new semester: National Taipei Univ.
Apr 29 at 1:01am by ObverseView
today was the first day of the new semester for me, at National Taipei Univ. the students look like rabbits caught in the headlights of oncoming traffic, they really do. I wonder how many of them have had foreign teachers before, I would bet none of them
actually have had that. They're nice students, but ther'es somethinga bout that class that seems to suggest they don't like to express their opinions much in class, I wonder why that is. They often don't know what to answer or even seem to know that they should be answering a question sometimes. I wonder if I can achieve anything useful in that respect. It's an interesting point.
One of the aspects that impresses me with Tim's teaching is his high scores, about 5% above my highest scores. I know that he has a terrific personality for classes, he can really reach out to students using his body language, perhaps because he's not afraid of getting laughed at. I guess there's that sense of holding back that seems to be present in my teaching. I wonder what would happen if I tried to give it my all… without overpreparing though, i'd hate to do that, thought, too!
Well, I should be off to the doctor now, to see what he says about my condition. I can't believe that I haven't got over this condition yet. Stil present in my body, I think it's getting better, because the acupuncture seemst o be helping, but I don't know how long it's going to take. This is the end of the second week. I think I have made good progress over the last few weeks in terems of the thealth, but I still need to do more. So I should get on with it.
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Another chinese new year
Apr 29 at 1:01am by ObverseView
Another chinese new year is here, and I don't know what I amm going to do. I can't think of the next few days, perhaps they will be boring, perhaps not. I don't know what to expect. It seems that I am constantly reminded of how quickly time goes by the
se days. It seems that my twenties lasted for ages, but now my thirties are just flying by. What am I to do?
Acupuncutre has been an interesting form of treatment. It does seem effiacios, I think, but the jury is still out on the long term benefits of this course of treatment. I don't know what is happening on that front.
I am still waiting for a reply to my letter sent over 17 days ago. I don't know when they will actually receive the application, but it seems to be taking its time! Perhaps that's good, perhaps that will give me little time to get my things in order and let me continue thinking about the proess of writing a paper. I would like to buy that book on research wrting. It looks like it could be very relevant to the kind of paper I am doing now.
It's funny how this question of research really keeps coming back to me, it's good, because I think that the Masters degree will really help to give me the background in skills to do the research. I still wonder if I can orient my research to the use of computers, I feel there is a lot of space for this kind of research in TESOL. THough many people are already in the field, it is still wide open in terms of what can be done.
So there's opportunity I feel for me. I wish I had more time and facilities to do the research that i would like to do. It is funny to have arrived at a place in my life, where I can say this kind of thing. But I face so many distractions to my work, most of all, myself. I need to cut back some of my distractions so that I can begin to focus on the things that need to be done.
So let's make a list of the distractions that I face.
Jin da
private student
too many hours at CCU
EVP at Toastmasters
ediing those books
getting up late
Class at Nationl taipei University
teaching class at our school.
and yet these distractions can be a very good force, too if they don't get out of hand!
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Apr 29 at 1:01am by ObverseView
My diary…. sitting in a nice restaurant here near home. I have filled up on carbohydrates, and milk tea. I am thinking over my article, and wonderiing what I need to add to it. I think the article still needs some work on the organisation primarily.
I need to work on some of the language, too. I don't really know where it's weak, but I sense some of the writing is very soggy and repetitive. I need a crisper style of prose. So I guess the best remedy is just to cut down on the verbage, eliminate the redundancy which permeates the article before I send it off to be published. I also need to check the call for papers notes, so that I don't fall victim. Ideal length still needs to be worked out, too. I don't like some of the ideas that it contains, either they seem a little vague in terms of thewriting so I have to spruce up the ideas a great deal in the variations section of the paper. Finally that conclusion needs to be written before I can call my paper finished.
I'm still working on that paper, I really need to get it finishd this week, I just need to sit down and work on several aspects of the paper: the description of the basic method, the conclusion, and introduction, and finally the references, I just need a litle time to get if finished. But what do i do? Do I try to get it published this summer and then start to work onthe second article about listening and video in the hope that it will be published soon, too, or do I focus my energy on the paper for the Jalt conference. I also wonder what I should aim for in respect of other papers that I could published this year. I wouldn't mind working on the Guo Ke Hui application next year and using my Masters' thesis as the basis for that paper. That would save me a lot of time if I could kill three birds with one stone. Thesis, Guo Ke Hue, and Hwakang Journal. That would be very economical! Then I could prepare the report, and publish a long article somewhere. Finally, I could extend the research even further so that I could get my promotion with it! That would be cool! By that time, I will be in a position to consider my Ph. D. program at TKU.
Wonder if I can fulfil this mission, it seems quite ambitious and it's goin to be a long time before anything can really be done about it!
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