My Reflection (Week 9)

Nowadays, teacher likes to bring some IT elements in the classroom. For the publishers, in order to release some of teachers' burden for preparing the teaching aids, they always publish some teaching box sets. In these sets, there are some useful e-books. I love to use them in my class. They can be used to arouse the students' learning interest. Since they contain cute animations and songs, they can draw my students' attenion easily. This kind of e-books usually also go along with the students' textbooks. Students can use them to listen to the texts and songs at home. They can also play some educational games as consolidation. I think as a teacher today, we can just stick to the textbooks. What we have to do is to upgrade our IT knowledge and to help our students learn in a happier atmosphere.

My Reflection (Week 8) Copyright Ordinance

Every teacher needs to prepare materials and exercises for his / her students. Many of them may use those published workbooks or textbooks as references. However, when they use these references, how many of them know the details of the Copyright Ordinance? As a teacher, this is also the first time for me to read through this Ordinance.

After reading through this Ordinance, I found that there is still some unclear areas, especially about the term “fair dealing’. For instance, students are permitted to copy a “small portion’ of a copyright work. However, to what extent does this “small portion” mean? Teachers can include a “short” clip of a film for illustration in his teaching presentation. But, the word “short” seems to be quite abstract. I think a concrete proportion is necessary. Or when teachers or students use some copyright works in their teaching or learning, they may be worry about the matter of copyright.

My Reflection (Week 6) - Theory-Driven Call & The Development Process

In this article, it talks about the development processes of the CALL materials. Different CALL materials have different points of departure. Some CALL materials are built on a specific language problem while many of them are driven directly by a particular theory.

From my point of view, CALL materials should not only use a particular theory as the point of departure. The authors of the CALL materials, however, should consider more about the needs of the learners, especially in Hong Kong. It is because the educational system is totally different between Hong Kong and the western countries. Therefore, the needs between the learners are also different. I always find that many CALL materials are in fact not suitable for the students in Hong Kong. They may be developed based on particular theories which does not really fit the examination oriented educational system of Hong Kong. Therefore, when I am choosing the CALL materials, I rather pick those materials which focus on drilling and practising ones which at least I think they can help my students tackle those important public examinations.

My reflection (Week 5) - Language Learner Behaviour in a Virtual Environment

This article claims that people normally act differently in a virtual environment comparing with face-to face situation. A virtual learning environment may help the students, who are shy and passive in class, to learn under a more relaxing atmosphere. I agree with this view point. In fact, in my class, there are also some shy and quiet students. They seldom express their opinions and answer the questions even they are asked. When they discuss with their group members (in English), they rarely voice out their own ideas. However, some of these students are very talkative when they speaks in Cantonese. I think why they react in this way simply because they feel frightened when using English which is not their mothertongue. They are afraid that they would make grammatical mistakes and will be laughed at by their classmates. Therefore, they may feel under a great pressure when they need to speak English in class.

In my opinion, learning in a virtual environment may help this kind of students. They don't need to give instant responses to the questions and the illusion of anonymity may also help them release part of the pressure. When they get a positive response, they can also build up their confidence. It may help them adapt their learning in class eventually.

My reflection (Week 3) - Teaching Guidelines

In order to help teachers organize their classes to achieve the learning goals, the writer suggested five guidelines. They are Dual Immersion, Integration, Project-Based Learning, Student-Centered Learning and Learning With a Purpose. In my opinion, Project-Based Learning and Student-Centered Learning can be implemented easily and effectively. In fact, my school does both of them. In my school, every student needs to do a group project every semester. They will set their own topics (related to the topics they have been taught in that semester) which they are interested in. Teachers will not be the person who designs the whole project for them but will be just the one who gives them clear guidelines at the beginning and provide advices when they are in need. I think it suits Student-Centered Learning. Furthermore, students have to work in groups. They have to discuss and solve problems collaboratively. They get relevant information from the Net and use powerpoint to do their oral presentation at the end. All these matches Project-Based Learning.

However, I think Dual Immersion and Integration are not so easy to implement. The most important reasons are they are quite time-consuming and suitable teaching material lacks in the market.

Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year is coming! I will celebrate it in my new flat this year. I want to celebrate with my parents, husband and friends. I think I will make some rice cakes for them. Hope that they will like them.

Wanna recover

When will I recover?