To my dear counsin in Auckland

(Picture on the left is my dear cousin Peny.

Picture in the middle is Peny's favorite food in NZ.

Picture on the right is a dish cooked by Peny.)

Last year, my youngest cousin went to Auckland, New Zealand. Up to date, she have been surviving the new life there for one year. She had brushed up her English for two years in a cram school in Taiwan, preparing for the home stay out there in advance. She really has a good time, taking a part-time job and upgrading her English ability in a language school.

Here comes her email to me recently:


Oh~Dear cousin~It is so nice to hear your plan, good for you.
I have been very great and happy and I've got many friends here who are come from different countries.
Thank you for your care!Every thing is going very well and it's too good to be true -it was hard at the beginningI am living in a fantastic house with free accommodation and free foodI just need to cook for my homestay parents' homestay student who is an 17 -year -oldTaiwaness boy -my homestay parents are gone on the holiday for three months.
I am looking after their house and dog-the good boy helps me to do housework when I need their son and daughter come and visit us from time to time,they are friendly and lovely.
I've hired a British teacher to be my personal English tutor,he is such a good teacher. and I've been interested in cooking for a period of time for my entertaiment by English recipe-Ihave brought three my favorite cooking books-I am going to cook them in Taiwan!!!I am quite satisfied with my life in NZ,so I will be back in Taiwn without regret.
Unfortunately our schedule doesn't match,June 30th this summer is my last day in NZ,I mustn't be stay any longeror I can take you to visit many good places in Auckland.If you can come early , we can play together~I Miss you Peny

A cheerful email with a few grammatical errors, though. But who cares!

Happy Chinese Latern Festival!

(Picture on the left is a pig latern photographed by my coun, Peny.)
Chinese Latern Festival falls on the fifteenth day of the first month on the lunar calendar. Usually Chinese New Year lasts for fifteen days from the first day of the first month ( on the lunar calendar) to Latern Festival. It is also the winter vacation for schools. I like the long holidays very much because it is a time to spend my holidays abroad and a time for family reunion.

This year in celebration of Latern Festival, the authority of Taipei City took 70 million to decorate these laterns in display for 4.5 kilometers along several main Taipei streets, offering an exhibition and display as well. But everyone knows after the festival, these laterns will be discarted as huge rubbish. What a tremendous waste! These laterns in exhibition will remind me of my happy memories for Latern Festival in my childhood. My older brothers would make a latern for me in honor of the special day. We children would gather together to have a nice walk along the roads in the village. Sometimes tragedy happened with the latern burnt down. If the fire got high, candles in the paper latern were always on fire as we had expected. So none of us would be sorrry for the burn-down. Tell you what........I would carry glutinous rice prepared by Mother in case that I would be hungry.

Strange Food in Taiwan!

Frosty winter wind swept around streets in Taipei. It is a blessing to eat a hot pot with friends, isn't it?
In Taipei, the common ingredients in a hot pot are tofu, cabbages, mushrooms, bird eggs, meat balls, pork/beef, chicken/pig/duck blood rice cake, etc. For foreigners, blood rice cakes made from chicken's, pig's or duck's blood sound strange and bloody.(God pardon me for using the word "bloody")
The traditional making of blood rice cake is quite easy. First put some raw rice in a bowl to hold the blood of a dying chicken, duck or pig. Next, wait for the blood to cool down. Eventually, cut the rice blended with blood into slices and boil them in water to solidize the shape. Then blood rice cakes are ready to be served.
Today, I had a strange but tasty( I consider) food in my hot pot. It is definitely a common dish for the Taiwanese and Hakka but a strange food for my foreigner friends.
It is a sliced cord of a cow's intestines. I don't dare to eat those boiled intestines though they make good dishes in Taiwan, for they are sometimes improperly delt with. But this time the cook in Shih Ping Restaurant makes the cow's intestines a delicious dish. The intestines are turned inside out and washed thoroughly. Then they are cooked in the soy bean sauce with lots of spices and herbs to rid the borrible smell of intestines. Then they are served in slices either put in the hot pot or eaten as a dish. It is a remarkable insider stew!
At my description my foreign friends will be greatly amazed!

Making the final countdown with those you belove

(Picture above: A big display of firework, lasting 108 seconds this year, lightening up the night sky in Taipei. The splendid firework dashed out into all directions from the new Taipei landmark, Taipei 101, greeting in the first minute of the year 2007. Picture below: Some of my students joined the rally in front of Taipei City Hall with their foreign friends, ready to make the final countdown.)

Year 2006 out and year 2007 in.
How did you celebrate the last minute of the year 2006? With your beloved family? Or with some intimate friends?
Anyway, the year 2007 represents new wishes and resolutions which are surely to be left unfulfilled in the year to come. But who cares?
Tell you what........My wish for the year 2007 is to make the final countdown in Sydney at the last day of year 2007. See the big firework of the year 2007 in Sydney herehttp://plsthx.com/Misc_videos/717_Big_firework_in_Sydney.html
What are your wishes for the year 2007?

Application of iTalk Show English Zone Part 2

(Picture above: The pulling members of Class102 are in a close tie with those of Class 113.)

In the afternoon, we held a first-grader tug of war for my senior high school in honor of the final countdown of the year 2006.

There are 16 classes in the first-grade. Each class chose 20 students as pullers for the competitions. After several rounds of matches, those who win the alternating game can eventually compete for the finalists. Among the finalists, only one class will win the championship and the rest the runner-ups.

There are some rules for the tug of war, including such items as:

1. Each class should be properly dressed for the competitions (ie apporiate shorts and shirts).
2. A pull should be won when the central red tape or the markings on the rope has been pulled over the white line on the ground or mat and will be signalled by the judge blowing his/her whistle and pointing in the direction of the winning team.
3.All pulling members should have a good warm up to avoid any damage from the matches.
4. No knots or loops should be made in the rope, nor should it be locked across any part of the body or any member of the team.

Since students are eager to know how to put "tug of war" and its regulations in English, it is a high time to employ the broadcast program: "baseball" of iTalk Show English Zone to have students learn some terms for other sports. The steps I may take are as follows:

1. Point out some terms for the tug of war:
e.g.
puller
pulling member
knot
loop
rope
judge
competition
match
championship
runner-up
2. Have students browse the broastcast program:baseball first. And then disply some terms for soccer, basketbll, swimming and baseball from the attached online knowlege bases.
3. Make sure if students are aware of the names of any positions in a baseball game.
4. For further information, show the website:http://www.tugofwar.co.uk/ to students, in which a tug of war association is introduced, and in which some rules of tug of war are presented.
5. Have students videotape any match in which they have joined. Urge students to introduce the game in English.

Congratulations! My Class got the second runner-up among all teams!

Learning English by watching movies?

I was a big movie-goer when I was a college student. I enjoyed watching a movie even in a sweat-smell cinema then. Watching the movie over a shack of pop corns is a blessing. You may not be in favor of my opinion here. I know some people might be driven crazy by the dim light and stiffy air in the movie.


Modern people find it more comfortable and cozy to watch video movies at home. That is also the way I prefer compared with stepping into a stiffy movie theater.

I have tons of experience in learning English through watching video movie at home. Truly, I do think it a good way to learn English well even without the real cultural impact abroad. Watching home video movies takes me lots of preparations.
First, I cover the subtitles on TV with rolls of tapes for fear that I might depend too much on the subtitles when comprehending the dialogues in the movie. Then, I might rewind the video over and over again in order to play a part of the leading character. I might pretend to be the leading actor and thus I can keep most of the actor's script in mind. That is fun to imitate the pitch and intonation of different genders and ages.

Some teachers might think it a good way to watch movies in English class, through which students can learn a lot by watching the movie.
Honestly speaking, I favor the idea, but when it comes to putting it into practice, it takes lots of padagogical techniques.

Watching the movie for the whole period of English class? No, it is not good. For one thing, the teacher might find him/her short of time moving onto the next lesson in the textbook. For another, from the perspective of some psychological assumptions, students might know of the movie but depend too much on the Chinese subtitles. They might end up without learning any English because the distraction of too much images in the movie. Based on some related literature revivew in Taiwan, college students can learn more English through watching video movies. Above all, this way can boost students' motivation to learn any foreign language. But the pragmatic applications in the class are still on the way, requiring some experiments.
Thus, I conclude some tips to learn English by watching video movies from the literature review as follows:
1. Have students watch the movie only for or less than half an hour. That is, only show the students parts of the movie based on the teaching plan.
2. Before watching the movie, the teacher can ask students some questions to arouse their attention while watching the movie.
3. After watching the movie, some activities can be engaged to make sure if the students gain a lot from the movie.
Some activities? That's a big question for most English teachers. I might give you an example here. After watching the movie" Legally Blonde", the teacher can have students linked onto a wonderful website http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechlegallyblonde.html
where students can listen to and watch Elle Woods delivering Student Address in Harvard Law School's 2004 Graduation Ceremony. After that, the teacher can have students learn the text of the address and thus make their own address.


Bear these literature review in mind and then you can desin a good teaching plan for your dear students!

A Santa Claus in my school this year!

Big news!!Santa Claus Visited my school this year! Believe it or not!!!

Is Santa Claus real? I have asked myself hundreds of time if Santa Claus does exist since I was a girl. Tell you what...... I would rather believe in the existence of Santa Claus........
(illustration of the picture: plastic Santa Claus in the hall on my campus)

Years ago, we invited a couple of foreign friends to be dressed as Santa Claus seated under a huge Christmas tree on my campus. Students in my school thus lined up, waiting passionately to share their wishes with Santa in English. Students did wait in a long line, eager to chat with Santa in disguise. This reminded me of my happy memories abroad years ago while shopping at Christmas time. In the shopping mall, Usually Santa Claus hired by the manager have kids seated on the laps and give them candies then. People in the mall are busy buying Christmas gifts for the beloved and their relatives. Tell you what.....when Santa wants to go to the rest room, a sign reads" Santa is now feeding his reindeer. Please wait......" I wonder if small kids take the sign as real.......Ha.....Ha.....Ha........

This year we do have a Santa Claus on campus. Tell you what..... it is plastic.