Academic Writing week 3

Today, more students arrrived... some from China who had been in China for Chinese New Year.  But, what was amazing??? Choey came on time.

CNY is over, time to blog

This week, students are welcomed back from Chinese New Year break.  Wow, that means we'll be seeing some students return from their long breaks.  This week students will learn a little about blogging, and opening their own blogs.  Good luck!

Digital Language Experience Approach

LEA is an approach that has students use their own experiences to develop their language learning.  Students read, and re-tell to another learner who records the storytelling.  Later, writing can be added. Of course there are a number of activities that can be used.

• "Once a topic evolves, the learner gives an oral account of a personal experience related to that topic. The transcriber may help the learner expand or focus the account by asking questions."  

I would like to use audio/video recordings and DRAGON software to enrich the experience.

Acquisition and Participation

Our world is divided; nearly everywhere you look: good, bad; black, white; conservative, liberal; nature, nurture; competence, performance; individual, collective... and now: Acquisition, Participation.  Let's combine these ideas, and use them to further our learning.

Two Theories, a Combined Approach

Two influential theorists have given us insights into learning; Vygotsky who gave us social constructivism, and Piaget who gave us in individual developmental constructivism.  Seems we have polar views, but in so much of the world, two sides are better than one.  Emerging perspectives on learning allow us to merge the two theories into an approach that combines both learning preferences.

BUUIC Community

It's time to examine 'community'.  We are all a community... some of us have different roles... What is our community?  What place to English play in this community?  I have a hypothesis, that English doesn't play the dominate role it should... which I'm assuming will be surprising considering our school is based on an English curriculum... what learning, English learning takes place outside the classroom... how many students seek opportunities?  Will I get answers?

Bloom's and Education students

Today students were given the opportunity to Critical Think about Critical Thinking.  They looked over Bloom's Taxonomy and how it relates to computer usage