Back again...

After almost a year of absence, I finally found a reliable proxy to get around China's block of certain websites such as YouTube, Google's Picasaweb, Imageshack, etc.

I made it out of the College of Humanities and Information and am presently teaching at another college. As I would like myself to be, I still teach my students to the best of my ability. And in the coming week, I will entertain them with an original song, and as an activity, they can debate various aspects of the song, such as the lyrics, the mood, the performance, etc.

For a while, I was receiving less emails from students, but there were still the occasional graduates (like Wenny) who sent emails. But that's changing again. I am starting to receive emails from students again, and I hope that there will be more who would take advantage of this technology to further improve their English communication skills.

Having to write all these, and hopefully more to come later, have a nice day.

Nothing personal

Last night, a group of students hanged out with me for a while and we got into talking. If I believe these "friends" and I do, apparently, my last post was inaccurate. I guess the decision was based on the students' votes. How am I supposed to feel in this regard? Nothing, I suppose. It is just business.

How will this reflect on my discourse? Well, it'll be business as usual. My principle is very simple. My students are college students who are supposed to be stirred with more useful exercises and activities. If the school or the students do not think my discourses are invaluable, I cannot do anything about it. Sure, the activities might be a little hard at the beginning but in actuality, they are really very basic. If the basics are unacceptable, I guess my expectations were set a little too high.

So where is the standard set at? Passing examinations? Well, isn't that important? I believe it is. But if you analyze this more carefully, a well-prepared student shouldn't really have problems passing the exams. But what is a well-prepared student? In my opinion, a well-prepared student is someone who had experienced a lot of similar things to be able to better understand the questions and provide a better answer.

Anyway, there is no point crying over spilled milk. Besides, I do not look at this as a misfortune. I see it as a challenge, and perhaps the situation dictates that it is time for me to move on ... should I say, a greener pasture.

Oh, I am going to miss a lot of my good students in this school, but life just have to move forward. Let's see, a month-and-a-half left ... and by that time, this blog will also probably ceased to exist.

It is official

Rumors were about of radical changes in school, and I suspected as much. Yesterday, I was handed the pink slip by the Foreign Affairs Office secretary of the college, Caroline Gao stating that they "are sorry to tell me of their decision. They won't sign me for another year." And a Green Day song pop ups in my mind - Good Riddance ;)

Nope, I am not being sarcastic about the whole situation. I am confident that I will be able to get employment with another college.

So, what is the reason for this dismissal after 6 years of loyal service? From what I have heard the school has recruited three Europeans to teach Oral English. But I think it is more than that. Recently, we've been having parties outside our apartment building, and apparently some of the leaders in school didn't appreciate the "noise and rowdiness" that attracted many students, especially non-English majors, to approach the foreigners to talk and "make friends" with us.

"It's something unpredictable but in the end it's right; I hope you have the time of your life."

May Day holiday, however short it is, would hopefully give me the time to relax and recuperate from this nagging cold that I can't seem to shake off. I hope the Samans would be around too. I enjoy their music, their company and their friendship. Big hey to Manchu!

Pre-May holiday preparations

This week will see my students get themselves ready to learn how to create a newsletter when they return to school after the May holidays. I have already set up a GoogleGroups to facilitate communications between student members and teacher.

A newsletter project was something I did more than four years ago that resulted in several copies of things that happened back then. The newsletter consisted of articles written by my students at that time. The layouts were provided mostly by me but this term, I will teach my students to do such things.

The whole activity is planned for three weeks after the May holidays. It should be something new to the students; they will again use their computers, which I have observed they enjoy; and hopefully we can have fun doing this activity.

The whole discourse is as follow:

First week will be explaining the differences between a newsletter and other publications such as a newspaper and magazine. Layouts and other inclusions in the newsletter project will also be discussed. The class shall be divided into groups of four to five students. The groups will elect a Chief Editor who will be sent invitation emails to join a GoogleGroups. Each group will gather 5 to 6 different campus news and write digital compositions about them.

The second week will see the student groups formulate layouts, edit their articles, etc. The groups have to bring their laptop computers to class to design and layout a newsletter that will include their researches. The teacher will make suggestions, etc.

Things to the students should consider: Layout, header, masthead, TOC, footer, media size.

The third week will will have each group print several copies (one for each group and one for the teacher) of their finished newsletter for distribution. At the end of the project, each group will evaluate the other groups' publication.

The Video Projects

There were a lot of confusions in my classes regarding our class activity and the video submissions. The class activity was a push the students to individually submit their videos to qualify for the final exams. I explained that the four choices - self-introduction, simulated job application, audition or how to - could be used by any students. The groups working on the class activity, however, were only given a combination of two choices.

Throughout the week, only one video from a group was submitted. This was from group 4 of Class 06111. Last week, I contacted the student who appeared on the video and commented on their work. In effect, my comment was "if she was to use the video to apply for a job, she wouldn't get it." She was disappointed at first but asked for help.

We worked together last weekend to create a clip called "My College and Some of the Other Things I Do in School" which was a short introduction of our college and some of her activities. It is a short 2-minute video which had a few explanations and a lot of actions. See it for yourself.



There was a funny thing though. I intentionally made a mistake to see if there were any students who would notice it. At the beginning of the semester, I stated that the deadline for the video submissions to qualify for the final exams was a month before the final exams. A couple of weeks ago I began saying to them that the videos were to be handed in on or before the May holidays, which is a month earlier than the deadline I set at the beginning of the term. We'll see who complies. Those who submitted their videos earlier will get extra credits and those who couldn't will be informed that they can still submit theirs but only on or before the real deadline.

What the rap meant

I'm just checking my students' homework and it just occurred to me that there were several who asked and other who indicated they didn't know what the rap on Waiting For You meant.

So here's the translation:

You never got around to visit
Kasiyahan lang ang nasa isip // Having fun is all that's in your mind
Close your eyes; ipikit mo lang // Just close ...
Ang iyong mga mata // Your eyes
At kung makita mo // And if you can see
Ang nilalaman ng puso mo // What is inside your heart
Di ka na mag-iisip ng iba // You won't think of any others
Naghihintay sa yo // She's waiting for you
Saan ka man naroroon // Wherever you may be
Babalik ka rin naman // Anyway, you will go back again
Sa kanya. // To her

I'm sure it's not the best rap you've heard but it's just nice to be able to sing it.

It starts tomorrow

I've always believe that methods could be changed to fit one's own abilities. At the beginning of the term, I have explained to all my classes that they are required to submit a video to qualify for their final exams. Seven weeks later, I have received no queries from any of them.

Although the video sessions were already a planned activity, it would still be nice to have queries from any of my students. At least I would know that they are interested, and I wouldn't have to doubt that they already know what they should do. A lot of things we do in life requires instructions, and failure or even misunderstanding part of the instruction can create very adversed effects.

My sophomore classes (070122 and 070125) would start theirs next week but for the Juniors, they would have to come prepared or nothing useful would come out of the activity.

I have already divided each class into four groups, and each group would have a leader. I've also instructed the groups to bring with them in class at least one portable computer. I gave the groups a few days to decide on their leaders, and only these leaders will received instructions from me.

The idea is passing along information and hopefully teamwork can be formed. Each of the group will take on one or two tasks. They need to put together a script to what one or two of their group members will be saying during the video recording. I've also instructed the leaders to make sure that their group's computer has a video editing software, like MovieMaker, capable of editing videos. Once the session for the group had been recorded, the video will be uploaded to their machines for editing. Then off to the next group.

Group one will be doing a self-introduction and/or an audition; group two, self-introduction and/or a job application; group three, an audition and/or job application; and group four a job application and/or a how to.

The idea with the choices is that more than one member could volunteer for the recording session thus facilitating the start of their task to submit their videos to qualify for their final exams.

We'll see what happens to the classes this week and on Monday. If there is a need to do it again, I can always move the other activities to a later class.

If there are any queries, contact me by email.