Podcast for EFL Learners

                   Among the podcasts listed on the syllabus, I found ESL Pod will be the most useful and level appropriate for the students in Taiwan, especially middle school or intermediate learners. I personally think that the others such as  BBC World News for Children, Education Podcast Network and NPR podcast directory are more for advanced learners in Taiwan, since English is a foreign language there. ESL Pod offers podcasts for ESL learners, the listening is slower which is good for practicing listening,  there is also explanation for each podcast which I think is a great learning material, and the equally important thing is that there are scripts.
             The one Ordering Soups and Salads is practical for the students to learn how to order something in a restaurant. Not until I came to the states that I knew the rule of ordering something in a restaurant. It is sad that I never learned that in schools even it is really a daily life and a must when we are in an English spoken country.
            I teach in elementary school, accordingly, this learning material is more suitable for sixth grade students. For this episode, I would like to spend ten minutes in the beginning for each class as class routines, and complete in around four times of classes.  First of all, I would like my students talk about what kind of soups or salads they like to eat and then have them listen to the podcast without looking at the script; after listening, I would like my students share what they have listened, in the mean time, I would show the script and have them listen once again. The second time, I would like my students listen for certain kinds of soup or salads without script, for example, chicken noodle, mushroom, chef salad, or Ceasar salad, and then listen with script. As for the explanation, I will assign it as homework and also play it in the class and ask questions from it. The fourth time of the class, I would ask my students to role play in class. This learning activity will not be included in the formal exam but will be a part of bonus exam. Cultivating listening habit, get used to paying attention to listen to English and learn how to interact with waiter and waitress are the objectives of the activity. 

ePals

The most amazing and useful part for me in epals is that the collaboration of classroom project.  Under the collaborate tab we could search by country, project, and teacher forum. It is easy for teachers to look for what they want depend on their needs.   Since there are lots of teachers looking for cooperative classrooms with a variety of topics, in the future, I would minimize my search by choosing a project first and then choose a partner classroom. I would have the project last for around three months and have an assignment once a week. When I go back to Taiwan I am going to teach elementary school, thus, I would like my students work in groups or as a class to come up with more ideas and not feel too stressful. In addition, I would also like to follow the essential questions based on the epal projects as my guideline to provoke the discussions. Afterwards, when my students get used to these form of discussion, I would like them practice storytelling via video instead of writing email back and forth.  

Have Fun with Photos

              I made this comic style caption photo by one functions of  Big Huge Labs. It is amazing that Big Huge Labs offer various of  applications that could have fun with photos.
             Since I teach in elementary school, adding comic book style captions to the photo by Captioner would be appropriate for students, they could create photos with ease. One the one hand, they can choose a photo and creat a dialogue. Students can use their imagination and add any captions they want. On the other hand, they can choose a photo that is related to them such as with family or friends, and then create a dialogue or write a dialogue according to what have happend in the picture. Creating a conversation is fun and makes the photo comes to life. In addition, the function of stamp makes Captioner even attractive. To sum up, by using Captioner students would definitely output what they have learned and involved their life into learning.

Creative Commons Licensing

Creative Commons licenses are released by Creative Commons(CC), a non-profit organization. Users on Flickr or other sharing platforms could publish or access resources legally by adding or knowing these. Unlike “all rights reserved”, Creative Commons licenses is a more flexible copyright model and could be “some rights reserved.” Starting with the most accommodating license type to the most restrictive license type, there are six main types of Creative Commons licenses:

Attribution License 

You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.

Attribution-ShareAlike License

You lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NoDerivs License

It allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution-NonCommercial License

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License

This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Twitter Implement

             The article Nine-great-reasons-why-teachers-should-use-twitter/ gave me the background of learning and teaching based on twitter, since I am a novice of Twitter. I love the idea of "Together we are better." TrAuely, in school, it is hard to have enough time to talk with colleagues. Accordingly, teachers might loss the oppurtunity to share the great experience with others. I had the feeling of that when I was teaching in Taiwan. With Twitter, I can not only note down the reflection of the class or day but also share the experience with others and vice versa. The amazing part is that we could read the instant feedback by twitter. For my professional development, I would like to share Twitter with my colleagues who are on the same boat as me. The advantage of having discussions and sharing with homogeneous group could make me figure out the problem and solve it efficiently. Neverthless, I will also be the followers of other Twitters in order to expand more ideas.
            As for the article 7 ThingsYou Should Know About Assessing on-line Team-based learning. I'm glad to know the assesment of the on-line team based learning. In order to have my students cooperative learning, I do like to implement this. In my opinion, teachers might be interested in trying new skills of teaching, however, assesment is always a difficult part. Since I teach in elementary school. Based on this article, what I would like to do is have a project-based task and problem-solving task for my students, such as giving a situation and have them discuss on Twitter. From the discussion, though it is group work, I could still see how each individual contribute to the final project which is important for a teacher to assess how the individual works. At the same time, having on-line team-based learning, the process is much important than the result.
           To sum up, Twitter is a useful tool for me to develop my professional field and for my students. I will have respective Twitter, one for my own and the other for my students.

How often do you get your students to read aloud in class?

How often do you get your students to read aloud in class? From this statistics, it's interesting to find out that there are still some teachers never let their students read aloud in class. There's an interesting reading technique "Reader's Theater" that could be applied in class. I think teachers who know this would be willing to try this. Reader's theater is a way of reading in a meaningful and fluent way. Readers have their voice go up and down to bring the characters to life. However, there's study pointed out that it's better not to read aloud because if students try to read aloud they would focus on the pronunciation itself  but not comprehending the content. In my opinion, the way to comprimise these two contrary perceptions is to have students read the materials by themself first to comprehend the content, and then have groups practice reading aloud to make the content more meaningful. Not only readers feel interesting but also audiences feel amazing. In this way, learners have a sense of achievement to reading. As a result, they are more willing to read more and more, and this is what teachers looking for.

EFL CLASSROOM 2.0

One of the groups I visited is EFL CLASSROOM 2.0. As an EFL teacher, it definitely a must visit platform. The group provides materials not only from teachers’ perspective but also from students’ perspective. For instance, from the tag –TEACH and LEARN at the top, no matter teachers or learners could fit in this EFL CLASSROOM 2.0. One of the categories I love is TEACH phonics, on the one hand, it has flashcards as teaching aids to print out, and on the other hand, it has interactive function for learners to learn it online. Under a certain category, it has lots of resources such as links to the other website, interactive program; in addition, it has attached files sometimes. Besides, visitors could comment every subgroup in this group. Moreover, it is a platform for everyone to discuss different issues. I also found that Teacher’s tool box is really amazing. It is well organized into different categories. There are interactive learning programs, power points, office documents as well. I love interactive learning programs a lot because they could be very vivid teaching aids in class. Because everyone could share information and discuss on this group, thus, what we can get is fresh. The group has the properties of knowledge economy: creating, preserving, and utilizing.  

A learner is like a living Wikipedia

A learner is like a living Wikipedia that could always update information within it. Siemen(2005),connectivism perceives that “creating, preserving and utilizing information flow should be a key organizational activity.” I think that a learner as a living Wikipedia functions creating, preserving and utilizing in the information flow. In addition, Siemen(2005),  

“Personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into organizations and institution, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual.”

A living Wikipedia shares the above properties.

First of all, knowledge is created and discovered by human beings. Information within Wikipedia is edited and influenced by people around the world. On the one hand, people create new ideas, on the other hand, others share these ideas on Wikipedia. Thus, a learner is as a living Wikipedia creates and discovers information as well.

Second, Wikipedia preservers and therefore shares information with the world. I, as a learner, get new information which is shared by others from the external world from time to time. Thus, I update my knowledge every now and then which is the same as Wikipedia. This is the situation that mentioned in the video The Changing Nature of Language; there are two types of knowledge: one is internal neuron network happens within individual, and the other is external component of network learning that we form and make connections with each other individuals. The information I get from the external world is the result of my connection to the world, and the knowledge within me is my neuron network in myself and I could share what I have with others. In addition, Siemens (2005), “learning is a process of connecting specialized node or information sources.”  Accordingly, a learner is like a living Wikipedia that could preserve and share information.

Third, a learner is like a living Wikipedia that utilizes the information. As I mentioned, we get new information from the external world. The external world provides information for me by any form of mediation. According to Vygotsky, mediation includes physical and symbolic tools. I personally argue that these tools are all created by human beings; thus we have Wikipedia, a product that people utilized information from it. What’s more, since there is always new information uploaded to Wikipedia, it changes all the time, at the same time, what the learners absorb changes too. As a result, a living Wikipedia utilizes the information forms the cycle of knowledge development, Siemens(2005).  

 At the same time, the video The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature mentioned that “we externalize our thought in order for us to connect with other individuals.” It best explains that a learner is like a living Wikipedia. We learn, we create, and we share. As a result, a learner as a living Wikipedia functions creating, preserving and utilizing in this  knowledge economy era.

Video Reaction

First of all, I would like to talk about the video Educational Change Challenge The prologue “Who seriously believes that locking 25 students in a small room with one adults for several hours a day is a best way for them to be educated?” intrigued me to watch this video several times. As an educator, I’m ashamed that I barely think of this question. On the one hand, however, I did think of “If students in Taiwan, my hometown, could choose what they want and are required to learn during high school, wouldn’t that be great?” On the other hand, the video Pay attention referred to Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences reminds me that individual differences do exit. Everyone has his learning styles. From this two concepts, I think that educators should bear in mind that the best way for one to learn might be the worst way for another, that is, everyone has his suitable way of learning and it may varies from time to time as well.  For example, I sometimes want to study alone but sometimes want to stay with others, and when I was in high school, I did math in the morning, but others might like to do that in the afternoon.

At the same time, in Educational Change Challenge stated that the greatest hurdle in education reform is that society doesn’t have a clear vision of what school is for. I have a question that how do TADO, this video maker, define what school is for. Schooling is not a must, but leaning is a must, and school is the major place that provides any kind of learning.  My philosophy of what school is “It’s a place that offers students acquire knowledge in a systematic way, learn how to learn and learn to deal with people.”  I think the most important thing for students in school is to learn how to learn, accordingly, as long as they know how to learn, even they’re not at school, they would learn. In this way, they become the lifelong learners, which is also a central concept advocated by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education.  In terms of lifelong learners, in the videos Pay attention and A vision of k-12 Students Today, both of them mentioned WWW, which stands for whatever, whenever, and wherever; I love this new interpretation a lot. Lifelong learning takes place anytime and everywhere in the world.  

In addition, I totally agree with the idea of “understand students’ culture” in the video of in Educational Change Challenge. It is human nature that people choose to pay attention to what they like, especially developing children, the more they like the teacher, the more they want to learn from this teacher. Therefore, understanding students’ culture may be the way to catch up on what’s in students’ mind.

In conclusion, the video Pay attention pointed out the key objectives of education by Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy which creates is the last domain of it. “These teens were born into a digital world where they expect to be able to create, consume, remix, and share material with other.”  The basic amazing thing of this digital world is that we could share and know the information immediately from all over the world. In respond to Multiple Intelligences, I personally think that people could benefit from the digital world, and some people do definitely achieve the level of creation by technology but there are also others achieve creation in other forms such as drawing and dancing. I think we should bear in mind that there are various ways of learning, and using digital media is just one of them. However, digital media could possibly be the most popular way of leaning.  

This image is fabulous. How amazing of its' creativity to combine Bloom’s  cognitive taxonomy with this digital world.

Internet Safety!

The internet is an amazing resource; however, it could result in hazards for people. Prevention is better than cure. Before students start using blogs, it’s necessary to build proper concepts of internet usage for them. The following are the lists of things that I would teach my students.

1. Take a rest after half an hour usage. Since students are still under the phase of body development, it’s important for them to take care of their eye vision and body.

2. Create an e-mail account such as Google account to prevent lots of trash mail which have a bunch of pornography websites included.

3. Talk about piracy in the class to learn what the illegal download is.

4. Make sure the software or program you use is illegitimate.

5. Never share names, schools, ages, phone numbers, or addresses on line.

6. Never send pictures to strangers.

7. Keep passwords private.

8. Talk with parents or teachers if you find something wrong.

9. Minimizing chatting with strangers.

10. Using appropriate words online to show respect to others.

11. Sharing what you do on the internet with parents or teachers.

As I know, the schools in Taiwan use more and more blog as a learning tool now. Each class has their own homepage. It depends on teachers whether they use it or not. For the school I taught, it also emphasizes high-tech learning; as a result, most of the students have the experience of using blog as a learning tool. Some students even can upload their learning materials to the server of the school by using their own account. It’s glad to see that some parents also work with their kids. Advocating for parental education will also bring positive affect for children’s learning.

How I could use blogs in my class…

Learning by using blogs provides another way for students to access and exchange more information in this knowledge-based economy world. Language is an essential factor for communicating, that is, the bridge for conveying ideas. Learning language by using blog could be the mediation of communicating. It responds to what Richardson stated “Class Portal.” The teacher could post any related documents on the blog. The key point is that how learners learn efficiently to achieve the standard of learning by using blogs.


First of all, I think organization is the vital element of using a blog. Since I teach in elementary school, the simpler the better. There’d be four main sections of my blog: student’s own blog link section, in class section, homework section, and materials section. For the first section, the students will post what their URL is to let others have the quickest way to access it. The students might be asked to write or voice recording two to three diaries each week on their blogs by using English. This could be done by using “Voice Thread.” For the in class section, I’d like to post what the coming topic is on the blog beforehand, and write the feedback after class. The feedback could include the solution for the problem solving task in class, the difficult concept or important information, and the recommendation for the whole class. With regard to the homework section, I would list what the homework is on the blog and the student could upload an attachment for their homework. Besides, this section could be a form like discussion board that students reply directly to others. In terms of material section, I would have useful websites for my students and also materials they could download.
Standards for the English Language Arts ( by Richardson)
- Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions.
TSLT Goal 2:Standard 2


Second, individual works for students by using blog. In Taiwan, students have three English classes per week and forty minutes for a class in elementary school. The objective students are sixth grade. I’d use fifteen to twenty minutes to have my students using blog as a learning tool in class. As I mentioned, they would need to write or voice recording two to three diaries every week. During this phase, they could write down or record what they’ve learned for today’s class or what’ve happened in their recent daily life. For more advanced students they will be asked to write or speak at least 150 words but for lower level students they could just write down fifty words. Moreover, students could apply “Voice Thread” to complete this task. They could either give comment or write diaries by typing or recording since each individual has his or her own learning style. In this way, they practice writing, listening, reading, and speaking.
Standards for the English Language Arts ( by Richardson)
-Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes.
TSLT Goal 3 Standard1&2



Third, cooperative works for students to have a chance to observe others. I would also assign them a problem solving or decision making project for group works. People view things in different ways. From a cognitive view, imitation is a prerequisite of internalization. Here, imitation is not mimicking but learners are able to reproduce language by their own. Besides the verbal discussion, students need to write down what they’ve discussed on the blog, as a result, other group members have an access to know how the other group work. In this way, leaning happens.
Standards for the English Language Arts ( by Richardson)
-Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
TSLT Goal 4 Standard 1 


To sum up, using blogs for learning a language is a way to motivate students. In order to have a balance for listening, speaking, reading, and writing, I personally think that using Voice Thread on the blog could be a practical tool. However, I’m still a novice for Voice Thread; hopefully, I could become an expert after the class.