Thursday, March 19. 2009Plinky!
The other day I found out about Plinky, a service that sends you a daily writing prompt. It can also link into various different social networks. However, I just use it for its writing prompts. Hopefully this will get me to practice / improve my writing and I can blog more! I created a new “musings” category and I’ll be putting all my writing from Plinky in there 
EDIT:
I also found the One Minute Writer. I’ll be using both of these. I can take one minute every day to improve my writing 
The other day I found out about Plinky, a service that sends you a daily writing prompt. It can also link into various different social networks. However, I just use it for its writing prompts. Hopefully this will get me to practice / improve my writing and I can blog more! I created a new “musings” category and I’ll be putting all my writing from Plinky in there
EDIT:
I also found the One Minute Writer. I’ll be using both of these. I can take one minute every day to improve my writing
Tuesday, March 17. 2009Special Projects and Coffee Hour
The students with the lowest English levels go to special projects so that they can be in a smaller class and more personalized attention. I am teaching special projects and I’ve been really enjoying it. Today we went over body parts and the students practiced tagging each other and labeling each other’s body parts. It was a lot of fun
Today we also had coffee hour where we invite the students over to the teacher dorm for coffee and time to visit. Here is a picture that I took of Laura’s class 
Praise and Prayer
I had a good conversation with a student today at dinner. He was talking about the Olympics and mentioned the Beijing Olympic slogan of “One world, One dream”. I asked him what the world’s one dream was. We talked for quite a while and he told me that I have a lot of wisdom. I told him the source of all my wisdom.
I have one prayer request: please pray that I have a good attitude about things. God reminded me that every moment is a choice. Everything that happens to me I have a choice on how to respond to it. Please pray that I will choose to have a positive attitude. Thanks!!!
Teaching Science Club
Every weekday night during a TIP session, we have clubs. This gives thestudents a chance to focus on a particular subject and learn vocabularypertaining that subject. I usually teach Science club . When I firststarted TIP, the clubs were 5 days, but they have now been boiled downto three days to allow the students to go through more clubs.
Here is my usual lesson plan:
- Day 1: Robots - We watch clips of robots and discuss various facets ofrobotics
- Day 2: Robots (again) - The students design their own robot andpresent it to the class
- Day 3: Bridges - The students build a bridge using chopsticks and thenwe see which bridge can hold the most books
Most of the students that come to Science Club don’t like science andthink science is boring. But many of the students leave having a renewedinterest in science
Here are some photos that I took from last week’s Science Club
China is not for tall people
At the school there is a stairway with a low clearance. I need to duck every time so I don’t beam myself in the head! Check out how low the ceiling is!!!
The students with the lowest English levels go to special projects so that they can be in a smaller class and more personalized attention. I am teaching special projects and I’ve been really enjoying it. Today we went over body parts and the students practiced tagging each other and labeling each other’s body parts. It was a lot of fun
Today we also had coffee hour where we invite the students over to the teacher dorm for coffee and time to visit. Here is a picture that I took of Laura’s class 
I had a good conversation with a student today at dinner. He was talking about the Olympics and mentioned the Beijing Olympic slogan of “One world, One dream”. I asked him what the world’s one dream was. We talked for quite a while and he told me that I have a lot of wisdom. I told him the source of all my wisdom.
I have one prayer request: please pray that I have a good attitude about things. God reminded me that every moment is a choice. Everything that happens to me I have a choice on how to respond to it. Please pray that I will choose to have a positive attitude. Thanks!!!
Every weekday night during a TIP session, we have clubs. This gives thestudents a chance to focus on a particular subject and learn vocabularypertaining that subject. I usually teach Science club . When I firststarted TIP, the clubs were 5 days, but they have now been boiled downto three days to allow the students to go through more clubs.
Here is my usual lesson plan:
- Day 1: Robots - We watch clips of robots and discuss various facets ofrobotics
- Day 2: Robots (again) - The students design their own robot andpresent it to the class
- Day 3: Bridges - The students build a bridge using chopsticks and thenwe see which bridge can hold the most books
Most of the students that come to Science Club don’t like science andthink science is boring. But many of the students leave having a renewedinterest in science
Here are some photos that I took from last week’s Science Club
At the school there is a stairway with a low clearance. I need to duck every time so I don’t beam myself in the head! Check out how low the ceiling is!!!
