What I learned last week in our class.

I learned several useful tools such as Hot Potato and Podcast. Hot-Potato can create cloze exercises immediately once we copy and paste an article on it. Our professor, Mini also shared her teaching method with us about how she used cloze exercises in class. “Never correct students”, said she. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t pay attention to students. Instead, she wants to create a relaxing learning environment. By self-correcting, students learn without the fear of making mistakes. “It is a way to make them feel easy.” as Mini said. I agree. When we feel relaxed, we learn fast.

The other interesting activity we tried was to using Hot-Potato to learn the language and culture from movies. We watched a court scene from the movie “My cousin Vinny” . We were divided into two groups and used Hot-Potato to make Q& A exercise. Students engaged in this activity. They listened to and observed the scene very carefully in order to answer any questions their peers might ask. I always think using movies in ESL classes is great if we can use it properly. From the short scene, I also learned one sentence: “The store has a flue.”, which means “The people in the store have a flue.”

Another website I liked is: breakingnewsenglish.com. It offers a wide range of topics from business to fashion. If we click on some news, for example, “Toyota recalls more cars over safety fears”, we can find a 15-page study sheet! From listening practice to discussion and writing, the exercises include every necessary practice students may need. I think I will introduce these websites to my friends who are ESL teachers in China.