Recently, I carried out an activity in my class that I like to call the “compliment sandwich”. Here are the questions I asked:

Top Bun:

Something I like about the EAP 3 Writing Class
Lettuce:

General advice I would give to my EAP 3 Writing teacher
Patty:

Something specific I wish were different about EAP 3 Writing
Onions:

How I would make my wish come true
Bottom Bun:

Something else I really like about the EAP 3 Writing Class

While the students had some very valid comments on class size, table shapes, teacher personalities and the time table, I thought I would focus in this blog on the specific comments the students made that related to the EAP 3 Academic Writing and Grammar curriculum. I also thought I would leave out summarizing the compliment part (the bun) of the sandwich. However, I would like to say thank you to all the students who took the time to give me some compliments and brighten my day! It was good to know that some of you like my shoes. Anyway, what you will find below is a synopsis of the important points the students made from both classes of EAP 3 (lectures 1 and 2)

The students provided some interesting feedback for the writing and grammar class. First of all, students are looking for more flexibility choosing their own topics for the writing assignments. This could mean, choosing their own topics for the term papers, or finding new topics that could be added to the topics in the textbook. Some of the students felt that some of the topics were boring and that because the topics were boring, this sometimes made the class boring as well.

Students are also looking for more feedback on their writing assignments so that they can fix their mistakes and perfect a piece of writing before they move onto the next assignment. Thus, the students would like grammar errors not only pointed out in their essays, but also identified so that the students know exactly what their weaknesses are. The students felt that more specific comments on their papers would contribute to greater learning.

Additionally, the students would like to find a balance between writing and grammar instruction (some want more grammar, and some want less). However, basically the students are specifically looking for instruction that will lead to direct improvements in their writing. One example that was mentioned was that students would like to learn more about writing effective introductions and conclusions. While studying skills such as effective introductions and conclusions, the students would like to see a large number of clear examples they can learn from and use as models for their own writing. They would also like to see samples of essays from past semesters that earned top grades, and samples of essays from past semesters that failed. They could then compare their own writing to those essays and identify the gaps between what they are doing and where they need to be.

Along with finding a balance between writing and grammar, the students would like to spend more time writing in class, as opposed to doing the writing assignments strictly for homework. By writing in class, the grammar the students study can then be immediately applied to their writing. In other words, the students would like to see the grammar topics covered in class feed directly into the grammar they need for their writing assignments, and they want the chance to practice it in class. By covering specific writing skills and having grammar instruction to support those skills, the students feel they would be better prepared to analyse their own essays for mistakes. Students would also like more instruction on how to find the errors in their essays and learn how to fix these errors themselves. This means, the grammar curriculum needs to be flexible enough to react to the grammar issues that are arising in class. In other words the problems identified through the writing assignments would be addressed by the grammar instruction.

A final theme that came up more than once in the compliment sandwiches was the time the teachers have for students outside of the regularly scheduled class time. The students have a strong desire for more individual instruction, more time for questions, more personal advice for each student, and for more help after class. This could mean having more office hours, or simply making the teachers more accessible after class. Students indicated that they wanted help specifically from their writing instructors, and didn’t want the writing centre to replace being able to see their own teachers.

Phew, I think this is one of the longest blogs I have ever written! However, I really got a lot of interesting feedback from the students, and now I am trying to think of what I can do to enrich the learning experiences of each and every student enrolled in EAP 3. What I would like now is some more positive advice on how we could address the issues raised in the above blog so that we can put into practice some of the things the students would like to see changed in the EAP 3 curriculum. Feel free to make comments!

P.S. I still love the writing centre!

I forgot!!

I forgot . . .

I was also an usher for Cineplex Odeon Theatres in 1992. That was a great part time job. I got to see all the movies I wanted to see for free. I could also get free passes to movies for my friends. On the other hand, the uniforms we had to wear were humiliating (burgundy polyester blazers), and once I really embarrassed myself. All the new ushers were told that during the course of each movie, they had to do a "screen test" which involved going up to the big screen at the front of the theatre right in the middle of the movie, and putting your hand on the bottom right hand corner of the screen and feeling it to make sure it didn't get too hot. Needless to say, I only did this once. The audience yelled at me, and the screen itself was totally cool. Gosh, I was stupid!!

Happy Reading Week

It's reading week, and all of my students are working hard on their term papers that are due next Monday. I can't wait to read them. I have just finished marking the mid-terms, but I will save comment for a later blog . . . . . . nothing to worry about though!

As for me, I am now officially 38 years old. It was my birthday last Sunday. I can't believe that I am already 38. Since I started teaching full time, I have had 8 birthdays. Amazing. Even more amazing is that I have had the same job for such a long time. Before I became a teacher, I used to change my jobs quite regulary. In order, going backwards from teaching, here are a few of the jobs that I have had before the year 2000:

Flea market vendor (on and off from 1992 - 2000)
On-line antiques dealer
Pub manager
Bartender
Waiter
Magazine editor / graphic designer
Barnwood furniture carpenter and marketer
Purchaser for a large oil and gas company
Owner of a souvenir / food shop in Eau Claire Market & Chinook Mall
Assistant for a British important shop and company
Real Estate agent for Royal LePage
Customer Service / Marketing Agent for a tablecloth and linens company
Salesman for Futureshop
Computer assembly technition for an electronics company
Snack shop manager
Activities monitor for the ESL program at the University of Calgary
Bookshop clerk for WHSmith / Classic bookshop
French tutor
Cook for Dairy Queen
Waiter in a Chinese restaurant

I wonder if I missed anything out there . . . gosh that's a lot of jobs. Basically, that lists what I did roughly from 1988 - 2000. As you can see, not many of those jobs lasted more than a year. Now, what is my point for all of this . . . I guess my point is that it took me a while to "find myself", but once I had found myself I stuck with it. Now look at me . . . I love my job, and I'm pretty happy. Or at least I will be happy until I read all of the term papers . . . . just kidding!!

ALTHOUGH versus BUT

Today in class, we have some good grammar questions! Sam asked me a question about “although” and “but” and it really demonstrated to me how hard it is to explain English grammar sometimes. I mean, because I am a native speaker, I can feel what is correct and what is incorrect. However, to articulate why something is correct and why something is sometimes incorrect can be very difficult. Because of that, I often want to say to my students “trust me – I can feel that this is correct” or “just memorize the difference”, but I know that can be very frustrating for my students! Anyway, I have spent a few minutes thinking about what Sam asked me in class, and this is what I came up with.

The adverbial “although” means the same thing as “despite the fact that”. We use “although” at the beginning of a clause which contains information that contrasts in an unexpected or surprising way with information in another clause. For example:

Although it was raining, we went for a walk.

If it is raining, it is surprising that we went for a walk. The walk happened despite the rain. You can also feel that first it was raining, then we went for the walk. We cannot say this:

Although we went for a walk, it was raining.

If we went for a walk, it wasn’t surprising that it was raining. We probably already knew it was raining. The rain did not happen because of the walk. The rain was not an unexpected result of the walk.

Now let’s try but:

It was raining, but we went for a walk.

The coordinating conjunction “but” emphasizes the joining of two contrasting ideas. In the above sentence, you can feel that the two ideas contrast with each other. As a result, you can flip the sentence around.

We went for a walk, but it was raining.

You can add “but” to either of the clauses, but you can’t add “although” to either of the clauses. The coordinating conjunction “but” joins together two equally contrasting ideas. The adverbial “although” does not join together two equal ideas – one of the ideas is an unexpected result of the other clause.

Phew . . . that was hard! I hope that clears up the difference between “although” and “but”. If anyone understood my grammatical explanation, I’d really love some feedback!

Thanks for the great questions in class!

Textbook Trauma

Well, here it is, only February, and I’m already thinking about what textbooks to use in September. The worst part about picking out textbooks is trying to figure out the exact level of textbooks to match the level of the students in EAP 3. If the textbooks are too easy, they won’t prepare the students for university. However, if the textbooks are too hard, then the students won’t learn anything because they will be struggling too much with the material. There’s that, but then there’s also the fact that there seem like millions of different textbooks available. Some are good at one thing, but others are good at other things. The problem is that none of the textbooks seem to be good at everything.

I guess my dream textbooks would be textbooks that covered everything that we need to cover in class, had lots of Canadian content, and weren’t too expensive for the students. Having just those three criteria, however, still doesn’t help me because I don’t think there are any textbooks that fulfill all three of those requirements. s i g h . . . what to do . . . .

Anyway, this is turning out to be a really boring post all about textbooks. I wonder what my students think of as the ideal textbooks . . .

cold cold cold cold cold cold

Holy cow, it is cold outside. I guess there are hundreds of blogs across the Canadian prairies all saying the exact same thing right now, but boy is it cold! Whenever we have cold weather like this, I always freak out about my students, because I'm worried they won't dress warmly enough for the weather. I'll never forget the one time when one of my students got frost bite on his cheeks and nose. Both of his cheeks turned black along with the tip of his nose. It was really terrible to look at and very painful for the student. In the end, the tip of his nose fell off and now he has a frost bite scar on end of his nose. What's the moral of this story? Cover your nose with your scarf!

Anyway, that's enough about the cold . . . . let's talk about title pages instead. I was a bit dissapointed yesterday. Yesterday, both classes of EAP 3 had good copies of their essays on language learning due. In Ilana's class, all of the students except for one had an APA syle cover page, and they all counted how many words they wrote. You could translate that into the statistic that 95% of Ilana's students followed the proper format for a good copy in EAP 3. In my class, only 7 of my students had an APA style cover page and counted the words. That means only 32% of my students followed the proper format for a good copy in EAP 3.

Ilana 95%
Me 32%

What does this mean? Anyway, I'm handing back the incorrectly formated papers to my students today so that they can do a cover page and count the number of words they wrote. I have to admit I'm a little dissapointed because this year I wrote out an entire sample essay for them to follow. Or is it that I am too lax with my students, or I don't explain myself well enough? I know it seems a bit neurotic to harp on about something like a title page, but if students do follow the conventions set down by the instructor, it reduces their credibility in the eyes of that instructor. Oh well, I have decided not to freak out this time . . . but if it happens for the term paper . . . . . .

I LOVE the Writing Centre

I know, I know . . . perhaps most of my readers aren't quite as convinced as I am as to the wonders of the Effective Writing Centre here on campus, but it seems so cool that there is a place where students can get FREE help with their writing. Personally, I would charge between $150 - $200 an hour for private tutoring. Why spend all that money on a private tutor, when there is somewhere to go on campus? Also, I just found out that there are FREE drop in tutoral sessions available in the library. Here are the details:

Free Drop-in Writing Consultations
Starting February 1, 2008 Drop-in Writing Consultations are available in MLB 205 (located in the Information Commons in MacKimmie Library) at the following times:
Mondays 6:00 - 9:00 pmTuesdays 12:30 - 3:30 pmWednesdays 5:30 - 8:30 pmThursdays 6:00 - 9:00 pm
Appointments are not necessary for the drop-in sessions and may be limited to 15 minutes depending on demand. Sign up is at the IC Service Desk.

I copied all that directly from the website: http://www.efwr.ucalgary.ca/efwr/writingcentre

Anyway, I hope all my students take advantage of the writing centre and use it as much as possible. I bet my students don't know this little fact about me. When I first went to university, my writing was terrible. I actually went to the writing centre a few times, and they quickly showed me how to punctuate correctly and how to format an essay in an academic manner. So you can imagine, if I went to the writing centre when I was an undergraduate student, there is absolutely no shame in going there.

Well, I think I have pestered my students with information about the writing centre enough for today :-)

Another Semester Has Started

Here we are - it is now Winter 2008 already, and we have started a new semester here in the EAP program at the University of Calgary. I wanted to list some of the blogs from the last few semesters here in this post. I hope people check them out from time to time and see what former students of our program are up to. I'm sure that some of them are going to keep blogging. It really makes me proud to think that some people really embrace this format and keep blogging for years after they first started. In fact, for me, I have been blogging for almost four years. That's a lot of words!


Fall 2007 EAP 3
Ghazal
Matheus
Ahmed
John
Lisa
Haruna
Noor
Hadeel
Chinedu
Zahra
Eric
Lisbeth
Gennady
Charles
Julia
Mark
Allen
Inna
Bill
Ella
Wei
Maja
Joy
Tina
Megan
Theresa

Past Blogs
Hussain
Mohammad
Gerard
Loreta
Betsy
Estella
Yulia
Nikolay
Carlos
Amy
Nick
Leslie
Alif

Past Blogs
Becky
Sang Min
June
Kevin
Ted
Rayna
Edward
Sabrina
Kenneth
Serenity
Yichen
Steven

14 Minutes Left!

Holy cow . . . there are only 14 minutes left in the EAP 3 writing final exam. I'm trying to type as softly as possible so I don't disturb the people who are still in the exam. I can't believe the course is over. It's been a good 13 weeks. I actually feel like everybody's writing has improved, and that makes me feel good inside :-) I can't wait to put nice checkmarks beside all of the perfect thesis statements, topic sentences and concluding statements!

Anyway, now comes the big job for me . . . I have to mark everyone's final writing exams, calculate the course grades and then submit them to the registrar's office. I think I'll be drinking a lot of coffee this weekend. Usually the way I tackle the final exams is first I just mark them for grammar - making note of all the grammar, punctuation and word use problems. Then I read the exams again for content and organization. That way, I read each exam twice before I come up with a final mark. I hope people chose a lot of different topics. That makes it more interesting for me while I'm marking. The worst thing in the world is marking 25 essays all on the same topic. For example, if everyone writes about solar energy, I might just go crazy!

Well, I hope all my students stay in touch with me through the blogs. It's been a great semester. Good luck everyone!

The Pain Has Gone :-)

Phew . . . the pain from my root canal has finally gone. Today I celebrated by going to a Japanese restaurant for hot soba noodles and curry rice. It was so good. I went to a restaurant called Shikiji (http://www.shikiji.ca/). It is totally one of my favourite restaurants. It always reminds me of when I used to live in Japan. The lunch special that I had cost $12.85, but it is a huge amount of food. I'm always really stuffed afterwards. I guess I am not very classy because I judge how good a restaurant is by how full I feel afterwards, but still I think it is a good deal for the price. Anyway, for those of you that don't know, soba noodles are made from buckwheat. They are delicious and nutrititious :-)

Hmm, this blog isn't very serious today. I guess I am delirious because of the lack of pain. I better go back to planning the final exam . . . .

Abscessed Tooth!

Holy cow, have I been in pain that last few days. I wonder if anyone noticed at the Glenbow Museum how much pain I was in. It was totally killing me, both physically and mentally because I had been looking so forward to going to the museum, but then I couldn't enjoy it as much I would have liked to because I was concentrating so much on not showing any pain. You see, I have an abscessed tooth. Oh the agony. About 3 years ago, one of my teeth cracked, but I never got anything done about it because I didn't have any dental insurance. When I finally got dental insurance at the University of Calgary, I went to the dentist and they cleaned out all the rotten stuff and capped my broken tooth. However, I guess they didn't notice that the damage was much deeper than it seemed because I guess for the last year, my tooth has been slowing rotting from the inside out. Finally, last week my lower left jaw was killing me, and my face was getting swollen. I was worried that I had the mumps, so I decided to wait a few days and see what happened. By Wednesday, I was in agony, and it seemed like a toothache gone crazy, so I decided to see a dentist. The dentist took an x-ray of my tooth, and told me I had an abscessed tooth. Now, I'm on antibiotics because my entire lower left jaw was infected, and I have to go for a root canal operation on Wednesday afternoon. So, I'm taking huge amounts of ibuprofen, and tylenol with codeine trying to kill the pain while I wait for the infection to go away. Actually, the pain seems worse now than it did on Friday, and all the pills are making me nauseous. Anyway, if you are wondering why I'm kind of weird in class . . . blame it on the abscessed tooth!

It’s official . . . there are basically three weeks left until final exams. I can’t believe it. It seems like this semester has just flown by. I think it has been getting more and more interesting as well. I was really excited to be able to do the story “The Man who Planted Trees” with the students. One of the benefits of this semester, is the students are able to handle challenging materials that push them to their limits – like the story about the man who planted trees. With all of the challenging things we have been doing, I actually think the students are gaining new vocabulary and fluency this semester, which are two of my main goals. I think we still have a ways to go with grammatical accuracy, but I figure that as long as they are able to understand the world around them, and as long as they are able to make themselves comprehensible to the people around them, they are on the right track to success at university. I guess that is the two fold mission of the EAP program – facilitate the students understanding of the world and their ability to make the world understand them. In any case, I feel this is one of the most successful semesters so far.

Another exciting thing we have been able to do this semester is see the movie “An Inconvenient Truth”. The best part about this is that no one fell asleep during the movie! Teachers are often hesitant to show videos during class time . . . especially longer movies. Usually I follow the “20 Minute Rule” which is that teachers should never do more than 20 minutes of anything because they students will start to drift off and become bored . . . or worse . . . unruly! However, I only had two days to show “An Inconvenient Truth”, so I had to divide the movie up into two one hour segments. That’s almost triple my 20 minute rule for each day. The great thing was though that Al Gore was such a compelling speaker, and the students were so interested in the topic, that no one drifted off. Now the fun part begins on Monday when we decide if we believe Al Gore or not . . .

Assignment Schedule has Changed!

I hope everyone got the memo today about changing the due dates for all the assignments. I'm going to paste it in here so that everyone can see it again.

Changes in due dates:

Essay #4: Thursday November 8, 2007
Essay #5: Friday November 23, 2007
Essay #6: Cancelled
Annotated Bibliography #2: Friday November 9, 2007
Annotated Bibliography #3: Cancelled
Book Report #3: Monday November 26, 2007

Remember – no classes Monday or Tuesday November 12 – 13, 2007

Combined Listening & Speaking Classes

All classes will meet together for the first hour after the grammar and writing class

2:30 – 3:30 Thursday November 15, 2007
2:00 – 3:00 Friday November 16, 2007
2:00 – 3:00 Friday November 23, 2007

I hope that all makes sense. It was hard for me to decide on doing this, but I think it is for the best. It seems like a lot of my students are suffering from "homework" shock, and may be it's time to ease back a bit on the official homework. My only worry is that the students will stop studying all together or that all studying will sink down to the lowest common denominator. One of the reasons we instituted the assignments as we did was so that the students would be using as much academic English as possible outside of the class. The goal was to push their learning to the next level. In the past, I used to give lots of suggestions for studying, but I found that if there wasn't a mark attached to an assignment, often the assignment wasn't done. However, the minute a mark was attached to an assignment, most of the class would at least make an effort at doing it. Thus, it becomes a fine balance between grading homework and encouraging students to do things on their own. Ideally, I would have a system where no grades were given, rather I would tell people if their work was poor, developing, satisfactory or outstanding. One of the drawbacks of grading things such as the essays is that if one person gets 85% on an essay, and another person gets 88% on an essay - does that mean that the person with the higher score is 2% better at English than the person with the lower score? I don't think so. I think we are trying to cut things too finely when we are using percentages. Rather, we should have broad bands.

Anyway, this is what is going through my mind at the moment. One thing that has driven all of these thoughts is the fact that I have such a large class this semester. Now I know why my French Professors in my undergraduate studies only assigned one essay per semester!

A Tell Tale Heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4s9V8aQu4c

Yahoo, the mid-terms are marked - and there were no major disasters! Phew! I noticed that the students really get quite worked up at mid-terms time. People start to worry a lot, and they get nervous and stressed out. I feel kind of bad putting my students through this. The funny thing is that when I was a student, I never felt nervous during exams. I guess I just kind of accepted them. In the EAP program, when I first started noticing how worked up students get over the exams I started trying to think of ways to lower the stress. The way I thought I could do that was by being as explicit as possible about what is required for the exams. I really wanted the students to feel that there was a method to the mid-terms and they way that the exams are marked, rather than feeling like they (the students) are being buffeted about by forces beyond their control. What I mean is, too often, it seems like the students felt that the process of being evaluated on the mid-terms is random and arbitrary, when actually, we try to reduce the abitrary nature of the grading as much as possible through rubrics and collaboration between the teachers. At least, that is how it is supposed to work in theory. Anyway, the mid-terms are over now, and there is only half a semester left. I guess mid-terms are going to be stressful no matter what we do. I guess part of the problem is the nature of EAP itself. When I was teaching ESL, there were really no consequences. If the students weren't able to write an essay in English, it never really was a big deal, as long as we had lots of fun during the process of learning how to write an essay. But now, here in the EAP program, the consequences are really high. I mean, if the students don't pass, they don't get to go on into their faculties for regular studies. Also, there is the added bonus of being able to skip the effective writing exam if the students get a B+ in the writing course. Anyway, all this adds up to major consequences that you don't normally have in a regular ESL course. S I G H. I miss taking students to the zoo and having homework which involved deciding which animal was the cutest one at the zoo and drawing posters depicting just how cute it is. Now, it's all about transitions and adverbials . . .

However, one day all my students will be engineers, scientists, doctors, and teachers. I guess that's more important than picking out cute animals at the zoo . . .

The 2007 Alberta Teachers of English as a Second Language Conference is over! Wow, I never knew volunteer work could be so much like . . . well, work! You see, I was the Publishers’ and Exhibitors’ Committee Co-Chair, which basically means that I was in charge of getting the publishers to the conference, helping them while they were at the conference, and then sending them away happy at the end. That meant that I had to be at the conference at 6 am on the Friday of the conference to help the publishers set up, and I didn’t leave the conference until 7 pm that night. That was a 13 hour day. I was totally exhausted by the time I got home. On top of that, I also ran a workshop on blogging on the Saturday of the conference. It’s hard to believe that I have been blogging for almost 4 years already. I first started blogging with my students in April 2004, and I haven’t stopped since then . . . I think I have also done about 10 presentations and workshops on blogging since I started as well.

Anyway, the conference was actually kind of fun because it was great catching up with teachers from all around the province. The only problem was that the timing of the conference wasn’t so great. It fell this year right in the middle of mid-terms for the EAP program at the University of Calgary. This meant that I had to abandon my students on Friday so that I could be at the conference. I hope they did okay. I’ll be seeing their exams on Monday . . . fingers crossed.

Actually, I’m really glad that it’s mid-term time. This is a great time for us all to take a moment and reflect on how the courses have been going so far, and there is still time to make a change in direction if necessary. I think I’m going to focus on getting some feedback from the students after mid-terms about what we can do to maximize their language learning in the last six weeks of the program. In fact, if any students have any great ideas, don’t be shy to comment on this blog!

As for the teachers who came to my workshop last Saturday, thanks very much for coming. It was a pleasure sharing my experience and blogs with you! Please keep in touch!

Ogopogo

Ogopogo is the name of the moster that lives in Lake Okanagan beside Kelowna. But don't worry . . . I didn't see him (or her) while I was in Kelowna. I guess I spent too much time at the college. I got to visit Okanagan College on Friday to talk about ESL programs, and how our EAP program at the University of Calgary compares to their ESL program at Okanagan College. It was really interesting to visit another institution and talk about what is going well for us, as well as some of the pitfalls. Right now, Okanagan College is evaluating their ESL program, and they asked my PhD supervisor to go to their college and chat about what they are doing. I was lucky enough to get invited along by my supervisor so that I could sit in on the meetings.

The part that was the most interesting for me was the discussion about the validity of ESL programs, and how to establish that validity. By validity, I mean, are we really doing what we are saying we are doing. In my case, that means, is the EAP program at the University of Calgary really preparing students for undergraduate studies and raising students English to a level high enough so that their relative problems with English won't be the cause of failure in University. Does success in the EAP program mean that students are likely to be successful at University?

I guess if we want to know that, first of all we need to know that what we are teaching and what we are testing are the same things, and that they are all relevant to the academic English language proficiency needed for undergraduate studies. Are the appropriate language, concepts and strategies being covered in the EAP program? The curriculum would need to be checked against the final exams.

Next, it would be good to check what we are doing with another accepted method of assessing language ability. That would mean carrying out a study in which students who graduate from the EAP program take another accepted test and we compare those marks to our marks. That could mean seeing if students who pass the EAP program also pass a TOEFL test, or the like.

After that, it would be nice to know what is happening to our students once they get to university. We could do that by checking on their GPA's one year, three years, and upon graduation and comparing those scores to their exit scores from the EAP program.

If we did all that, I think we could be fairly confident is saying that yes, the EAP program is preparing students well for university (that is if all the results are positive).

Anyway, those are the kind of things we were talking about in Kelowna. Fun stuff!

Blogging!!!

I'm so proud of my students. Everyone is blogging really hard right now. Phew. I think we had kind of a shakey start this semester. However, I hope from now on that everyone is going to blog a lot. I guess the reason we had a shakey start this semester is that I totally left it up to the students to start their blogs. I guess I'm trying to test their "independent" learning skills. Actually, most of the students were able to do it no problem . . . but with others it took a little prompting :-)

Anyway, now everyone is blogging!

Hmmmmm . . . I wonder if anyone wants to come to my office hours today. You see, somebody threw a rock through my back window at my house. Can you believe it? I didn't even wake up when it happened. It happened last Saturday night, and when I woke up on Sunday morning, there was glass all over my back room. I couldn't believe it. It is a pretty big window too - about 4 feet by 4 feet so it is going to cost me around $500 to get it fixed. I'm so annoyed because it is not like I am a rich person living in a rich person's house. Not that I'm advocating throwing rocks through the windows of rich people, but at least they could afford to get their windows fixed. Ah well, I guess I'll have to eat less Swiss Chalet take out chicken this week. I even called the police, but there was nothing they could do to help me because they said it is basically impossible to catch the people who through the rock through my window. They did ask if I had any enemies . . . I wonder which student might be mad at me!

Ignore the Last Blog!

Okay . . . so my office hours have changed already. Here are my new and offical office hours:

Tuesdays 2:30 - 3:30
Thursdays 3:30 - 4:30

I promise I won't be changing them any more!

Last Friday I gave all of the students the day off because I had to go to the memorial service (funeral) for my grandmother. Gosh, I think I would have rather have taught. It was a really hard day. I was pretty okay until I got to the church and I had to sign the card that went with the flowers I bought for my Nana's (that's what I called my Grandmother) service. I started to write "Dear Nana . . . " and then I just lost it and started crying. It was also hard when my Dad delivered the eulogy. He talked to each person at the funeral individually during his eulogy, and pretty much got all of us crying a lot. My aunt especially was weeping the whole time. She tried to read a poem by William Wordsworth, but she couldn't go on and my Mum had to get up and help her to read the poem. They had asked me to read a Psalm during the service, but I declined. I just felt that I couldn't. It all felt a little bit weird for me anyway, because my Grandmother had requested an Anglican (a form of protestant christianity from English) service for her funeral, and there was a lot of talking about Jesus, etc. It was also weird because this was the first funeral I had ever been to. Isn't it amazing that I made it to the age of 37 without having ever gone to a funeral. When I was a kid, my parents didn't let me go to my grandfather's or uncle's funerals because they felt I was too young. Anyway, the last part of the service consisted of a piper playing "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes. The bagpipes always send a shiver through me. I guess they are touching something deep and ancestral in my soul as if thousands of years of history suddenly are welling up inside of me. However, for me, the hardest part of the funeral for me was after the church. After the church, we went to the cemetary, and suddenly my Dad gave me my Nana's ashes to hold. It freaked me out a little to be standing there with a small box containing the ashes of my grandmother. By this time, the weather had turned cold and cloudy and it was lightly raining. It was exactly like a funeral in the movies, with people dressed in black, huddled around a hole in the ground in the rain. I also had to put the ashes into the hole in the ground, and I had to get down on my knees to put it in. I got dirt all over the knees of my black suit, but I didn't care, I just wanted to put the box into the grave. Then the minister threw some dirt on the box and said a prayer. Finally, we put roses on the gravestone while a piper played a lament on the bagpipes. Once again, it was eerie hearing the bagpipes playing in the cold wind while we all stood there around the grave.

Anyway, after the funeral we went back to the church and there was a tea with little sandwhiches with the crusts cut off. It was all very English (My Nana was from English, as are my parents). I ended up sitting beside my high school physics teacher from grades 10 and 11, trying to make polite conversation, when all I really wanted to do was go home. It was strange being surrounded by so many people that I hadn't seen for so many years. After the tea, we all went back to my parents house where my Dad opened up a bottle of expensive Scotch. You see, my Nana used to like to have a Scotch now and then, we we were drinking it in memory of her. In fact, I remember being a little kid and mixing my Nana a Scotch and water. Anyway, it was 16 year old Scotch and supposedly very expensive, but I couldn't finish mine. It tasted like burnt wood and it made my lips numb. I guess it was wasted on me.

After that, we went out for dinner, just the family. There were 10 of us, and we went out for Chinese food. My Nana always liked Chinese food, so we went to a local restaurant in Olds. After that, I went home. It was a very strange day.

Spread the Word!

Hello Everyone! I have office hours!

Scott’s Office Hours

Wednesdays 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Thursday 2:30 – 3:30 pm

Please make an appointment if you want to see me.

The EAP Barbecue!

Here's a picture of me playing my guitar at the EAP barbecue just before the microphone broke and I couldn't play anymore. Hmmm, I wonder if someone broke the microphone on purpose . . .

Just about two weeks have gone by since the barbecue, and now we are entering the second week of classes. I'm really looking forward to this semester. I think I have a really good bunch of students in my class, and they all have a huge amount of potential. I'm sure that we are going to see a lot of language growth. The thing that excites me most about this semester, is that everyone seems really eager to learn. Some years I have been quite challenged by apathetic students who didn't really want to be in the EAP program, and couldn't care less about learning English, but this year, I think everyone is really motivated to learn. We did an activity in class where everyone had to write down their motiviations for learning English, and it seemed like the students were, in fact, actually motivated.

Here's to hoping this is the best semester ever!!

Taking a Semester Off :-)

It's the second day of the new semester, and I'm not teaching :-) Wow, in a way it feels kind of weird not being in the classroom this semester, but in another way it's really excellent because I can finally focus on all of my PhD stuff. I have already done a whole bunch of errands that I have been putting off for months in just one morning. Now, I'm just planning out how to make use of my time to the fullest over the next four months so that I can get as much done as possible for my PhD while I have time. The problem is that I know it is going to be so tempting to sit in the back yard and relax.

Anyway, I just wanted to let people know that I won't be posting as regularly as usual in this blog. If I start up a new blog, I'll let you all know.

Have a great spring and summer!

Final Exam Week

Final exams have started at the University of Calgary. There are a few things that can tell you this. The first thing I noticed this morning was that the parking lot (the cheap one on the edge of campus by Scurfield Hall) was full, even though it was only 8 o'clock in the morning. Secondly, when I went to get my omelet and cheese bagel in the social sciences building, there were students everywhere studying. There were also quite a few students sleeping on the benches. I think some of them must have been there all night. I even bumped into some of my own students when I came back to the Education Tower, but I think I freaked them out because I told them that it was too late to learn anything for the exam. They just looked at me in horror and fear. Ooops, I guess there is no such thing as a sense of humour before final exams :-)

I think part of the fun of going to university are midterms and finals. They really help you bond with your classmates, and it gives you a real sense of being a student. I remember hanging out with my friends, madly trying to study. I even remember we would look for places to study all night on campus, and then at about 5 am we would go to Denny's for "Moons Over My Hammy" and fourteen cups of coffee so that we would be ready for our 8:00 am exams. Although it may have seemed like hell at the time, whenever I bump into friends from university we always look back sort of nostalgically to the days when we were students. Now, when I talk to my friends it seems like life for a lot of them is only about mortgages and stressful jobs that are crushing their souls (myself excepted . . . my soul hasn't been crushed, yet!)

Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say to my students is ENJOY exam week. Study with your friends and eat pizza every night while drinking a six pack of pepsi cola. When you look back at all of this, it will be with fondness :-)

The Case of the Disappearing Scott . . .

Hello all . . . it's almost exam week! Eeep! I know that some of the students are freaking out, but I hope they are able to relax a bit before the exams. There is an optimum level of freaking out . . . you need to freak out just enough to drive you to study for the exams, but you don't want to freak out so much that you make yourself sick, and you can't perform at your best during exam time. There is a fine line between enough and too much!

I wonder if any of my students have ever taken a moment to think about where these exams actually come from. What I do in LEAP 4 is I take a survey of all of the reading we have done in the text book. I look at how long they are and how difficult they are. In order to do that, I use the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid_Readability_Test). That gives me a rough idea of what grade level a test is at. Once I have had a look at the type of readings the students have been doing, I then survey the tasks that they have been doing with those readings. After that, I match those readings and tasks to the Canadian Language Benchmarks (www.language.ca, I'm looking at CLB 8 and 9) and the course objectives for LEAP 4. Now I know what I am looking for and what I need to be testing. Next comes the hard part. I have to find a text. Now I do an exhaustive search looking for readings that are of the appropriate length, difficulty and topic. I also try to look for something Canadian. Once I find some articles, I share them with my fellow teachers to get their imput. After we decide which article to go with, I then begin to develop the test. In order to do that, first I re-write some of the sections / sentences of the article in order to make them more accessible. I then look at the vocabulary and choose academic words that the students should be able to guess from context. Then I pick and choose tasks from the textbooks and apply them to the reading in the text. As you can see, there should be no surprises on the final exam. The tasks all mirror tasks the students will have done in class (or at least, should have done - but they are in the textbook, so it is the responsibility of the student to study the textbook and be familiar with all of the tasks). Now I create the exam. Once that is done, I pass on an answer key and a good copy to the other teachers for their input. They come up with their feedback, and I adjust the final exam as necessary. This entire process takes about 6 - 10 hours. Crazy stuff, eh? And it's not over yet, once the students have finished the exam, I then have to check it over again and see if it worked, but that is a story for another blog . . . . . .

Study hard :-)

More Pictures of Seattle

Pictures of the Poster Presentation

Random Pictures from Seattle TESOL 2007

Seattle is Amazing!

I am having such a great time at the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Conference, that I don't even know where to start! Today was day two of the conference, and it was the day of my poster presentation. I couldn't believe how many people came to see my poster. I ran out of handouts in three minutes, and I brought 100 of them! I felt really bad for everyone who wanted one of my handouts, so I have posted the handout on line. It can be found here:

https://webdisk.ucalgary.ca/~sdouglas/public_html/index.html

One good thing about not having enough handouts is that I have finally worked out how to use my webspace at the University of Calgary to make a webpage. It's funny, because so many people think that I am some sort of internet expert, but actually, all I do is just muddle along one step at a time. I think that should be the title of my presentation for next year's conference, how to muddle your way through the net.

Anyway, I really enjoyed having the chance to meet and talk with so many people. It was fascinating to hear what people are doing with their blogs all around the globe. I hope many of the people that I spoke to today will have a chance to drop me a line and let me know how they are doing with their blogs. Over the next few days I'm hope to post more and more information to my U of C website so that people can access more information about blogs and how to use them in their classrooms . . . exciting stuff!

English Only ESL Classes - Great Rule, Necessary Evil, or Oppression?

I wonder why I am so crazy about English only in the classroom. I am sure that is comes from a number of sources ranging from the way I was taught French as a kid and as a young adult, and from the different ideas I was exposed to while I was in graduate school studying Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL).

You see, when I was a kid studying French, English was FORBIDDEN in the classroom. In fact, if we spoke English, our teacher would have a fit and we risked being sent into the hallway or even the Principal's office. This way of teaching didn't stop as I got older either. When I was 17 years old my parent's sent me away for the summer to Trois Rivieres - a city halfway between Quebec City and Montreal. I guess you could call it the Red Deer of Quebec. Anyway, while I was there I went to CEGEP to study French - it is like a college. Can you picture me? I little 17 year old guy all by himself for the first time? It kind of reminds me of some of my students who are studying here in the LEAP program right now. Anyway, not only was English forbidden in the classroom, it was forbidden EVERYWHERE! That's right, I could drink beer (illegally), smoke cigarettes and ignore doing my homework, but if I ever spoke English anywhere in the city at all and I was caught, there were huge consequences. And I mean huge! You see, the CEGEP had not only teachers, but also monitors who hung out with us after class. On top of that, many of the local people in the city knew that Anglophones came to study French every summer and they kept an eye on us to. If we were caught speaking English at any time, we would get a warning. You only got three chances. If you were caught on the third time . . . you were put on a plane back home! I'm serious. I personally know people where were kicked out of French programs for speaking English too often. Even me, your teacher got caught speaking English one time. I remember I was in a pool with some friends and we were swimming. As some of my students probably know, I love talking, and suddenly I just started shouting to some friends in English to come and jump into the pool. Right behind me was a monitor! Holy cow, did I get in trouble. It was really serious. They had me totally freaked out that I was going to be sent back home. From then on, it was French only for me.

So you can see that from a young age I have been indoctrinated that the best way to learn a langauge is through the immersion method. It is almost like a Canadian way of doing things. I guess that it has affected me a lot,but you know what is amazing . . . . I speak French :-)

Going to Seattle :-)

There is less than one week before I go to the annual TESOL conference in Seattle! I'm really looking forward to going this year. For those of you who don't know, TESOL stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. It is probably the largest ESL type conference in the world, and there are going to be some really famous professors and researchers there. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the grammar book used in LEAP 3, but the author of that book is doing a big presentation. I can't wait to go . . . gosh, I sound kind of like a geek, don't I?

Anyway, I have the honour of doing three things while I am in Seattle. I'll be doing a poster presentation on the Thursday of the Conference, a hands-on showcase of my students' blogs on the Friday, and finally a workshop teaching teachers how to use blogs with their students on the Saturday. It's going to be fun :-)

What I would like my students to do is please complete this survey (please click when you are ready):

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=957272685523

I'd like to share your opinions with my colleagues in Seattle.

Thank you in advance to everyone who does this survey!

Me and My Mum

This is a picture of my mother and I :-)

It was recently my mum's birthday, and we went to the Palliser Hotel in downtown Calgary for their Sunday Brunch. I think this must most definately be the best Sunday Brunch in all of Calgary, if not Alberta (well, actually the Banff Springs Hotel would be a close second). This brunch is absolutely fantastic. It has a mix of breakfast items and lunch items. For example, you can have a gourmet omlet made for you while you watch, or you can get Belgian waffles made fresh in front of your eyes. There are also other amazing things like eggs benedict and eggs pacifica. Eggs pacifica is one of my favourite breakfast dishes. It is an english muffin with smoked salmon on top. Placed on the smoked salmon you have a gently poached egg, and it is all topped off with a sauce that is out of this world. Yum. Actually, I kind of go smoked salmon crazy when I go to the Palliser for Brunch. I take huge amounts of smoked salmon. I just can't get enough! They also have lunch items like roast beef, and things like that, but I usually stick to the breakfast items. Finally, there is a large variety of cakes and desserts. It is all amazing. Unfortunately, it is a little bit pricey. For one person, brunch is $40 and there there is tax and tip, so if 4 people go, you can end up spending around $200. However, it was my mum's birthday, so it was worth it :-) If anyone ever has their parents visiting town and they want to splurg, I recommend the bruch at the Palliser Hotel.

International students frustrated by LEAP program??

I have been feeling a little down lately because of an article I read in the Gauntlet. I wonder how many of my students read the student paper here at the University of Calgary. When I was an undergraduate student, I read it every week. Anyway, just for fun the other day I picked up a copy to read while I was reading lunch, and right there on page 7 was an article about the LEAP program. However, this certainly wasn't the LEAP program that I know about. Basically the article was arguing that the LEAP program wasn't fair to international students because it was a waste of their time and money because they are not learning anything. Eeep. Students were also claiming that they were learning things in class that they were already familiar with. I guess they mean stuff like they had already studied how to do the present perfect tense, so why study it again?

Anyway, this is the online link to the article http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/story/11102, but if you pick up a current issue of the Gauntlet, you can read the article there too. I wonder what my LEAP 4 students would think of this article. I really hope that now, because of the program, they are able to do things in March that they could not do in January. I guess that is the real measure of a program. If a student can say "now I can do this, but I couldn't do it before" that would be a way of demonstrating that they have learned something. Anyhow, I won't let this article get me down, but sometimes I do feel that I am faced with an almost impossible task compared with a normal professor at the university. It almost seems like if students fail in the LEAP program it's the teacher's fault for not teaching, but if they fail in normal university it's the learners fault for not learning. Complex stuff . . .

I Miss the Cat!

Okay, okay, I know. At first I totally didn't want to babysit my friend's cat. But for 10 days I got to know this kitty, and now that his is gone, I feel there is an empty place in my heart . . . s i g h.

On the other hand, there is no more kitty litter all over the floor of my kitchen, and my toes are safe from night time commando attacks!

It's weird, it was really nice having Rocky around for 10 days. I think the funniest thing that happened while Rocky was staying at my place was when I was renovating the upstairs apartment in my house. I had just painted the floor leading up to the stairs of the upper apartment. Anyway, I was upstairs working on the bathroom when suddenly I heard this weird meowing. I looked down the stairs and there was Rocky standing in the middle of the fresh paint. Poor Rocky, I ran downstairs and picked him up. His two front paws were totally green on the bottom. I was really worried because I didn't want him to lick his paws and get sick from the green paint, so I carried him like a baby to the kitchen and tried to clean his paws. Unfortunately I couldn't get all the green paint off of his feet, so he had green paws for about 3 days . . . . poor Rocky.

Also, I totally spoiled this cat while he was living with me. For instance, if I was having a bagel with cream cheese and lox (smoked salmon), Rocky would get some creamcheese and lox too. However, he didn't like bagels, so I ate his for him. Also, once I got sushi from T&T Supermarket, and I let Rocky pick off the raw fish from the tops of the nigiri sushi, and I would eat the rice. Hee hee. I don't think he is going to like the hard dry cat food he is going to get at him Mommy's house :-)

Oh well . . . no more cat for me. But it was fun while he was here!

Babysitting Rocky

I wonder if any of my students noticed how exhausted I was today! You see, I am babysitting a cat for a friend of mine. The cat is totally adorable, but he is kind of nocturnal. He was up all last night, running around and making funny noises. His favourite noise is "mrrrrrr mrrrrr". Sometimes he just goes "meOW MEoooow". Last night, one of his preferred games was to play "attack the toes". Everytime my toes stuck out from the sheets on my bed, the cat would pounce on them and try to chew them. After this happened about ten times, I tried putting the cat outside of my bedroom and closing the door, but that just started up a slow wailing sound "mmmmmeeeeeeeeooooooooooowwwww" until I let him back into the room. He was good for a while then, but I woke up in the middle of the night to find two eyes glowing 1 cm in front of mine. It freaked me out, and when I freaked out, the cat freaked out and jumped on my head to escape. Anyway, I woke up this morning exhausted to find the cat sleeping peacefully on a pile of my clean laundry. I hope he is enjoying his nice relaxing day at home so that he can stay up all night again attacking my toes and jumping on my head.

I have decided that I blog waaay too much about food, so I thought I would blog about some of my favourite things to do in Calgary. I have to say that in the winter, it really easy to become a couch potato in this city. Sometimes when it is cold outside, all I want to do is sit at home with a blanket and a hot cup of TV and watch television. However, there are some things that I like to do in this city, and one of them is skating at Bowness Park. Bowness Park is a huge park on the Bow river in the NW. It is my favourite park in the whole city, and I go there all the time both in the summer and in the winter. In the winter, the pond at Bowness Park is frozen, and you can go skating on it. There is also a frozen creek and a frozen canal, so you can skate all over the place. The best part of course is that it is free! Sunday was only my second time going skating this winter, so it took me a few minutes to get used to it again, but soon I was zooming all over the place. The weather was so great on Sunday too. There were tons of people. There were even mothers skating and pushing their children in baby carriages on the pond. I think the cutest thing is the little kids with their snowsuits and helmets.

Anyway, I highly recommend that everyone try skating at Bowness Park. They even have skates there that you can rent (I think they are $5, but they may cost more money now), so there is no excuse for not going. Also, students can rent skates from the outdoor recreation centre here on campus.

Happy Skating!

Hey everyone! It's great to see that everyone is starting to blog all the time. I hope that you are all enjoying it.

Hmmm, what should I blog about. I have been so busy lately! In fact, I have been so busy that I don't have time to cook lunch or supper any more, so I have been eating all of my meals here at the university. If I can get the special in the Education Cafeteria, that's not so bad because they have a daily lunch special that is only $4.99. Usually it is pretty good. The only problem is that they are sometimes late getting the lunch ready, and I don't have time to eat it, or it isn't ready when I have my lunch (I have to eat my lunch at 11 or 11:30 because of class). When the special isn't ready, instead I have to spend almost $8 for my lunch. Yikes!

Supper isn't so bad though because usually I have time to go to Mac Hall, and there are lots of choices there. Lately, my favourite place to eat is "Opa!". That is a Greek place, and it has amazing food. I really love the lamb slouvaki. My other favourite places are the place with the Vietnamese subs and the Vietnamese Noodle place. I've also seen a lot of my students working there, so it's fun to see them out of class.

Now, the only problem is that I'm worried all this university food isn't healthy for me. I wonder where my students like to eat on campus. Maybe they know some better and healthier places . . . . .

Here we go . . . . . .

Yahooo! Here we are in the computer lab. All of the students are blogging about what they think about the LEAP program and what they think about blogging. I can't wait to read what they have to say about the LEAP program and what they have to say about blogging. Personally, I really love blogging. I think it is a great opportunity for students to practice their English in a non-threatening situation - especially because they don't have to worry about their grammar or their spelling. The main point is just communication. That's what's so fun about it. Plus the students get to pick their own topics instead of me saying "okay class, please write an academic essay about cheese" zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Anyway, I am sure that they blogs are going to be a big success this semester and that everyone is going to benefit. I can wait to get feedback from the students later in the semester.

Happy Blogging Everyone!!!

These are my students from last semester - good luck you guys!

www.saliaahrabian.blogspot.com
www.gahvln.blogspot.com
www.chenzhenfei.blogspot.com
www.tonysheep.blogspot.com
www.caleb9999.blogspot.com
www.kevinjiang1028.blogspot.com
www.kevinleap4.blogspot.com
www.amancila.blogspot.com
www.anpan172.blogspot.com
www.roywanghang.blogspot.com
www.elephant0713.blogspot.com
www.sabrinazone.blogspot.com
www.bluemaster121.blogspot.com

www.almuqate2006.blogspot.com
www.corradeyour.blogspot.com
www.jjj-joy.blogspot.com
www.mitra1977.blogspot.com
www.ryan-potato.blogspot.com
www.wenli2006.blogspot.com
www.weimysteryviking.blogspot.com
www.teddyinleap.blogspot.com
www.nikolayplotnikov.blogspot.com
www.cici2980.blogspot.com
www.michael-85.blogspot.com
www.agnes-wss.blogspot.com
www.sxue.blogspot.com
www.nickyang4b.blogspot.com
www.sese527.blogspot.com

An Important Aspect of Academic Life

It's time to talk about an important aspect of academic life - going to the pub! This is a picture of my favourite pub in Calgary . . . can you guess where it is?

I hadn't gone to a pub in ages, but recently Calgary has gone totally smoke free in all bars in pubs, so I thought it might be time to try one out again. You see, I used to smoke. In fact, I smoked cigarettes for 16 years, but I finally quite for ever on April 17, 2003, and I haven't touched a cigarette since then. Because I don't smoke any more, I always avoid places where people smoke. That means that I could never go to the pub. However, now I can! As of January 1, 2007 all pubs and bars in Calgary are complete smoke free. It's so great because now I can enjoy pub food like the steak in the picture without having to worry about breathing all that nasty second hand smoke.

You know, I don't really like drinking either (I am the king of ginger ale), but at least if someone is drinking beside me, it doesn't really affect me the same way as if someone is smoking beside me. Anway, I really recommend that all my students try out the pubs here on campus (Dinny's Den) They have great food. They are a good place to meet new people, and remember, you don't have to drink. You can always order a ginger ale like me :-)

I'm back on campus!

Hello world,

Here I am back on campus after a nice long break. I have officially been on holiday since December 22. That was 12 days of pure relaxation! Mostly I just hung around the house reading books and watching TV. I did go skating once on Bowness Pond, but the ice was really rough so I stopped after just 20 minutes. I guess the most exciting thing I did over the holidays was visit my parents in Olds, Alberta. My parents have an antique shop in Olds, and I got to see all the stuff they are selling. Some of it is pretty cool. I also got to play with my parents two dogs and their cat. All in all, it was a great visit.

Anyway, I'm back, and I'm raring to go. I can't wait to start teaching again. See you soon!

On a more positive note . . .

Now, I may have come across as "slightly" negative in my last blog, so I want to point out that, actually, a lot of students did more than the required amount of blogs. I guess my problem is that I always focus on the negative stuff. I have decided to focus a bit on the positive stuff from last semester:

I learned a lot about different cultures.
I met some really nice people, and I will always remember them.
Some of the students improved quite a lot! It was amazing to watch their English growing over the semester.
The students gained some valuable skills that are going to help them in their future studies.
The students made some new friends in the class.

See, there are lots of positive things from last semester . . .

From now on, I am going to try and focus on the positive things.

When life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade!

Concerned . . .

So once again it is the end of the semester and I find myself tabulating marks. It always astounds me how some students just seem to give up, or not complete activities as required by the course. Blogs would be the perfect example of this. Here is a quote from the handout all the students received on how the blogs would be evaulated:

You will write approximately one entry per week (minimum 12 entries) with a minimum of 200 words for each entry. Students are encouraged to write more.

You are also required to read and make comments on two other student or teacher blogs every week for a total of at least 24 comments. Students are encouraged to make more comments.

The final due date for the blog project is Friday December 1 when you should have a total of at least 12 blogs and 24 comments. You need to do at least 12 blogs and 24 comments in order to get full marks. Your blog contributes to your final participation mark.

Please note that you are only allowed to write one blog entry per day. Multiple entries made on the same day will be counted as one entry.

I went over these parameters with the students in class. They all had the handout, so they could have read the requiements. However, many students didn't write the requisite 200 words per blog! It was right there in black and white! Also, many students missed the requirement that they only write one blog per day. How depressing. I think some people are going to be shocked by their blog marks. 12 blogs x 200 words per blog = 2400 words. That means if you only wrote 1200 words over the course of the semester, you only received 50%. That mark is then calculated as part of the final participation mark.

The most interesting aspect of all of this is that many of the students who received low marks on their blogs, also are receiving low marks in class. There seems to be a direct correlation between the amount of effort students put into their blogs and the grade they receive on their essays and exams. The irony of all of this is that students come to me a week or two before the final exams, and they ask me "what can I do to get a better mark". Well, you could have blogged at least 200 words every week like you were supposed to.

I'm so curious . . . don't the students see a connection between doing homework and getting a high mark on the final exam? I guess not. That is why they end up failing. My job is to try and get them to see the connection. You can't expect to be a great pianist if you never practice. You can't expect to be a great writer if you never practice.

ugh.

Who had fun at the pizza party last Friday???? I know I did! I ate so much pizza, it was amazing. After classes had started again, we found out that there was lots of pizza left over, so naturally I had to eat more. I think I must have eaten six pieces of pizza . . . and I wonder why I have been gaining weight. I think the best pizza was the Greek Pizza. It was the perfect mix of feta and mozzarella cheese. I do love pizza . . . . anyway, enough about pizza!

Today is the last day of classes before the final exams. I brought in madarin oranges, chips and juice so that we could have a snack while we were studying. It was fun. I got the mandarin oranges because they were from China, and I thought it would be nice for the student to have something from home. I tried to find things from Iran and Romania . . . but there was nothing from those counties in Safeway. Sorry Salia and Adelheid!

Anyway, I hope all the students get lots of studying done this weekend. My biggest piece of advice for them was to read ALL of the articles in their reading textbook, and their writing textbook. They should even read the articles that their teachers hadn't talked about in class. I hope everyone does this. I also suggested picking 10 new words from each chapter and memorizing them. I hope it helps . . . it can't hurt :-)

Good luck everyone!

Presentation Day!

Here I am in my office bright and early, preparing to do a presentation in the Doucette Library on blogs. I have been blogging since April 2004 - wow, that's almost three years of blogging. That's a lot of typing. You can see from the picture I posted above how much the blogosphere has grown since June 2004, which is about when I started blogging. Isn't it amazing to think that in my own small way I have contributed to this. I guess that I have helped almost three hundred students start their own blogs since April 2004 . . . and even more amazing, some of them are still blogging! Cool stuff eh . . . maybe teachers do make a difference?

There are officially two weeks left!

Holy cow . . . there are only two weeks left before the final exams! This is the time to buckle down and focus. Wow, I can't believe that it's all going to be over soon. This has been a great semester so far.

I really enjoyed going to the Ancient Peru Exhibition at the Nickle Arts Museum. It was nice to do something different for a change. I couldn't believe that the University of Calgary would have such a nice exhibition on campus. I was really impressed with all of the gold artifacts. It's amazing to think that such an advanced culture existed here in the Americas way before the arrival of the Europeans. Even worse, that culture was basically destroyed by the arrival of the Europeans. I read somewhere that one of the worst cultural genocides took place after the arrival of the Europeans to the Americas. Millions and millions of people died.

It really gives you something to think about. Especially here in Alberta. We always talk about what a young province this is (we are only 100 years old), but actually, this province has 1000s and 1000s of years of history, it is just that history is the history of the native peoples, and it tends to be ignored by the dominant culture.

Anyway, I recommend that if people were impressed with the Ancient Peruvian exhibition, they should make a trip down to Writing on Stone Provincial Park, or to Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump to seem more of the indigenous cultures that existed here before the arrival of Europeans.

MOLD!

Well, we just had a four day weekend here at the University of Calgary. You would think that I would be well rested, and ready for teaching today, but I am totally exhausted. The reason? MOLD! YUK! This weekend started out well enough because I was going to thoroughly clean my house. I actually enjoy cleaning, so I attacked my house with a vengence. After I had done all of the laundry, tidied and scrubbed the kitchen, straightened out the dining room and shampooed the carpets in the living room, I was ready for the cleaning that never gets done. I thought I would start with the cupboard underneath the sink. I actually hadn't cleaned it since I moved into my house in September 2005. Anyway, I emptied out all of half used cleaning products, empty coffee cans and worn out sponges and I noticed that there was water at the back of the cupboard. I went and got out a flash light, and to my horror I saw there was black mold all over the back wall of the cupboard. ARGH. Black mold can be totally dangerous. Even worse, after further inspection, I noticed that the back wall was rotting away because of the water, and that the countertop behind the sink had totally rotted away because of dripping water. You see, my taps have been dripping for about a year, but I never did anything about it. Why did I leave it so long??????? ARGH. Anyway, I went to London Drugs and bought a million powerful cleaning products and started to dry out my cupboard. Then I went to Home Depot and I bought some new washers (tiny rubber rings) for the taps. I changed the washers in my taps, and they stopped leaking. It was so easy, and it only cost three dollars. Argh. I wish I had fixed them a year ago when the problem first started, and then I wouldn't have to deal with BLACK MOLD. Anyway, after the water dried out, I vacuumed away all of the rotted plaster and wood, and then I thoroughly cleaned the area with a super powerful bleach cleaner. After that I sprayed everything with Lysol (guarenteed to kill mold and mildew). The problem was the cleaning products were so strong that I almost puked. I had to get out of the house. The fumes were awful.

Anyway, I hope everyone can learn from my mistake. Fix small problems before they become big ones.

One of my favourite things to do is go to the movies. I thought I would talk about two of my favourite movie theatres: The Plaza and Paramount Chinook. Last weekend I went to the Plaza Theatre to see the movie "Little Miss Sunshine". It was totally awesome. I really enjoyed it, and I thought that it had a powerful message as well. Basically, the film is about a little girl who travels with her family across the United States to participate in a beauty contest in California. I thought the movie had a lot to say about how bad beauty contests are, especially for young girls. I really enjoyed it, but even more, I enjoyed going to the Plaza Theatre. You see, the Plaza Theatre is only a five minute walk from my house in Kensington. I have been going to the Plaza Theatre for about 16 years, and it is one of the few things that hasn't changed in Calgary. I really love the Plaza. It is an old fashioned cinema with only one screen, so it can only show one movie at a time. Usually, the movies shown at the Plaza are alternative movies that you don't often get to see in the big multi-plex cinemas. Everything about the Plaza is a total trip down memory lane. I highly recommend that my students go to the Plaza at least once while they are in Calgary to experience what it used to be like going to the movies in Canada. Plus, matinees at the Plaza on Saturday and Sunday are only $6!

At the other end of the scale, you have Paramount Chinook. Those are the theatres at Chinook Centre. It is the total luxury modern movie going experience. The seats are the ultimate in comfort, and you never have to worry about some annoying lady with big red hair sitting in front of you because all of the theatres have stadium seating. It's great. Right now, if you dare, you can so and see the movie "Grudge 2". But be careful . . . I almost pooped my pants when I saw it on Hallowe'en. It is basically a J-Horror film, but shot in English. Eeep. I don't want to blog about it anymore. It was just way too scarey, but if you like horror films, you should go.

Anyway, get out of the house on one of those cold wintery afternoons any weekend, but a bucket of popcorn and settle down for a movie experience . . . plus it's a good way to study English :-)