Presenting at AP Annual Conference 2006

College Board (大学理事会）is going to host their annual conference at Lake Buena vista, Florida this summer. I submitted my presentation paper for their new training session of Chinese Language and Culture. I am very glad that my paper was accepted. Good things don't come alone. I was also awarded with College Board AP Scholarship. This was a really good start for my AP class in school next year.

Recently my presentation paper “Teaching Languages the Digital Ways" was also selected at Annual Conference of American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (美国外语教学学会）which will be held in Tennessee this november.

It is always my passion to integrate technology into language teaching. I like to exchange my teaching experience with other teachers and learn from each other. Hope that Chinese language teaching/learning will be more effective with the help of all new technologies.

School Camp Mason Trip

Last weekend, our school organized a trip to Camp Mason near Delaware Gap in New Jersey. It was a great trip for all of us. I took my son, Steve there, too.
The camp provides all kinds of activities for the campers. Most of them are very educational, fun and exciting. During the camping, I experienced touching moments with my students, and I learned a lot from them. One student got hurt in foot. Students in my group took food and sent to him in cabin. Students helped him to move around in the camp. I have to say that I noticed many fine qualities in my students. They are brave, honest, respectful and very helpful in many cases. One female student was always the first to try the activities. She was not afraid of anything. I was impressed. I also noticed the role reverse. Students encouraged me in some of the activities, while during the class, I am the one who encourage them in their study. I like this reverse. It makes students more confident about themselves. With their encouragement and support, I climbed the Vertical Playpen, and tried the Giant Swing which I was scared quite a lot at the beginning.
I was also very impressed by what Steve did during the camping. He participated in all activities and played with all students despite the age difference (10 years). He held on to the end in every activity even though he had hard time to complete some of them. I am very proud of his performance. He felt much more confident after this trip.
We were just very lucky. Weather also cooperated with us. It was gorgeous when we were there. In one word for this trip, super! We will be back!
Another aspect of the trip worthwhile to mention is the beauty of nature. I love this protected land of pure air, water, and beautiful mountains. I breathe the fresh air and enjoy every moment of being surrounded by the nature. We need to make more efforts to protect our environment and our earth, otherwise we will suffer the consequences. (Maybe we are starting the suffering due to the unresponsible policies on environmental protection.)