2009年6月23日 星期二

Movie and Performance

It’s the last week of school for my senior students. On June 15, we did the Hen Skit rehearsal on the stage with simple costumes and setting. Some of my students were very talented and didn’t have any stage fright at all. We rehearsed the skit about three times as well as the song. They also gave a few feedbacks to one another.

On June 17, we went to, one senior student of mine, Mr. Wu’s home for the movie class. He has a well equipped audio-visual room for the family entertainment. We decided to move to his home for the movie class, because of the technical problems occurred in the church. But it’s just for this time; we would solve the problems before next semester starts. I was glad two thirds of the class attended. Having this extra class, I could get their feedbacks immediately for the following semester lesson plans. (Mostly, the students would be the same or we might gain a couple of new students.) After watching two times of “The Joy Luck Club” Part 1 ( The narrating introduction and the home party), they did the Activity 2 –Listening Comprehension ,Find out ten differences that you hear from the narrator, and the Activity 4-Answer these questions about this scene. (Multiple choice questions) They found these Activities were kind of difficult for their level though they did enjoy watching movies. According to their suggestions, I might give them the printed out lines of plot (offered by Professor Terry Doyle) or maybe just part of it beforehand during next semester.

On June 19, my students’ performance was the last show. It was going very well; they won lots of applause. One of other English class teachers, Christine, came ask for the Hen Skit plot and the costumes. She said she liked the performance my students did very much.

All the responses about my teaching I’ve got so far either from the students or other fellow teachers are positive. I told them that I got lots of helps and resources from my teacher Aiden Yeh in Wenzao and Professor Terry Doyle. I applied some ideas and suggestions offered by them. Not only my students improved but also I did. I’ve recorded the whole week classes and will combine them into one DVD. I’ll give one copy to Aiden and send another copy to Terry and keep the other one for myself.

Cindy R Shih

2009年6月9日 星期二

Rehearsal and Schedule for Last Week

June 8, I think the whole class had a very relaxed time today. We didn’t learn anything new, but rehearsed the “Hen Skit” and reviewed the idioms with pictures again. In next class, we’ll do the rehearsal with costumes on the stage; I hope everything would go well. We did run out of time to do the movie class, fortunately, my seniors students want to have an extra class that we can watch a clip of movie. So, the schedule for next week would be: Mon. June15 rehearsal, Wed. June 17 movie class, Fri. June 19 semester closing ceremony. Kau-Nan, one of my students would bring his notebook to the classroom that I can play “Joy Luck Club” movie with. And I’ll set the “you tube” film before the Wednesday class starts.

Cindy R Shih

2009年6月1日 星期一

Idioms' Pictures and Rehearsal





















May 25, My American friend, Sharon, and my seniors students had interviews one another. Most of the questions for Sharon were like: “What’s your favorite food in Taiwan?”, “Do you like stinky tofu?”, “What’s your first image (impression) of Taiwan?”, “Have you thought about adopting a Taiwanese child?” My 60-year-old American friend, who has two adopted children -- one is American the other is Korean, responded, “I don’t thing I still have energy to adopt any kids.” She also answered all the questions they had for her. At the end, she asked them about their jobs and families. Some of them are homemakers, but they said they are “housekeepers”. So I made some examples regarding impression and image, also talked about the difference between housekeeper and homemaker in today’s class (June 1) as a warm-up.

According to Professor Terry Doyle’s idea and suggestion in the comment of my blog, on May 13 09’, he wrote: … that idioms may be best taught when we show a picture to accompany that idiom. ….. The idea is that the pictures serve as mnemonic aid.I applied this idea in today’s animal idioms review. (The pictures are attached below.) My students all agreed this idea helped them memorize idioms easily.I’ve recorded the idioms review and described what I’m doing with that recording. I also mentioned my instructors, Aiden and Terry, and the greetings from them to my students. The record would be combined with the following classes and burned into DVDs for the study.

We started doing the rehearsal for June 19 performance (closing ceremony). Most of them got a part. (The skit lines are attached below.) We also did the song “Put your head on my shoulder” practice with some movements. We’ll continue to do the rehearsal again next time. I hope we still have time to watch and learn something new from the movies, Joy Luck Club and Bella, teaching materials provided by Professor Terry Doyle.

Cindy R Shih
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HEN SKIT:

Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Baskit

Narrator: The chickens are in the hen house. It is more difficult for them to lay eggs because they are no spring chickens any more.
Hen 1: When would you lay your next egg?
Hen 2: I don’t know. It would take me longer than before.
Hen 3: Ha! Ha! You are not young any more.
See! (Show them her new egg and then walk away.)
Hen 4: Look at my new egg! Isn’t it beautiful?
Hen 5: I think mine is more beautiful and bigger than all of yours.
Narrator: Finally, they all lay their new eggs, and talk about where to store their eggs.
Hen 5: Let’s put all the eggs in this pretty basket.
Hen 4: Then we can sell them in the market and buy other foods.
Housekeeper: No! No! No! Don’t put all the eggs in one basket. It is risky.
Hen 3: Where else can we put some eggs in?
Housekeeper: We can store some eggs in the cabinet.
Narrator: They agree with the housekeeper’s idea, but they forget to take the basket into the hen house. The next morning, a sneaky fox comes and steals the basket away.
Hen 2: We lost our eggs in the basket.
Hen 1: We didn’t lose the all eggs, we still have some in our cabinet. Our housekeeper is
very trustworthy.
All hens: Yes, we can always count on him.
Housekeeper: You can put your head on my shoulder.
(All sing, Put Your Head on My Shoulder !)
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Animal Idioms' Pictures:

Monkey see monkey do No spring chicken As a sneaky fos at the hen house

Love me love my dog Raining cats & dogs The cat is out of the bag