Week 7 is the last week, but let's keep writing?

Thank you all very much for participating in this assignment. It means a lot to me to help you build up the habit of writing about something you have read. I hope it has been helpful for you, at least has been helpful in the sense that you've done something to show the improvement of your English and critical thinking. 


I would like to announce that this week (week 7) will be our last week to write the reading journals for this class, and  The deadline for the journals this week will be December 10th, by 8 pm. 


Although this is the last week of writing, I strongly recommend that you continue writing to share with your friends overseas and me even after you return home. 


For the last week at HELP (week 8), if you would like to write, I will give you extra credits (2 points on this assignment). For week 8, you just have to write one journal on the topic of "what have I learned in the class" or anything you would like to share with others about this class, if you want extra credits. Since it's personal experience, you don't have to summarize any readings.


If you have questions about your grades so far, please feel free to come talk to me, especially for those who have missed classes, tests, or assignments.


Two more weeks left, let's study harder so you won't regret!  :)

Learning is your own reward

Too often are we not sure about whether we are good enough or just average. 

Too often do we give up things easily.

Too often do we only look at things near us, and forget the big picture.

When I finished studying at HELP in 2009 and moved on the graduate school in Second Language Studies, there were many students who had to take ELI courses and were reluctant to be there. I chose to be there, for a very simple reason – there is always something I need to learn and will learn.

I truly appreciate everyone’s suggestions on the first two-week survey. The comments were high quality and useful. I only wish that I could have done it last Thursday so I could have made some changes for today. I am open to listened to everyone who has a voice, and am always trying to make this course as informational and useful as possible. 
On top of that, one of my goals is to train you to have a responsible learning attitude because you are a high proficient English users. You should be able to “think” critically in a logical and educated way.


So far, I think everyone is doing their best and I am very impressed by how much you could keep up with me. Thank you all for not giving up easily. :)

To answer one of your concerns about this course, I will use the space here rather than our class time.

The usefulness of the reading journal and concerns about the course

About 50% of the students in this course wondered about the effectiveness of this reading journal assignment, and I am not sure why because I did not get reasons from any of you. But some of you did mention that it takes too much time and you do not want to do it. I understand that as a student, assignments are not always the most fun thing to do, but I do need a reason from you to tell me why you think this is not helpful. There, you should be able to tell the differences between “complaints” and “productive suggestions”.

I understand that not everyone is going to be involved in academic society, but I wonder whether what we do in academia is entirely irrelevant to you.  


Actually, the reading journal assignment is to help you build up a habit to read in English on some advanced materials rather than always reading easy or fun texts.  It is for sure more fun to read a comic book, but I wish studying were that easy.


Your journals are very well written and the ideas from everyone are just fruitful. You won't believe how much other teachers are telling me how the quality of your journals is good and the comments are very interesting.

TOEFL is important for some people at this moment, and I completely understand it (trust me, I was once a victim). However, I found out that people who only have and are only concerned about having TOEFL test taking skills are more likely to suffer later on in higher education in the U.S. because they tend to delay the reality much later.  In the beginning of this term, I conducted a needs analysis. Most of you mentioned about becoming a better reader in English, reading faster, understanding reads better or something related to improve your reading skills. However, not one said, “I want to become a good test taker”. 

To go from there, I decided to help you become a more skillful reader rather than a test-taking expert.  And that is why the textbook content is going to be used later in this term.

I have taught TOEFL before, and I was not sure if that was the right thing to do to just teach test taking skills. I felt like a cram school teacher that way. So, this term I decided to help you become a better reader (since some of you took Jin’s reading course before and I know that it was really helpful and fun!) in academia first, and then practice test taking skills.

However, I need to listen to your voices. If teaching TOEFL test-taking skills is the most urgent and important thing to you at this moment, I will make some arrangement.

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts with me. It was helpful. :)

Adjustment on assignments in this class

Hi all, 


Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with me and making suggestions for this class. 


I know that not all of you stated your opinions in class on the reading journal and vocab journal. But it is the same everywhere in the world, if you do not express, your voice won't be heard. Express your ideas anyway possible so you are not giving up your rights.


Here's the change that we made in class today as a group: 


1. Reading blog (10% of your grades): 2 entries per week with 3 comments on 3 different people's blogs.


2.Vocab journal (10% of your grades): Change the format from 10 words per week separately from your reading journal to being included in your reading journals. For example,


On Nov. 7th you read the article from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/11/111103-daylight-savings-2011-time-savings-when-does-fall-back-nation/?source=hp_dl1_news_daylightsaving20111105


And you write your [summary] and [reaction/reflection] on your reading journal blog, then you list new words that you learn from the reading below your [summary] and [reaction/reflection].


Grading policy:Notice that vocabulary journal contains 10% of your grades. Each week when you post your journals, make sure you type in new words/phrases that you lean from the reading below your summary/reflection.


You still need to type the new word, part of speech, definition, synonym ,and an example sentence. 


3. The quality of your assignment. As we talked in class, if your summary or reflection does not go into depth, it is fairly hard for others to comment on. Now that you are not writing 3 entries per week, I am expecting you to have good quality on your reading journals. 150 words should be a reasonable requirement, or depends on the quality of your work. 


Think of this as a good opportunity to practice summarizing skill which a 400-level HELP student definitely should learn and be able to use. 


Questions? Let me know! 




(Please vote below)

The reading journal assignment

Hi everyone, 

Good job on making entries for this week! Most of you had three or more journals, which is very cool. 

I would like to remind you, if you had not posted anything by the deadline, which is 8 pm every Saturday, or you had only posted partially (fewer than 3 entries), you will lose 2 points each time until all the points for this assignment are gone. 

• BUT!!!! Since this is the first week, and I said it in class that we are going to try this first to see how it goes, for this week(week 2) only, you will not be taken out any points if you had done at least one or two journals.  

          For those who did not post anything at all, 1 point is taken from your grade for the reading journal. 

For those who did their journals and made comments on time, you will receive extra credit for 2 points on your reading journal.

• Also, for the vocab journal, if you do not send it to me on time by email, you will lose 2 points each time until the total 10 points are gone. 

But again, we will start this from next week (week 3), so who ever sent it to me on time will receive extra credits for 2 points on your vocab journal as well. 

Please notice that it is only because this is the first time/week that we have started doing this do I make exceptions for you.  Starting from next week you are expected to follow all the guidelines of the assignments for this class. 

Make sure you talk to me if you don't understand, otherwise no excuses will be accepted.  Let the communication go on between us! :)

Settings of your blog

Hi all,

Some of you are experiencing difficulty posting comments on others' blogs. Please double check your blog settings to make sure people can post on your blog, and make sure the comments show on your blog so I know they made comments.

Email me if you cannot make comments.

Later,
Cynthia

P.S. Please vote below on the topic of posting your reading journals on HELP blog. :)

Some rules about posting for this class

Hey all,
Just a quick reminder, as you post your reading journals for this class, please start your each title with "Week No. Reading Journal - (Optional topic) ".
                                                                   

For example, this week's journal will be "Week 2 Reading Journal - "Free to See: 10 U.S. Historic Sites"

Notice that you don't have to have a topic in the title, it is up to you. Simply type in "Week No. Reading Journal" is good enough.

Let me know if you are confused. :)

Now that you have your blog, what to do from here?

Hi class,

Thank you so much for your patience today (the computers in the lab are so slow...). I hope you all had fun creating or revisiting your blogs. 

I probably was not as clear as I thought, and I would like to explain a little bit more on what you should do with this assignment.

Basically, I would like you to write down your reflection and journal about what you read outside of class on your own.

Where to find readings...


The resources can be news, either online or traditional newspaper, magazine articles, books, recipes, professional journals, technical journals, novels or some famous authors' personal blog that you follow constantly. Be creative but make sure it helps people learn.

After you read...

What you have to do is to summarize what you read, where can we find the articles or the readings, and how you feel or what you think about the readings.
A lot of TOEFL readings are from National Geographic website, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/, so if you visit the site and read articles from there, you might find a lot of useful and interesting information.

Why are we doing this???


There are two purposes of doing this reading journal.

First, I would like to see how much self-study you do on your own outside of class. To read only the TOEFL textbook is not enough. You have expand your reading interests and area of learning by reading various topics.

Second, I would like to make this class resourceful. It is our class, so I would like everyone to contribute to it by sharing useful information and readings with each other. You might not read what other people write if you don't know them, but you are more likely to read what your friends write. (I hope...)

How much should you write...


Basically, I only require three entries per week. But you can definitely go beyond that if you browse the internet quite often and you'd like to share what you find interesting. Learning strategies, websites, news articles...etc., you can share just about anything that is useful and interesting.

Summarizing an reading/article is an advanced skill to have, and it shows your understanding of a text. Writing summaries for certain articles can also help people easily enter some difficult texts when they first encounter them. You are learning more this way than just passively reading whichever is in the textbook or just memorizing those vocabulary that you are never gonna use in your daily life.


Am I missing anything? Ask me questions here or in class!!!

Lastly, enjoy reading and writing! :)

Cheers,
Cynthia

Assignments deadlines

Aloha everyone,

Here are the deadlines for your reading journals and vocabulary sheet from week 2 to week 8:

1. Week 2, Saturday, November 5,  by 8 pm

2. Week 3, Saturday, November 12, by 8 pm

3. Week 4, Saturday, November 19, by 8 pm

4. Week 5, Saturday, November 26 (Thanksgiving week, NO Vocab sheet homework this week , but you still have to write your reading journal) , by 8 pm

5. Week 6, Saturday, December 3, by 8 pm

6. Week 7, Saturday, December 10, by 8 pm

7. Week 8, Saturday, December 17, by 8 pm

Please let me know if this is confusing to you and I will explain to you in person if you have questions.

Cheers,

Cynthia

TOEFL Reading assignment (Please read)

Aloha class, 

You won't believe how much time I have spent on setting up this blog. Technology is my weakness.:p

This is the reader's journal assignment for everyone in our class, and there is a reason why I am asking you to do this reading journal. 

A lot of times we read without writing down what we think about the readings, and usually we have something to say but we just don't take the initiative. I want to help you practice writing down what you think, and also reflect on what you read.  Another reason why I think, or I should say I "know" that this is going to be helpful is because I have done this in a writing class myself as a student, and it was really fun and interesting to write and to read my classmates' summary or reflection. 

So, here comes the project, and I really hope that you will enjoy doing this. 

All the members are expected to keep a reading journal by yourself every week on blogger.

• Read for 20 - 30 minutes each day.
• Read things that are interesting to you.
• Read on a variety of topics.
• Read books, magazines, newspapers, and web pages. 

Here's what you have to do for this class, and this assignment worth 10% of your grades: 

1. Post three summary or reflection of something you read outside class (it is recommended not to use the readings from your TOEFL textbook) every week by Saturday night  (You can post anytime during the week, but no later than Saturday night).  
2. I will check your post on Sunday to make sure you are writing.  The minimum number of words of each of your posts is 150 words. You can write more, but not less than 150 words. (We changed this to 100 words minimum, and let's try it for this week)
3. You are also expected to respond or make comments on at least two people's articles each week. I will check your comments every week Sunday to make sure you are posting comments.
4. Visit my blog for announcements or just to talk to me! :)
5. Enjoy reading! 

Notice that if you fail to post your reading journal (3 posts per week) on time (By Saturday night), or to comment on your friends' journals (two comments to different people), you will be taken out 3 points (out of 20 points) each time.

Comments or questions? Let me know. :) 

See you in class and I hope you all have a great semester! 

Cynthia

P.S. If you finish reading this article, please leave a comment so that I know you have visited and read this. :)