Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Learning Pain

Here is a poem I wrote for the class activity on Learning (life, love, and change)
See blog archive (March 2012)

LEARNING PAIN

Learning is a pain
My energy is drained
By the end of the day
All I do is wail
whining as I sit on my chair
Afraid to fail
Words escaped me
Why? Oh, why
do I have to feel this way?
Is there a better way to get an 'A'?

Aiden Yeh

Written on March 2, 2012
In class
Rm 605



Passion in your eyes

I must apologize for the delayed publication of this poem. I wrote this poem in class (after in-class discussion) while my students were also writing their poems on the theme: patriotism (towards their country: Taiwan)

Link to the activity: http://rebelliouspoets.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/discussing-and-writing-about-taiwans.html


Immigration Story

Based on TED video, My Immigration Story, Tan Le



Vocabulary

It is okay to be an outsider, a recent arrival, new on the scene — and not just okay, but something to be thankful for. … Because being an insider can so easily mean collapsing the horizons, can so easily mean accepting the presumptions of your province.” (Tan Le)

to endure
oblivious
to bypass
inflexible
enmeshed
relentless
catapulted
marginalized
disenfranchised
hunches
thwarted
entitlement

This video contains a lot of valuable lessons for students. It is a great teaching material about personal/emotional endurance, presumptions, determination, tribulations, and gaining success despite various upheavals.

T

Personal Branding

Personal Branding- this was the lesson I gave on June 8, 2012

Introduction:

I asked my students to think of how they would introduce themselves to people. What would they say besides their name?

These are what they came up with: I'm a graduating student...; I'm majoring in English...; I come from Taiwan...

I then rephrased my question to: If you were to market yourself, what adjectives could you think of to describe your abilities?

I wrote on the board the word, Brand. I asked students to throw in answers of what they think this word means (listing them on the board). This is what we came up with:

- it is a symbol or trademark
-style
-a name given to a product or service
- recognizable/unique

I then moved on to discussing 'personal brand' and why we should care about it. I asked my students to think of their qualities, what makes them unique.

I drew two columns on the board with the following headings:

Student brand | Personal brand
-smart            | smart
-hardworking | proactive
- earnest        | creative
-inspiring       | competent
-positive       | experienced
-cunny          | productive
                    | effective

Passion- this is priceless, you can learn skills. love what you do
Energy- pursue what you love to do

----
There's more to this that happened in the classroom, but the point of the lesson is for the students to discover their own self-worth. Self-impression is important and an awareness of what and how people think about you is valuable in gaining self-confidence or simply just improving yourself.