11.11

Mr. C: Games

3 times table

Everyone stands in a group and each kid can say up to three numbers of the results of three times table (i.e. 3,6,9) and the next person said the following answers but they can't do the same amount of number as the lst person unlesss the it was only one number. the thing is there is a fixed number that will eliminate participants when it was their turn to speak the number, for example 30. So kid has to trick other people to say 30 or simply to avoid that.

Hangman

Picking someone out of the hat (抽签)： Mr. C picked one name and let the person do the picking and pick the name of the students out of the hat. The selected children guessed one letter.

To the students who shouted out the answer, Mr. C asked them why he didnt like people to shout out the answer and told a story of people spoiling his game.

11.9

It is quite surprising that Sasa had a talk with students about her expectations of the students, "I have high expectation of you. Do you know what that means?" and why it is important. Later on, I realised she mentioned this to justify her asking people to stay at the classroom at break time if they make silly mistakes like capital letter and punctuation (honestly, I think she wont do that). She then led on to the topic on importance of capital letter and punctuation, which was followed by a mistake spotting  section.

How to memorise words

It was very kind of Sasa to introduce me to ways of learners remembering the hard words. Unlike the Chinese way of reciting, they had plentiful of interesting writing and painting to do. For instance, "colour", "Pyramid", "wordshape"  (Medicine, with painting of pills on letters), "Giraffe and monkey" (tall letter like "h,k" are giraffa and lower letters like "p,g" are monkeys with long tails. Also, there are kids who wrote poems.

11.8

8th November

I got busy and lazy. Yesterday I have learnt that the TEFL course that I signed up for contains an obligatory online course of 30-hour and it was expiring on 11th, which was one month after my registration. That discovery was shocking as I didnt know it was compulsory and that it started right from the registration. The reason why I learnt that I had the course is that I got an email from the website "reassuring" me that it is acceptable to purphase extention...unbelievable...I am really concerned about the quality of class provided by this TEFL organiztion with the sole purpose of profiting.

Trip to a Local Middle School

I have been informed that on Tuesday, Yr 5 were going to a local middle school. Through this experience, I have developed a stronger intention of letting my children study in the U.K. instead of in HK. 

School Trip is not easy. A short (10 minute) journey to the school required 7 adult assistants. We wore bright green vests and had to stop cars when crossing roads (funny incident: when I was rushing into the middle of the road to prevent cars, I heard a kid shouting, "Don't go. You are risking your life!"). When we arrived, we were led into the main hall and there were secondary school teenagers running the events. Every 3 students led a group of young children to train leadership. Their activities indoor include crossing rivers on mats, hug in three, wink murderer, hack (chop), bing bang wa.

11.7

Contemplation

I rarely talked about myself, but today I really feel like exploding as I tried and hid all the unpleasant feeling I got from the school. I feel left out and superfluous. The teacher does not need a volunteer and I am allowed to stay in the classroom and help any students, BUT,  I am not needed. Not by the teachers and rarely by the students. I also hate myself from being so scared. Scared about starting conversation with other teachers and about asking for things to do. Today Sasa was not in part of the morning class due to a doctor appointment and she didnt tell me. I think it might be beacause she thought it is not necessary. However, I gathered she thought so as she regards me as unimportant. You know, like what is the point of telling Cindy. She is just a volunteer, doesn't help to maintain the order of the class and not there to teach. (Even so, I am happy that today I could maintain discipline in class while no teacher was there. I said "I think not it is the reading time rather than the talking time.")

I think I really need to do something, like asking to change classes or to get more work from Sasa if I am not getting to do TA job.

11.4

Reflecting

Yesterday I just learnt that I was rejected by the English Open Door Programme (Chile Volunteer). Even though this is not the end of the world, I still feel quite sad as this programme could really help me gain some experience in teaching communicative skills. They  allow volunteers to teach 25-30 students each time with communicative activities, which fits perfectly in my specialty. This failure led to contemplate why I am not chosen. I believe one of the reasons is that I am not experienced enough and also I didn't perform well enough in the interview. It makes sense. As I was talking with Laurie today, she told me that the job hunting starts in April, but I should come back earlier to have as many interviews as I can to gain experience. I should never be disheartened. This is just the beginning and I am still learning. 

My conversation with Lemon and Laurie also shed light on other possibilites. I can study PGCE and it shouldnt be too hard as it doesnt have thesis and that working in Macau is also possible.

Path to become a Teaching Assitant

I am not saying I will become a TA, but I am very glad that I can actually learn and do something rather than being a Volunteer-in-waiting. Mrs TB asked for my help with children in need. It turns out that one of the TAs left before half term and the school has decided move all the TAs down a year to make up for the vacancies, which resulted in the lack of TA in Yr 5. (The lower level the children are, the more TAs they have. So Yr 5 only had one.) To adapt myself to taking up the job of TA, I was taught how to practice with Dyslexic children. Different levels of children require various teaching methods. I obersved Mr TB to learn. They all have a special envelop)

The first students were L & E from Mr. C's class.  L is the one with the highest level of dyslexia. By that I mean the level that I thought all dyslexia is like: having difficulties reading and writing. So L has 5 words from their professional dyslexia instructor (DI). He was asked to read the word, spell the word orally and draw the shape of the box (while he was drawing, he should keep spelling) and write it down on the given sheet. Remember, he should read and spell when he writes each one. E was very incredibly good at reading, that was when I learnt that dyslexia can be varied. E read a chapter to me and explained what had happen. During that, I asked question guiding him to cast light on the text and to make sure they understand. I wrote on his reading diary what he has read and words that he didn't know. He would go through them at home with his parents. Before his reading time, he carried out the "look, cover, write, check". What it means is that he got a word (from DI), he briefly looked at it, covered it, read and spell orally 5 times prior to writing the spealling down. After that, he checked his spelling.

While they were doing the spealling, T, Mi and Kri were reading their book. The point is that they have to be heard, and asked because they were having some problems with reading. J, on the other hand, is very similar with E. He does the "Look, cover, write and check". The difference is that E doesn't need to read out the words, which indicates he is of higher level. T, from 5/6, could be of the same siuationas as L or slightly better than L because he does the box as well. However, when he is revising, he doesnt do the box unless when he struggles to spell orally (for 3 times), he does the box.

Two kids (Lou and B from 5/6) did the dictation to evaluate their level. What they should be doing next time is to do dictation of the ten words that are mistaken from the day before and together with the new mistaken words, choose some mistaken words from the last dictation and write on a small yellow paper to let them print out.

BTW I have noticed that Mr. C allowed Ss to put their "Water filter" in the classroom and Sasa threw them away. I remembered the children being heartbroken when they saw Sasa put the filters in the rubbish bin. From my perspective, teachers should also care for the feeling of young children. They can be influenced while you are not paying attention. They learnt from you. They throw away things that they regard as trivial but might matter to others.

11.2

Science Workshop

Yesterday there was a science workshop. It seems like they have workshops around once a month or two. These people were from Warwick engineering major and they talked about the significance of accessible and drinkable water. Do you know:

• 1/3 of our body is made of water.
• 97% of the water on earth is in the ocean.
• 2% of the water on earth is in the shape of ice.
• Most civilisations started close to water

So, only 1% of it is acessible and drinkable.

They let students to make their own water filter with gravels, sand, cut water bottle, rubberband, tissue paper and cotton. So what most groups did was:

1. Fix the tissue paper at the mouth of the bottle with the rubberband
2. Tear open cotton and lay them flat close to the mouth of the bottle
3. Put in sand and spread it out
4. Put in Gravels and spead them out

The groups that had the cleanest filered water are the ones who 

1. put cotton on top as well as at the bottom
2. spilled the sand and gravels and claimed there were double layers of sand and gravels

One thing worths noticing is that in one group, cute E came up with this rule that whoever wanted to speak had to hold the blue pencil to avoid shouting out. Even though it didnt carry out quite well, it is a good idea. I think next time to carry it out, one has to confirm everyone agrees and tries to stick with it.

An interesting teaching method during the process is that Sasa asked students a lot of guiding questions and led students to  ponder on the reasons why they needed to make filter and why dirty water ws not drinkable. This further brings up thoughts such as African people has to drink problematic water and fall ill and there are bacteria in the water. 

Before trying out the device, learners were requested to explain how they designed it and why. It is absolutely noteworthy as they needed to learn something from it. Afterwards, Sasa asked them to draw diagram and wrote what they have learnt from it.

Science poster

As they hadn't finish their Egyptian Poster, they continued doing it after lunch, which is very enjoyable for me as there wasn't much work and walking around. Hence, I stayed at the table of your Majesty and they were really chatty. I think one reason is that I was there, But I should not be a reason, should I? I am there to help and Sasa has noticed that your majesty talked with me a lot. So I told them to start this game, whoever spoke first lost, and lost ones needed to clean the table. If they wanna talk with partner, they had to ask for my permission and the communication had to be related to the work. It actually worked very well, they asked for my permission and kept an eye on each other. 

Your Majesty was performing exceptionally well, he didn't say a word and he wanted to win. After he finished his poster, I showed it to other students in the group and justified the significance of not chatting. As a matter of fact, all of them have accomplised their posters, while the mahority of students in other groups hadn't finish!!!! I certainly got a sense of achievement and so did they. At the end, I told them that I was very proud that they didnt speak produce so much.

through the conversation with Mr. C, I have learnt that the lack of ICT is another essential difference between Hk and the U.K.. In U.K., Ipad and interactive screen are vital for classroom teaching. On the other hand, HK Schools saved the money for the teaching resources like Japanese teachers.  

10.31

Today is Helloween as well as the first day after half term. Children went back to the school quite blissfully. I wish I had this energy. After 9 days of travel in the U.K., I felt that I was totally drained.  Children walked passed me and I again realised that they didn't greet me. I believe something has to be done. In this class, I am getting less attention and help from the teacher. This position makes me feel unwanted and dispensable. I think I have to be more active to try to blend into the class and also me being too inhibited is not helping as students can sense it.

Unexpectedly, the teacher didn't give any motivational speech in the morning. I was actually anticipating one as it felt to me that it would be rather essential. Instead, she just gave some normal 5 a day (math drills) to learners. After that, she did ask about the holiday and she gave emotional responses to most of the replies, which is, as a matter of fact, very tiring and I definitely admire her effort. After that, it was story time. Children gathered around a table and listened to the story that they didn't finish before half-term. (learners were super excited even though they didn't get dramatic activities, thus it is imaginable how bubbly they were). this story kind of nicely linked back to the real life problem---the destruction of nature, including the ozone layer and the burning of coal. Following that, they were asked to fill in quadrants with questions.

in the Assembly, they talked about the firework and guy Fawkes, here are some information:

Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Night and Firework Night, is an annual commemoration observed on 5 November, primarily in Great Britain. 

1. Guy Fawkes did not die from being hung, drawn and quartered:

As he awaited his grisly punishment on the gallows, Fawkes leapt to his death - to avoid the horrors of having his testicles cut off, his stomach opened and his guts spilled out before his eyes. He died from a broken neck.

2. Guy Fawkes was not the Gunpowder Plot's ringleader:

There were 13 conspirators in the plot, which was masterminded by Robert Catesby, a charismatic Catholic figure who had a reputation for speaking out against the English crown. But it was Fawkes who gained notoriety after the plot was foiled, for he was caught after sneaking into the cellar beneath the House of Lords to ignite the explosives.

3. Guy Fawkes won the unlikely admiration of King James I:

Fawkes withstood two full days of torture and expressed his regret at having failed his mission. His steadfast manner earned him the praise of King James, who described Fawkes as possessing "a Roman resolution".

4. Guy Fawkes has an island named after him:

He is one of Britain’s most infamous villains, whose effigy has been burned and whose demise has been publicly celebrated for more than four centuries. Yet to the north-west of Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos Islands, a collection of two uninhabited, crescent-shaped islands is named Isla Guy Fawkes, or Guy Fawkes Island.

5. The Houses of Parliament are still searched once a year to make sure there are no conspirators hiding with explosives:

Before the annual State Opening of Parliament, the Yeomen of the Guard search the Houses of Parliament to make sure there are no would-be conspirators hiding in the cellars. This has become more of a tradition than a serious anti-terrorist precaution.

6. The cellar that Fawkes tried to blow up no longer exists:

It was destroyed in a fire in 1834 that devastated the medieval Houses of Parliament.

7. The gunpowder would have done little damage to Parliament:

The 36 barrels of gunpowder that Fawkes planted in a cellar below the Houses of Parliament would have been sufficient to raze it to the ground, while causing severe damage to neighbouring buildings. However, some experts now claim that the gunpowder had “decayed”, and would not have properly exploded even if ignited. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/bonfire-night-2016-who-was-guy-fawkes-and-why-do-we-celebrate-wi/)

Assembly sometimes does feel like a big classroom, in which teachers impart knowledge of culture.

The most impressive one is the science class. Again it was ipad time. they are given time to search online for information about the "amazing journey", which is the journey made by animals why they migrate, for instance, the ones of humpback whales, wildebeests, swifts and sea turtles. After they have found information , they made posters and marked down key points on map.

When they left, T's mom seemed to have forgotten to pick up T and her little sister, so I waited with her . During the waiting, she asked me who I lived with. When I said my classmates and my boyfriend, she was puzzled since she couldnt understand why I am not living with my parents. I didnt explain much, and how could I? How could I tell her that after you grow up, you will fly away the nest and build your new home.

Presentation with emotion: Movenote

           

Introduction:

This post aims at English teachers of middle schools or higher level of students. It involves 6 parts:

1. What is Movenote

2. How does it work? (with my example)
3.How is it linked to ELT

4. How is it used in English teaching

5. Limitations of it
6. My ideas

7. Sources of information

Word cloud: Tagul and Wordle

My word cloud
Try hover over the keywords!

Introduction of this post

This post is aiming at English teachers of all abilities of students. It includes seven parts which are:

1.What is word cloud?

2.Tagul-my favourite word cloud generator

3.How to use Tagul? (with my video tutorial)

4.My ideas on using word cloud in classrooms

5.Connections with English learning

6.Pros and Cons

7.Sources of information 

Record your screen: Screencast-O-Matic

See my demonstration of Screencast-O-Matic before we go deeper!

Introduction:

This post is aiming at teachers who are teaching students of middle schools or higher level. It includes six parts:

1.Why Screencast-O-Matic
2.How to start without confusion
3.How to teach English through it
4.Connections between screen recorder and English teaching
5.Advantages and limitations
6.Sources of information (Copyright)

Recording your online classes with your computer is easier than you expected. There are many online tools available, for instance, Jing, Camtasia, Mac screen recorder and Screencast-o-Matic. Today, I am going to introduce Screencast-o-matic.

Mobile learning tool: Nearpod

My Nearpod

First, let's explore Nearpod by experiencing my Nearpod!

Introduction

This post aims at English educators of students of all levels. It consists of six parts:

1.What is Nearpod?

2.Create your own presentation

3.Links between English teaching and Nearpod

4.Ideas on using Nearpod in English teaching

5.Advantages and limitations

6. Sources of information

Can Twitter help teaching?

Introduction:

This post aims at educators of middle schools or higher levels students. There are six parts:

1.What does Twitter do?

2.Advantages of using Twitter to teach English

3.How Twitter supports English teaching

4.Limitation of using Twitter for English teaching

5.My thought and ideas on using Twitter to teach English

6.Sources of information

Blended learning: Blendspace

Introduction

This post is targeting educators of all levels. It includes 7 parts:

1.What is Blendspace?  How does it support ELT?

2.How educators find it?

3.Try it out

4.My example

5.Limitations

6.My ideas on using it to teach English

7.Sources of information

Collaboration Webtool: Tricider

INTRODUCTION

This post aims to serve the needs of educators of middle school or higher levels of students. It includes 8 parts:

1.What is Tricider

2.Outstanding features

3.How to use it

4.How it may support teaching in English classroom in China

5.Limitations

6.My ideas on using Tricider to teach English

7.Sources of information
8.My Tricider

WebQuest: Your Forecasting Future

Introduction

This post is targeting educators of all abilities of students. It includes 7 parts:

1.What is Webquest?  How does it support English teaching?

2.Parts of a Webquest

3.A good example of Webquest: Your Forecasting Future

4.How to make a webquest yourself?

5.Limitations

6.My ideas on using it 

7.Sources of information

What is WebQuest?How does it support English teaching? 

WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which most or all the information that learners work with comes from the web. In another word, it is an online activity where a teacher gives out a quest and some certain websites for students to visit and gain answers or responses to the quest. 

WebQuest has been widely applied to many educational institutes, for example, universities (where the first WebQuest was created), high school, language schools. A WebQuest can be created using various programs, including a simple word processing document that includes links and website.

WebTool: Kahoot!

Introduction:

This post aims at educators of all levels of students. It includes 7 parts:

1.What is Kahoot!

2.How does Kahoot! support English teaching

3.How to play Kahoot!

4.How to create a Kahoot! game

5. Limitations

6.Ideas on using Kahoot! in class

7.Sources of information

Review: My favourite blog

Introduction:

Good day everyone! The weather in Warwick is amazing today.  Being in great mood, I feel like sharing with you my favourite blog ---Ozge Karaoglu's Blog (http://ozgekaraoglu.edublogs.org/). 
In this blog, I will tell you what qualities a good blog should have by analysing Ozge Karaoglu's Blog.

This blog is aiming at educators for middle schools or higher levels of students. It includes 5 sections:

1.Qualities of a good blog

2.How do blogs support English learning

3.Ideas on blogging to improve English 

4.Limitations of blogging for English learning

5.Sources of information

Basics: Blogging (not required in class)

        Blogging 

Definition: online journal or dairy

Difference from website: time stamps (in reverse chronological order)

Reason of using blog in ELT:

Memory jogger/ remind

 Reflection

Connecting with other teachers (share resources)

Teaching portfolio (qualification, experience)

Teacher’s/ students’ blog

Class blog

Reflection: Weblogs (not required)

REFLECTION

After reading "Weblogs: a tool for EFL interaction, expression, and self-evaluation Previous studies: blogs foster development of ELT skills "

Before this paper

Blog was just a socialising tool

Now it is a helper

That prompts process writing off school 

Teachers and students

all leave their words 

Formal or not

Comment has its use 

Starting: First ICT Experience (not required)

FIRST ICT EXPERIENCE

It was a Friday when I first learnt about you

I thought we would do Facebook

But we did Blogging

We shared, we thought and we tried

I believed

We could wait until the end of year

But you said

Let's start now and handle it with care

Class blog, teacher blog, student blog

Start it, Save it and share it

Show it to kids 

and change their lives