The following useful websites are listed for English learning
1. English Daily : the website provides different kinds of categories for English learning such as conversation, vocabulary and some American idioms
- Jan 17 Thu 2013 20:13
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Resources for language learning
The following useful websites are listed for English learning
1. English Daily : the website provides different kinds of categories for English learning such as conversation, vocabulary and some American idioms
- Jan 16 Wed 2013 14:18
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My teaching philosophy
- Jan 16 Wed 2013 00:43
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Perspectives on technology in learning and teaching languages
Kern, R. (2006). Perspectives on technology in learning and teaching languages. TESOL Quarterly, 40 (1), 183-210.
Some theories and critical issues are raised in the journal to discuss the status of technology in language learning and teaching. In the beginning, the definition of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) was confined to “applications of the computer.” Then the role of computer-assisted language learning changes to a broader one that it refers to the relationship between computer technologies and language learning. However, Zhao (2003) pointed out some questions of effectiveness of technology such as definition of technology and influence of other mediating factors by doing meta-analysis. The responses to these issues are that it is not the technology itself that is effective or ineffective but the particular ways in which the technology is used. Based on the description, the key point is that how we use technologies effectively and efficiently to facilitate our teaching and learning. In recent years, the research of CALL has been primarily on concordance and corpus analysis.
Some theories and critical issues are raised in the journal to discuss the status of technology in language learning and teaching. In the beginning, the definition of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) was confined to “applications of the computer.” Then the role of computer-assisted language learning changes to a broader one that it refers to the relationship between computer technologies and language learning. However, Zhao (2003) pointed out some questions of effectiveness of technology such as definition of technology and influence of other mediating factors by doing meta-analysis. The responses to these issues are that it is not the technology itself that is effective or ineffective but the particular ways in which the technology is used. Based on the description, the key point is that how we use technologies effectively and efficiently to facilitate our teaching and learning. In recent years, the research of CALL has been primarily on concordance and corpus analysis.
- Jan 15 Tue 2013 11:17
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Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners
Goh, C.,& Taib, Y. (2006). Metacognitive instruction in listening for young learners. ELT Journal, 60(3), 222-232
- Jan 13 Sun 2013 16:55
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'Small Talk': developing fluency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking.
James, H., (2011). 'Small Talk': developing fluency, accuracy, and complexity in speaking. ELT Journal, 66(1), 30-41.
The struggling situation of contemporary language teaching in speaking is that how to foster students’ oral ability by focusing on both accuracy and fluency. From the perspectives of Communicative Language Teaching, teachers paying attention to authentic communication will not emphasize the accuracy. However, too much corrective feedback may cause students’ anxiety. The study proposes “small talk” to solve the dilemma of teachers. It is a learner-centered methodology that develops accuracy, fluency and complexity in oral production. During the process, the teacher just observes the communication of small groups and provides some suggestions without intervention. “Small talk” gives students a relaxing and low-stress environment to practice their oral ability particularly for those non-fluent students. After small talk, students are encouraged to do self-correction. Finally, the results show that learners not only speak more but also make fewer errors than those teacher-controlled activities.
The struggling situation of contemporary language teaching in speaking is that how to foster students’ oral ability by focusing on both accuracy and fluency. From the perspectives of Communicative Language Teaching, teachers paying attention to authentic communication will not emphasize the accuracy. However, too much corrective feedback may cause students’ anxiety. The study proposes “small talk” to solve the dilemma of teachers. It is a learner-centered methodology that develops accuracy, fluency and complexity in oral production. During the process, the teacher just observes the communication of small groups and provides some suggestions without intervention. “Small talk” gives students a relaxing and low-stress environment to practice their oral ability particularly for those non-fluent students. After small talk, students are encouraged to do self-correction. Finally, the results show that learners not only speak more but also make fewer errors than those teacher-controlled activities.
- Jan 10 Thu 2013 10:05
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Teaching writing to low proficiency EFL students
Firkins, A., Forey, G., & Sengupta, S. (2007). Teaching writing to low proficiency EFL students. ELT Journal, 61(4), 341-352.
- Jan 09 Wed 2013 22:49
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Effective reading instruction for struggling readers: the role of direct/explicit teaching
Rupley, W. H., Blair, T. R. & Nichols, W. D. (2009). "Effective reading instruction for struggling readers: the role of direct/explicit teaching". Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25:125-138.
The article proposes that direct/explicit instruction is an effective way for struggling readers. The heart of direct/explicit instruction is that teachers provide some modeling or demonstration, guided practice and meaningful teacher-student interactions to guide students’ learning. A number of studies have claimed the importance of explicit instruction. The effective instruction recommended several components such as imparting new information to past learning, explaining useful skills and cognitive strategies to students, providing step-by-step explanations of modeling to engage students in reading texts. The active communication and interaction between teachers and students is integral part of the approach. During the process, by giving modeling and guided practice to students, teachers could conceptualize important reading skills and cognitive strategies to students. In this way, students could practice their reading ability in a variety of texts and groupings independently. Scaffolding in direct instruction allows teachers to transfer responsibility of learning to students gradually.
The article proposes that direct/explicit instruction is an effective way for struggling readers. The heart of direct/explicit instruction is that teachers provide some modeling or demonstration, guided practice and meaningful teacher-student interactions to guide students’ learning. A number of studies have claimed the importance of explicit instruction. The effective instruction recommended several components such as imparting new information to past learning, explaining useful skills and cognitive strategies to students, providing step-by-step explanations of modeling to engage students in reading texts. The active communication and interaction between teachers and students is integral part of the approach. During the process, by giving modeling and guided practice to students, teachers could conceptualize important reading skills and cognitive strategies to students. In this way, students could practice their reading ability in a variety of texts and groupings independently. Scaffolding in direct instruction allows teachers to transfer responsibility of learning to students gradually.
- Jan 07 Mon 2013 10:20
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reflections about team teaching
The teaching practice provided us a chance to rethink about the teaching materials design and how to achieve the goals and to meet the different needs of learners. The target students of our teaching are seven graders in junior high schools. Because of the tight schedule, we decided to use their textbooks as materials. The aim of the class is to teach students present progressive pattern to make them familiar with it through practices.We followed the procedure of 2W3P-warm up, presentation, practice, production and wrap up. The practices involved worksheets with the sentence pattern and oral production. The purpose of the worksheet is to check students’ comprehension about grammar usage. The activity is served as oral production and students could have more opportunities to communicate with their peers.
- Dec 29 Sat 2012 01:11
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Prof. Laurence Anthony's Talk
1. What is AntConc or AntWordProfiler (or other software) you found on Prof. Anthony’s website?
AntCons is a corpus tool that includes various functions such as word frequency, cluster and lexical bundle analysis and word distribution plot. Moreover, unlike other corpora aimed at researchers or only some specific tasks, AntConc is designed for use in the classroom and it is a freeware application. It also provides a powerful concordancer and is easy for users to familiarize the interface.
2. How can we use them in our English teaching?
AntConc involves a concordancer could be applied to language teaching in learning vocabulary, collocations, grammar and writing. We can search for certain keywords or phrases that we want from lots of data and to find how frequent they appear in different contexts. It is very useful and important for teachers and students to get several collocations and patterns to facilitate their knowledge in reading and writing. For advanced learners, they could acquire some practical patterns for academic writing in specified field through searching files by concordancer.
AntCons is a corpus tool that includes various functions such as word frequency, cluster and lexical bundle analysis and word distribution plot. Moreover, unlike other corpora aimed at researchers or only some specific tasks, AntConc is designed for use in the classroom and it is a freeware application. It also provides a powerful concordancer and is easy for users to familiarize the interface.
2. How can we use them in our English teaching?
AntConc involves a concordancer could be applied to language teaching in learning vocabulary, collocations, grammar and writing. We can search for certain keywords or phrases that we want from lots of data and to find how frequent they appear in different contexts. It is very useful and important for teachers and students to get several collocations and patterns to facilitate their knowledge in reading and writing. For advanced learners, they could acquire some practical patterns for academic writing in specified field through searching files by concordancer.
- Dec 28 Fri 2012 22:06
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focus on form and focus on forms
Define these two terms & What are the differences between the two approaches?
1.The distinction between "focus on form" and "focus on formS" was first made by Michael Long (1988, 1991), a professor of second language acquisition at the University of Maryland. Focus on forms means that teachers focus learning on formal linguistic features and isolate from context or communicative activities. On the other hand, focus on form entails a focus on formal elements of language within communicative language teaching environment.
2.Ellis (2001) also claimed that students view themselves as learners of a language and the language as an object of the study in focus on fromS approach. However, learners view themselves as language users and the language is viewed as a tool for communication in focus on form approach.
3.Focus on fromS approach provides learners with explicit and isolated grammar instruction to master linguistic items to reach native speakers’ levels. Focus on form provides some types of corrective feedback which is arisen incidentally to remain learners’ attention on meaning in a communicative context.
1.The distinction between "focus on form" and "focus on formS" was first made by Michael Long (1988, 1991), a professor of second language acquisition at the University of Maryland. Focus on forms means that teachers focus learning on formal linguistic features and isolate from context or communicative activities. On the other hand, focus on form entails a focus on formal elements of language within communicative language teaching environment.
2.Ellis (2001) also claimed that students view themselves as learners of a language and the language as an object of the study in focus on fromS approach. However, learners view themselves as language users and the language is viewed as a tool for communication in focus on form approach.
3.Focus on fromS approach provides learners with explicit and isolated grammar instruction to master linguistic items to reach native speakers’ levels. Focus on form provides some types of corrective feedback which is arisen incidentally to remain learners’ attention on meaning in a communicative context.
- Dec 27 Thu 2012 20:51
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Community learning & PISA
Community learning is a new concept in Taiwan which switches the class focus from teachers to learners and develops learning autonomy of students. The role of teachers becomes a facilitator rather than just an instructor. Teachers provide some basic and important concepts for students in the beginning of the class and then divide them into several groups to discuss and exchange ideas or experiences with each other. Through this way, students will not escape from learning and low-achievers have chances to promote their abilities or sense of achievement by cooperating with others. In addition, schools are shared by students, teachers and even parents. Learning community puts more emphasis on interactions between peers to form a dynamic learning process.
PISA ( Programme for International Student Assessment ) is a cross countries assessment that takes place every three years to evaluate worldwide of 15-year-old students in the field of reading, mathematics and sciences. The purpose of the assessment is to test students’ abilities to deal with problems and to incorporate what they have learned into authentic situations. The results are provided for countries to reflect their own educational systems and effectiveness.
Community learning provides us some implications about teaching. Teachers should give more space to students for problem-solving and critical thinking not just showing them principles to follow. Education can create a variety of possibilities so teacher-centered instruction may confine learners’ creativity and innovation. For teachers, interaction with students is another way of learning. With regard to PISA, it is a way for us to reflect our teaching including materials, methods and assessment. Most of students in Taiwan just study for exams, not actually thinking about what they have learned and what should be learned.
PISA ( Programme for International Student Assessment ) is a cross countries assessment that takes place every three years to evaluate worldwide of 15-year-old students in the field of reading, mathematics and sciences. The purpose of the assessment is to test students’ abilities to deal with problems and to incorporate what they have learned into authentic situations. The results are provided for countries to reflect their own educational systems and effectiveness.
Community learning provides us some implications about teaching. Teachers should give more space to students for problem-solving and critical thinking not just showing them principles to follow. Education can create a variety of possibilities so teacher-centered instruction may confine learners’ creativity and innovation. For teachers, interaction with students is another way of learning. With regard to PISA, it is a way for us to reflect our teaching including materials, methods and assessment. Most of students in Taiwan just study for exams, not actually thinking about what they have learned and what should be learned.
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