My Days In Yale （4）

Maybe the climax of this summer session is our lectures about Chinese culture--a Walk into China. When we got the assigned task to give a series of lectures about Chinese culture in New Haven public library, I am sure that most of us felt a little nervous, excited, anxious, etc.. After all, this was a total new program for all of us, and we all wanted to show the excellence of Chinese culture. Various topics such as family policy, Chinese zodiac, Spring Festival, Hunan cuisine, filial piety, Chinese extended family, Change of marriage were presented to the public. I have chosen the topic Chinese tea culture, for tea culture is one symbol of Chinese culture. After a week’s preparation, I have made it. I rehearsed several times to designed the well-timing of the PPT to match my speech. And it proved to be rather useful and convenient. I do think all of us have tried our best. On one hand, we’ve got a chance to make the public know something about Chinese culture and refresh the stereotype of China. On the other hand, we’ve got a stimulus to our life here, which urges us to make a challenge. Thanks for the good cooperation of all my colleagues, the precious suggestions of Carrie and sweet praise of Siggy.

It is an unforgettable experience here in Yale. I’ve met a lot of friendly people who always say “morning”, “have a good day” or help me warm-heartedly. I’ve also made full use of the perfect campus facilities and library resources. I’ve really enjoyed my stay in Yale and I will always keep this summer session in my mind since I am proud to be a part of Yale although for only as short as 40 days.

I love Yale!

My Days In Yale （3）

Winwin is a good lecturer, although her teaching method is somewhat dominating because she talks a lot in her class. However, I think it may depend on the level of the students. In Winwin’s class, all the students can only speak broken English, and they seem to enjoy Winwin’s lecture and learn some interesting things such as body language. Another enthusiastic professor is Kirk, who is so famous among us before I enter his class. He is rather good at involving all the students, including us, in all his activities. No wonder I also join in his “dance” of phonetics. He arranges the students to make presentations and tapes all their performance. Each time he will give some suggestions to their presentation skills. Alan is a true gentleman who is always polite and generous in sharing with us his way of teaching. Two methods are quite useful for me. He asks students to describe one event of the weekend without mentioning the place or activity, and the rest students try to guess. The other is 2 truths and 1 dream, i.e., students write down 3 sentences about themselves, 2 of which are true and 1 is a dream. Or a similar exercise, to write three sentences, two of which are lies and one is a truth. The other students try to guess the lies. If more people guess the lies, then he/she who provides the information is in the liar’s club. Then humorous Bob is good at rousing the interest of all the students. He focuses on the eye contact, body language and intonation in Students’ presentation. Different professors do have their own teaching styles and their class activities give me a lot of inspirations.

My Days in Yale (2)

  During this summer session, I’ve been to some classes of the excellent teachers in summer session and learned many useful teaching methods. The general characteristics of the classes are smaller size and more interactions between teachers and students. To mention a few, lovely Prof. Kristy Perry impresses me deeply by her happy laughter, which also infects all the students. She is an experienced teacher who makes her class well-organized, and she holds the idea that teacher should stand by but not be too close to the students who should learn to rely on each other. In reading class, it’s a clever way that she assigns the students to prepare for some comprehension questions and discussion questions. Beautiful Lauren asks students to think about something they like or dislike about America, which is a good way of warming up. Thus I think it is rather important for teachers to prepare for some interesting questions to make students involve in the discussions. Prof. Betsy is an excellent coordinator in class, and she is good at inspiring the students’ critical thinking, especially the skills of presentation. When all the students are totally involved in discussions of Shark Tank Talk and LGBTQ, I’m quite amazed.

My Days in Yale (1)

Time flies! I’ve already been in Yale for six weeks. During this period of time, I’ve experienced a lot. The first thing comes to my mind is ESL teaching. Thanks to Siggy and Carrie, two lovely and kind tutors, I’ve learned so many useful skills.

Siggy seems to be always enthusiastic towards teaching, and she shares plenty of games and activities with us. Her class is always full of laughter. The most impressive activity is about names. We can think of various ways to recall vocabulary related to names. Such kind of vocabulary activities include words of many categories beginning with the same letter. We can’t stop playing with words and asking for more. She also introduces many funny games to us, such as apples to apples, boggle, ask away, mixed messages... Even tongue twister, drawing pictures, story telling and alibi, etc. are used in her class. I was wondering how many ideas are on earth in her mind? Must because of her enthusiasm! Besides, I’ve also learned how to make effective reading by discussing the impressive ideas and making annotations. Those methods and games can be effectively used in the classroom and I’m sure students will be rather interested in them, thus the English class may be never boring.

Carrie really helps a lot in guiding us to use blog to share our lives here in America and teaching us how to use google、Storycorps.org、youtube to search for useful teaching materials. And she helps us in finding out interesting and meaning sources for specific topics. In her class, she’s a natural story teller, who puts her emotion in reading each article and moves the audience. By asking questions and group discussion, she shows us how a teacher can help students to understand the essay better. Then good writing may follow. And her opinion of making students feel comfortable touches me. I really appreciate Carrie’s effort in preparation for each class, especially her kind invitation to pay a visit to her cozy home. I really love the garden and the comfortable rooms and elaborate decorations. It’s so kind of her to offer help and share many of her ideas in our teaching.

We have also had such happy time of outdoor activities, canoeing, beach, island, shopping, etc. I will always miss you, Carrie and Siggy!

A Lecture in the Public Library

    When we got the assigned task to give a series of lectures about Chinese culture in the public library, I am sure that most of us felt a little nervous, excited, anxious, etc.. After all, this was a total new program for all of us, and we all wanted to show the excellence of Chinese culture. Since the first group had done a good job in showing the aging society of China, we, the second group, decided to show the public the tradition and festivals of China. The first idea occurred to my mind was Chinese tea culture, for tea culture is one symbol of Chinese culture.

After several days of preparation and a few times of edition, finally I’ve got ready for the 11-minute-speech. I rehearsed several times to design the well-timing of the PPT to match my speech. And it proved to be rather useful and convinient. To be honest, I did not feel that nervous as I had imagined. Actually, when more audience came for the lecture, I was so busy preparing for the tea. When It was my turn, I began to tell a legend of tea. Looking around the hall and sensing the friendly smile of the audience, I felt somewhat relaxed and thrilled. Was it good to offer some tea to our guests? When was it appropriate? After thinking about a few solutions, I did decided to offer some tea for the guests to show our respect and gratitude, which is an etiquette of China. When I presented tea culture step by step, I really hope everyone of the audience, including me, will be happy and healthy by drinking tea. In fact, tea is also popular in America, some of the audience seem to know much about tea. At the end of the lecture, one of audience came forward and told me that he liked drinking tea. I was quite move by his words.

The whole lecture was a success, I think, we all tried our best. Thanks for the cooperation of all my colleagues.

An Impression of Boston （1）

   As one of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston is a center for education and culture. Although our timetable seemed to be rather crazy, we really had a good time to get to know some history of America. There are so many “firsts” in Boston.

At the first sight of Harvard University, we believe that we love Yale even more. Comparing the campuses of the two universities, Yale overwhelms Harvard by its more various architectural styles, mainly classic Gothic and George Dynasty style of architecture, as far as I can see only as a layman. Such kind of feeling seemed to spread our whole group. Maybe egoism? Whatever, we are so proud to be a part of Yale, although only for a short time.

    We wandered around the Harvard campus for about 2 hours, touching the shining toe of Mr. John Harvard in good wishes to bring us good luck, and still impressed by those red-brick-buildings of several arts, cultural, and scientific museums alongside the Harvard Library.

 

 Standing on the grounds of these famous universities, I’m quite moved by the history and the combined efforts of generations to make them the cradle of education for brilliant young people. And I’m also proud to be a teacher--a rather holy profession.

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A Day in Boston

    It is a crazy trip. Friday evening witnessed us in a haste planning a one-day trip to Boston. I searched for some materials about this city and got some ideas of this trip. Hoping for a nice trip, I went to bed at 12 pm. We 7 people got up at 3:40 in the morning and began this hope-to-be-nice trip. At 4:40, the train started. The first embarrassment was that we couldn’t buy tickets through net, while with the kind conductor, finally we succeeded. So here in America, we met so many nice people.

As One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston is so famous for Harvard Universtiy, MIT and freedom trail, and lobster as well. First of all，we experienced the old culture by taking subway to nearly every corner of Boston. The red bricks of Harvard Unversity and somewhat modern buildings in MIT mean a lot for Boston to be a center for education and culture.  

    At noon, we enjoyed a big meal--Boston lobster, rather delicious!

   As far as I know, Boston has earned a reputation as “the intellectual capital of the United States”. That afternoon, when we wandered around the ancient old buildings along the freedom trail, I truly believed that history can make a city so charming.

    At 11：30 pm，we returned to Yale. Although tired and sleepy, we did have a precious experience.