Posts tagged as:

Education

Education: Crazy Week for Singaporean Students – an American Comments

January 18, 2010

After spending some time in China and other parts of Asia, I did not expect to discover major cultural shock after moving to Singapore. For the most part, this proved to be true – I did not really encounter, or experience, anything that could be considered as ‘culture shock’.
However, when l I really started working [...]

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Language: My New Favorite Mandarin Review Site

April 25, 2009

This is my new favorite study tool on the web. Skritter is a great way to review your writing skills, and to test you on tones. The site has lots of different vocabulary lists from various Chinese textbooks, and they are continually trying to add more. After you review, the site keep track of your [...]

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Education: Great Article about Education in Singapore

February 19, 2009

I found an interesting article on the Gaurdian website about the education system in Singapore. For policy makers in the UK, I can understand why Singapore is a good model to study. Not only have the done very well, but they have done very well in a system that is almost identical to that of [...]

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Link: Interesting Sinosplice Post

December 11, 2008

John from Sinosplice posted a really interesting article about tones. You can find the article here, and I will leave a short quote below:

At ACTFL 2008 one of the presentations on TCFL that I found most interesting was one called “An Alternative Way to Teach Mandarin Tones in Speaking” by Dr. Rongrong Liao of the [...]

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Language: Is that British English, or is it a Mistake? English in Singapore…

December 4, 2008

The other week I found myself writing “wrong word”, or “use a different phrase”, over and over. After about an hour of marking, I began to wonder – were they actually wrong, or is it just different from what I am use to?
I was uncertain because Singapore uses British English, and sometimes I am not [...]

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Education: SARS and E-Learning Week

November 19, 2008

In a couple of weeks, we are going to have out “E-Learning Week”. From what I understand, there are two reasons for e-learning week. First, it serves as almost an emergency drill. In case of, say, a SARS outbreak, students and teachers will be able to communicate and continue with lessons via the internet. Singapore [...]

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Life: Stories From the Classroom, Part II

November 14, 2008

It is time for more stories from the classroom/campus. I wanted to keep up with this every week, but I have fallen behind. As a teacher, I sometimes get frustrated when I am marking, or annoyed when the students are loud and disruptive. At the end of the day, however, I make sure to think [...]

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Language: Wait, Did I Just Teach My Students Chinese?

October 31, 2008

This is great. When teaching oral presentation and writing skills, I have to tell my students to avoid Singlish and Mandarin influences. Most of Singlish’s grammatical problems are the result of Mandarin influence. A classic example to illustrate this is a Singaporean movie called I Not Stupid (小孩不笨; pinyin: xiǎohái bù bèn), which is grammatically [...]

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Language: List of Resources for Learning Mandarin Chinese

October 24, 2008

I hope this will serve as a useful tool for those studying Chinese. Even though I am talking about my experiences in Singapore, most of the resources and strategies will help students everywhere. As of this moment, I am not taking a Chinese language course, or studying under a tutor. I don’t think I will [...]

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Education: My Experiences with the Singapore System, Part II

October 15, 2008

The past two weeks have been very interesting. In the first week, I had no idea what was going on. My schedule did not make sense, I could not understand all the acronyms and terms, and I was unsure how my classes were supposed to operate. After talking with colleagues, attending a training session, and [...]

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