June+10,+2011

REFLECTIONS FOR JUNE 10, 2011

Jade Jiang Clayton In Mr. Collin's class, I was impressed by Russian teachers on demonstrating how to use visual cue, gesture and repetition to teach the Chinese teachers to understand the camouflage activity. They were very enthusiastic and animated which were important attributes as we were teaching those young kids at a novice stage. The activity of swap teaching between Russian and Chinese teachers were brilliant idea. It would be even better if both Russian or Chinese teachers had no idea of this activity beforehand. Mr. Collin you rock too.:-)

Norman Kao

This has been one of the excellently organized workshops and Ms. Chau has also been phenomenal; I am particularly appreciative of her relentless dedication and her wealth of useful strategies and big ideas. I learned a lot from her as well as from ever impressive Collin with his amazing science lessons. Oh boy, two amazing presenters in one week!

Shaohua Chen I like this morning's micro teaching part, enjoyed learning some Russian, what a fun experience! There are strategies to adopt from both Chinese and Russian teachers to use for our 3rd week. Mrs. Chau, thanks again for your hard work, hope you are home safe and sound! Looking forward to working with you again!

Ying Li

This morning Ms. Collin gave us an active and fun science class again. I enjoy the Chinese teachers and Russian Teachers taughteach other, which let me really feel how the novice low language learner’s feeling. Ms. Chau, thank you for your hard works. You really improved my teaching skills. I hope you are already home safely now. Meanwhile I’d like to thank Startalk to give everyone the best chance to learn.

Shelley Xiao

What a fun and productive day today! Mr. Collin really helped us to apply what we have learned in this morning’s lecture. What a great hands on and unforgettable experience! Brilliant!!!

I am extremely grateful and thankful that we had such an outstanding teacher Ms. Chau! She has been teaching and passing her precious knowledge and experience to us tirelessly. She is not only an excellent teacher, but and very caring, kind and loving person. She had a very strong positive impact to all of us. Can’t thank her enough for what she has given us. I LOVE YOU Ms. Chau!!!

Han Wei Today’s lecture is so impressive that even now I can recall all the details. It is really beneficial for the Chinese teachers and Russian teachers to exchange their roles and teach each other in an immersion way, which gives me many greater insights into the 3rd week demo class. Besides, Ms Chou shares with us the useful Balanced Literacy strategies for mandarin immersion classroom. Ms Chou shows us how to tell a Chinese story in the fabulous way. It has been a fruitful and productive week. Thanks so much for Ms Chou’s unselfish sharing and instruction.

Yinsan Hsu Today at Mr. Collin presentation, we went over why butterfly camouflage and had both demo teaching from Russian and Chinese teachers. I think this enhance our understanding how novice language learners feel like when they are learning a foreign language. This activity astonishes me and helps me understand how we have to keep out sentence simple and consistent when teaching novice proficiency students. In addition, we learn how to implement “balance literacy” in immersion class. I really appreciate Mrs. Chau’s presentation; she is excellent and very knowledgeable. She had provided us many and many resourceful and practical teaching materials. Thank you so much Mrs. Chau for waking up at 4am and sharing your expertise with us.

Ning Wei I learned a lot from the classes today. The science class this morning made our directions much clearer for our third week teaching. The demo lessons we did for the Russian teachers and the class we took from the Russian teachers were fun and meaningful. I learned some Russian words and class management strategies. Thank you very much for coming out to Colorado and sharing with us about teaching Chinese. thank you for all of your hard work and I hope you have a great summer.

Zhang Xiaohong Again we had a science demo class from Mr. Collin, which is so fun and impressive. I especially enjoyed the part in which the Chinese teachers and Russian teachers tried to teach each other to play the "hide and seek" game. I learned what we need to pay attention to when we are teaching novice learners. From Mrs Zhou, I learned what is "balanced literacy" and some activities that can be easily applied to help students improve their reading comprehension and writing ability.

Caoyongxin

Mr. collin aqlways use happy and interensting activities during the lecture. the activities are good references for us when we teach at last week. He can explain very difficult concepts by simple words. Thank you, Mr. Collin. this is the last day that Ms. Chau give us presentatation. during these 5 days, I really learned much things. And the most important thing is that Ms. Chau always give us true examples to show us no only what theory is but also how to put thewm into practice or even how to partice. This the best program I have ever took party in. I just feel time is so limited and I want Ms.Chau can have more time to help us.thank you so much!

I-Chi Wang Thank you to Mr. Collin for making the science class so active and fun. I liked the demo that taught novice level Russian teachers; it helps the teacher set the stage and make the theory more practical. Special thanks to Ms. Chau for sharing about her profuse knowledge. I liked the samples of shared reading and writing; I will use that to help my students make their own small books. These 5 days in workshop have really impoved my teaching skills. Enjoy your summer break!

Chunyan Wang: Today's Mr.Collin's class made it very clear how to teach on the third week ,I can even pictrue now how I am going to teach ,what I am going to use.....I like the activity,it was fun! I felt a bit sad about Ms. Chau's leaving, she is such a great teacher! she not only taught us about teaching theories, but also taught us how turn the theories into realities, I am so happy and luck to have a great teacher like her in my first Startalk training,it is so helpful!!

Mo Geng: Today, Mr. Collin’s presentation was very interesting and I very enjoyed his game of “butterfly camouflage” during the class. I also like the idea of Mr. Collin and Ms. Chau, which let Russian and Chinese teachers teach each other to demo how to teach Novice level students. From This demo, I understand that teach Novice Level students must observe learners’ facial expression to make sure that they really catch the meaning when I talking. During Ms. Chau’s class, I practiced that how to utilize “Read Aloud” strategy to implement “Balance Literacy” in Novice Mid level student. I very enjoy Ms. Chau’s demos. From her classes I learned a lot effective teaching skills. At end, I want to say thank you very much Ms. Chau.

Louisa Yu I got the same problem like Mo Geng, yesterday I also posted my reflection here which disappeared today, but Mo Geng is clever than me, she had original on her computer, I did not. I will redo it and save original on my computer at the same time. I really hope Mrs Chau can teach us longer than one week. We have learned lots that we will try to use next school year. we can still write our reflection when we use them, because we are a great team now, whatever we are in China or US. Sorry everyone for changing the ideas which our team created. I was so nervous when I taught Russion teachers. 这两天反思那天的课，发现自己还是在教语言，没有教那天科学课的重点—蝴蝶的保护色效应. 如何把语言教学与科学教学相结合呢. 如果我有机会再讲，我会做如下调整. 在介绍了鸟和蝴蝶，和我是 ___句式后. 表演两只蝴蝶飞落在花丛中，一只颜色与背景的颜色差别很大，被鸟吃掉了. 另一只蝴蝶颜色与背景一样，活了下来了，活下来的蝴碟说明她能活下来的原因，她与周围的颜色一样，鸟不容易找到她即保护色的效应. 语言点” 一样“ 和”不一样“. 而后再做那个游戏，鸟吃蝴蝶. 可惜那天没有想到这些，马后炮了. 不知其他老师还有那些好的建议.

Bella( Wei Yang) What a great week! I feel really sorry for Ms Chau's leaving. Obviously, everyone loves her! It was very hard saying goodbye to such a great teacher. Hope her all the best! And, I like Mr. Collin's onging lesson on the butterfly camouflage and the game related. A big applause on Chinses and Russian teachers' experimental classes. You guys did a great job! In all, I experienced a wonderful week with our wonderful teachers and friends. I am looking forward to the class next week. (P.S. I have the picture of our whole class. If you need it, feel free to e-mail me. Everybody enjoy the weekend. See ya on Monday!)

Belinda Liu--I didn't stay a lot in Ms. chau's class today, but I heard a lot of laughter in that room though. Everyone had a great day today. I really like the activities that we chinese teachers taught Russian teachers, and Russian teachers taught us. But I missed the Chinese teachers part. This is a great activity that we can learn from each other. Collin gave us more information today and I like the video clip about butterfly. We will use it in our class and help students understand the 4 stages of the cycle of butterfly.

Gu Xitao Today is a special day. Russian and Chinse teachers give us demo lessons. It's fun. I learned a lot from them. And today is Ms. Chau's last day. She told us something about "balance literacy". We said "thanks" to her from bottom of our heart. she had provided us many resourceful and practical teaching materials

Fanghong Yu Today was the first time I heard the phrase "Balanced Literacy"an approach to balance reading and writing instruction. Ms Chau introduced some useful strategies to Mandarin immersion classroom teachers: Read Aloud, Shared Reading, Share Writing and Guided Writing. Ms Chau used the story "The Very Hungry Caterpilar" to give us a demo of how to use these strategies. My two classmates later also practiced by teaching us a story. I was impressed and reflected on my own teaching about reading and I believe I can borrow some these strategies.

Sherry Chao Today we learned Russianit was my first Russian class and I really liked it. The Russian teachers did a good job on delivering both the language and the science to our Chinese students. I felt a little sad today because today was the last day of the class with our trainer, Ms Chau. I learned a lot from her in this week. I appreciated her excellent training.

Shuo Chen Thank you to Mr. Colin and Ms. Chau gave Chinese teachers and Russian teachers time to practice with each other. What a wonderful morning. I found Russian teacher proposed the definition of camouflage only use one simple example, so maybe we can change our original idea to use self-protectionto instead of comples statements like diversion, disguse, mimicry and warning colors. I feel very sad because Ms. Chau finished her lessons. I hope that I can have the opportunity to listen Ms. Chau's lecture again.

Jubie Ahn It's a fun experince to teach Russian teacher Chinese, and Chinese teach Russian. We can adapt same concept in teaching kids or adults who are without any target language background by using sample word, sentence, TBR, imagine, drawing, repeating ...It's also very helpful to learn and adapt balance literacy in immersion teaching as well. We miss you Ms. Chau, you teach us aboundant theory along with the related activities which definitely will enhance our understanding. You are truly an inspiration!!

TracyPeng Mr. Collin's class showed us how to use the target language to teach the science content. Both the Russian and Chinese teacher did great jobs in the demon class! This definitely enhanced my understanding of how learners at novice level feel like when they are learning a new language. And Ms. Chau' s "balance literacy" is so impressive. She is one of the best presenter I have ever met. I am deeply impressed not only by her teaching methods and strategies, but also by her dedication and great personality. Thank you, Ms. Chau! I am looking forward to seeing you and learning from you in the future!!

Yewei Jiang I'm so sorry to come here too late on the weekend.But I still can rember the " Balanced Literacy". Actually something in this unit is brand new to me, I will try to put it into practice in my classroom!

Shan Lou 今天我们上午的课程很有趣，和俄罗斯的培训老师轮流当外语老师. 我们都是从一无所知开始的. 虽然没有学会几句俄语，不过俄罗斯的老师的动感和活力让我有所感触. 作为一名幼教老师，肢体语言的魅力和作用力是勿容置疑的. 我应该从他们身上学到的就应该是充满活力. 下午的课程有点难过，因为今天周老师要走了. 眼泪在眼睛里面打转，没有想到她已经在我的记忆中那么那么的深了，真有很不舍得她的离开. 当然也感激她所给予我的一切.