Posts tagged as:

Teaching

Life: My Student’s Class on Doing Business in China

April 3, 2009

In addition to my Business Communication class, my students are also taking a class called “Cultural Insights to Doing Business in China”, which is taught by one of the Shanghai University Professors.
I have attended all of the lectures so far (2 at 4 hours each), and it has been a very interesting experience. The class [...]

Read the full article →

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 [...]

Read the full article →

Life: An Update from Singapore

February 18, 2009

Despite being done with classes, I am actually quite busy. In addition to the administrative things that I have to do, I am also trying to prepare lessons and presentations for the Shanghai Immersion Program.
On Monday we had a staff retreat, which was quite good. We had a lot of good food, heard from a [...]

Read the full article →

Life: An Update – Done Teaching, Preparing for China

February 10, 2009

I am officially done with my first semester, and man have I learned a lot!
There are so many things that I am going to do better/differently next semester as a result of my experiences. Before I came to Singapore, I not only had limited teaching experience, but I was also completely unfamiliar with the system. [...]

Read the full article →

Education: My First Invigilation in Singapore

December 9, 2008

This was an interesting experience.
Today I had to invigilate a ‘common test’ (during which time students take a ‘paper’).
The setup made me think back to the stories I have read about the Imperial Chinese Civil Service Exams. Students had to take the exam in the sports hall (think basketball court without hoops), with about 399 [...]

Read the full article →

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 [...]

Read the full article →

Life: Quick Update

December 1, 2008

E-learning week started.
Yesterday I went to a wine tasting which was phenomenal (will write a review later).
Travel plans might be screwed up because of Thailand stuff.

Read the full article →

Language: Singlish Post # 3

December 1, 2008

One of the funniest (sorry if that is offensive) things about Singlish is the crazy intonation. This is especially pronounced when the speaker is angry, excited, or correcting someone. Let me share a sample dialogue to illustrate the last one:
Student: When is the assignment due?
Teacher: Wednesday?
Student: Tuesday!
Student’s friends/classmates:  Wednesdaaaaaaaaaay ahhhhh!
The best is when they don’t [...]

Read the full article →

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 [...]

Read the full article →

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 [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries