What Can You Teach Me?

Hello!

This week we have divided into groups in order to share our expertise with one another. One group will teach the rest of us how to play ping pong. That will come in handy when we take our field trip to the open air ping pong table in Kiwanis Park.

The second group will teach us how to fish. Weimiao and many other students in our class are very accomplished Detroit River anglers.

The third group will teach us how to knit. That group needs for me to post three short videos for them. Here they are.

Cast on:

The knit stitch:

Cast off:

Happy Holidays!

Thank you, students of the seniors' class, for a wonderful party.

You are too good to me.  I hope you know how precious each of you is to me.  We are like a family.

the spread

We shared food.

JunJian

We spoke from the heart.

Mr. Zhang

We listened to a poem. I think I know why Mr. Zhang chose that poem. It was poignant.

Mei, Xiumin, Hamdi, Kelly, Junjian

Hamdi taught us a dance step. Tareq drummed for us.

Mei, Xiumin

We heard a delightful story about an unlucky day turned lucky!

Weimiao

We solved riddles.
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Dr. Peng, Xiumin, Kelly, BaoHua, Shurong, Mei

The women took a group shot.
Enjoy your two-week break. We will see each other again in 2017, Inshallah!

Mind Mapping Air Travel

Hello, students!

This week we tried something new: mind maps. I was amazed when, after only watching this short introduction to mind maps, I woke up the next morning still able to see the two sample mind maps when I closed my eyes. I could therefore remember all the French phrases on that sample mind map--and I wasn't even trying to remember them!

I think three very important keys are: use colour and weird images (the weirder, the better), use curved lines, not straight ones; put only one word or language chunk (e.g., phrasal verb) on a branch. Keep the mind map flexible as you would a pattern drill. Do not load up a branch with an entire phrase or sentence. That defeats the purpose of the mind map.

Dina and Mike

On Fridays we read a short, interesting story connected to the week's topic. Today the higher level students talked about the story about Dina, the marathon runner who made an incredible recovery from a stroke. Lower level students talked about Mike, the politician in B.C. who fell into the ocean from his deck and injured his spinal cord. In pairs, higher and lower level students compared and contrasted the two cases.

Describing Sounds

Hello!

Today while we were waiting for the rest of the class to arrive, we did a quick review of the symbols we learned yesterday. I used the flashcards and quizzed you on the symbols for all the consonants. You gave me words for each.

Next I drew a picture of a cross-section of a head with an open mouth on the board. This is called a Sammy diagram. You can see more Sammy diagrams here. We learned the parts of the mouth: top lip, bottom lip, top teeth, alveolar ridge or tooth ridge, palate or roof of the mouth, hard palate, soft palate (also called velum), tip of the tongue, back of the tongue.

Then I put this on the board:

1) Where

2) How

3) Voicing

We can talk about the consonant sounds in three ways. We can talk about where we form them in the mouth. We can talk about whether we stop the air or let it flow. And we can talk about voicing. I asked you what are the two kinds of voicing. Those of you who have been in pronunciation class for a few weeks gave me the answer: voiced and voiceless.

We put our hands on our throats to determine the difference between voiced consonants and voiceless ones. Then Lina came up and helped me. She showed you each flashcard and I stood at the board with a marker. You had to tell me which column to put each sound into: voiced or voiceless.

Next I gave you a handout. On this handout was a graphic organizer just like mine on the board. I asked you to work with a partner and the list of symbols from yesterday. You had to put the symbols into the correct box. This took a while, but it was fun! I heard lots of debate and saw you all touching your throats. Wonderful!

Lina gave us the answers to the voiced consonants and Esterlin gave us the answers to the voiceless ones. Great job!

Then we had some questions to answer. For example: If you say the /f/ sound and then add voicing, what sound do you make? You are right. You have the /v/ sound!

If you say the /b/ sound and take away the voicing, what sound do you make? Yes, it's a /p/!

Which sounds are made by bringing both lips together? You all did a great job brainstorming together. Someone said /b/; someone else said /p/. And then someone said /m/.

Which sounds are made by touching the tip of the tongue to the alveolar ridge? I heard /t/ and /d/ and /n/ and /l/ and /tʃ/ and /dʒ/. I love it when you are all shouting out answers faster than I can write!

Which sounds are made by closing the velum against the back of the tongue? You said /k/ and /g/ and also /ŋ/. I didn't even think of that last one until you said it! You are becoming linguists.

This was a really fun class. I noticed that the level one students were busy filling in their boxes with the right symbols. I also saw some surprised expressions on the faces of the upper level students as you discovered that the only difference between /d/ and /t/, /g/ and /k/, /f/ and /v/ is the voicing! They are produced in the same manner and in the same place. Only the voicing is different.

Tomorrow is conversation day. See you then!