<h1><b>Today we had an interesting activity to train our speaking skill.</b></h1><h1><b>Firstly Nancy elicited the words of a terraced house and street party by using two pictures. Then she asked us to imagine we were living in a row of terraced houses and we were at such a party. She also gave us a role-card which had some information about our own role and some partial information about our neighbors on.To find as much information as possible about our neighbors we need to talk about ourselves first and then try to get information from others. The most tricky part was one person in class was a secret agent —he just pretended to live in house No.4. He was trying to confuse us and make a mess. He was giving some unreal information to mess up the whole party. But we didn’t know it . What an interesting activity!</b></h1> <h1><b>Before talking Nancy asked us to read the role card carefully and take some notes down. Afterward we stood up and found a neighbor to talk with. Actually we were gossiping about others and we were eager to get as much information as possible. That’s why most of us didn’t notice there was a spy among us. But I noticed there was something wrong with Nancy (teacher Chang) as she and Jennifer both told me they were the hostess of house No.6. I just thought maybe I made some mistakes because I was not so confident about my listening ability. What a trick! But I truly doubted it.</b></h1> <h1><b>After party Nancy asked us to finish the questionaire first by ourselves and then we did some group work. It was a little difficult as the information was not fully collected. But finally we completed that. It’s so lovely.</b></h1> <h1><b>During our talking Nancy just listened to what we said— she didn’t interrupt us even if we made some mistakes. Finally we came to the error correction period—Some word pronunciation errors, some errors in sentence structure and some inappropriate words. That’s what Ailsa taught us yesterday: teachers should bear the responsibility of deciding whether to correct errors on the spot! It is only when activities are accuracy focused that teachers need to correct errors. Thanks to Ailsa and Nancy for their cooperative demonstration to let us know what a qualified teacher should be like. Thanks again!</b></h1> <h1><b>Lovely host—David!</b></h1><h1><b>He names himself a Chinese cook! Thanks for his humor. Luckily we had something almost like Chinese dishes this evening. It is delicious. </b></h1> <h1><b>I learned some new words in English:</b></h1><h1><b>豆芽bean sprout </b></h1><h1><b>荸薺water chestnut</b></h1><h1><b>白菜葉子Chinese leaf</b></h1><h1><b>筍尖bamboo shoot</b></h1><h1><b>扁豆mangetout</b></h1><h1><br /></h1>