couple of rounds, and teacher could decide which team goes first. For instance, if group A is assigned to give the questions, then it has the opportunity to get the point. And what the students of A should do is to choose a flash card and hide it from group B. Then each of the students of group B has to ask a closed question in order to guess at the name of the animals group A has, and vice versa. At this time, teacher has to count how many closed questions are given by each group on the board. The team which gives lesser question and gets the correct answers would be the winner.

Word Processor

We were taught to make use of Word Processor in Microsoft Office today. Word Processor is quite widely utilized by students all over the world, so I especially recommend being familiar with this program.

Putting images and links, making forms, and using TrackChanges are supposed to be simple but very helpful skills. Also, search for the meaning of the word and the same meaning or opposite meaning of a word are convenient for Word Processing users.

Word Processing activities are various. As the homework, teacher could make students to compose the articles with some pictures, and they can employ Word Processing function of seeking word’s meaning during their writing. Then later teacher check students’ compositions with TrackChanges and send them back via email. Besides, teacher could give students an incomplete article which may contain some mistakes, and then get students to just finish the article with TrackChanges and send it back. Teacher can also give students an article in which the vocabulary use is a bit superior to students’ English proficiency in Word at first, and let students find out the meaning of the unknown words with meaning-seeking function or to replace some specific words with synonyms. Furthermore, for the advanced-level students, teacher could request them to create a form in which should be put some selectable choices that people could use bottoms or marking to fill in this questionnaire.

Keeping our hands in Word Processor is one of the important techniques learners should know. It helps a lot!

The Final Project

Actually, I was absent on 4/23 because of oversleeping, and I really regret it so much.

But I heard that we are officially assigned preparing for the next project --- our final project. What impressed me is the content. We have to TEACH e-learning or e-teaching! I think this is such a difficulty which may cost lots of our time, but, by which, it also could be quite obvious whether we have understood the operation of the wiki or how much we have learned from this lesson. Therefore, for those who have known a lot about the “decoration” in wiki, they can show as much as they can, while for students who are unfamiliar with wiki, they can spend a couple of days and try to discover more about wiki.

I think making learners to do something with teaching is a great idea to train their thinking and strengthen their memory.

Imagine Learning English

If I were the parent of the children, I think I would not buy Imagine Learning English program. It is attractive that the program consists of various activities and audiovisual curriculums which are in accordance with different proficiency-level learners, but , in my opinion, there are still some disadvantages as following :

Honestly, I was really nervous when I saw the flick in which those little kids grasping the big mousse, sitting and staring at the screens for so long. It does no good for their health. I think children in their growth should experience lots of things which can only be known by touching, smelling, hearing, eating and seeing by themselves, and naturally and gradually build the concept toward the outside. For instance, they may get the knowledge and the real experiences they need for real by playing with their neighbors.

On the other hand, children living in computer-assisted surroundings seem to be troubled with writing. I believe part of the program may be emphasized on teaching kids to spell out or get familiar with the word structure, but it would be a question whether the children can “write” something themselves later, unless we really do not use our handwriting anymore in the near future.

Besides, even though everything in this program looks colorful and well-designed that learners can understand the content and enjoy the game-like activities, it might generate the gap between the realities and those kids’ lives because they gain most of the language knowledge（or other things）from the computer. Furthermore, we can say learning a foreign language is not only to look on the side of language itself, but also to comprehend the cultures and customs through constant interactions with foreigners, by which children could pay heed to the skills of building good relationship with others at the same time.

In conclusion, I do not agree on relying on Imagine Learning English program for kids’ early language learning because it might inhibits balancing children’s overall development.