Teresa |
- reading texts and passages of up to 800 words
- summarizing texts, which may include an author's viewpoint
- written tasks of up to 350 words; including summary and response, supported opinions, and documented reports with supporting citations and evidence
- speed reading
- differentiating between main ideas and details
Janice |
The course materials they provided are wonderful, and I greatly appreciate having some structure in place to guide me. (Many of my classmates in the Bay Area have not been so lucky.) As I mentioned, the head teachers picked topics relevant to the students as well. The first unit is on stress and time management. One of the activities provided examples of different ways that people manage their stress and stay healthy. The activity looked great, but one of the examples was totally disturbing. The Pretend Person Pillow. Have you heard of this? It's like a body and arm you can snuggle up to if you feel lonely. Creepy!!! Talk about asking for nightmares. Unless it comes complete with chest hair, I don't think it's gonna work for me.
I don't have a good picture of my office yet, but I'll try to remember to take one. If you want to see more photos of the school, I'm providing two links below, one for the main University website and one for the ELC.
U Macau Photo Tour: http://www.umac.mo/tour.html
English Language Center: http://www.umac.mo/elc/index.html
After my meeting I ran some errands and wandered a bit, then my housemates and I went out for dinner with Miranda, a new teacher at UM who lives in our 'hood. She's a Macau native, so she knows all the good spots. We went to Fat Little Sheep, a Mongolian Hot Pot restaurant. YUM!
Basically it works like this, there's a burner built into the middle of your table, and they bring a pot of broth and spices to set on it. Then they bring you plates of raw food and you toss stuff in and then fish it out again when you think it's done. Delicious! Luckily Miranda filled out the ordering card for us and again I used my cheating technique and copied down all the stuff we got on a second form so I can go back. This is the veggie plate - the white things are noodles, below that are various types of greens, to the left of that black mushrooms and blocks of tofu, above it thin sheets of fried tofu and at the bottom, lotus root. All very, very good. There were also several plates of thinly sliced frozen raw meat. They kept filling up our tea pot and we kept chatting and trying to clean off the plates. After four hours we threw up the surrender flag and went home.
But don't worry Fatty Lamb, we'll be back to fight again!
Angie and Miranda |
Beth and I |
Yay! I bet it's a relief to know more dets about what/how much you'll be teaching and get to know some of the staff. How exciting!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, that pillow thing is utterly disturbing.
A cute friendly looking bunch. Your school info sounds perfect. Four hours of eating??? Fatty Lamb sounds about right.. Ha!
ReplyDeleteIt is a relief. Level 0 meeting is on Monday. And yeah, can you imagine waking up in the middle of the night next to a headless body? I'm having enough trouble with flowered sheets!
ReplyDeleteAs for the fatty lamb, I'm earning it. Between the sweating and the walking, maintaining my weight should not be difficult. I am about to turn "the age", however. We'll see if your prediction comes true.
We may be in completely different locations; however, it feels like our teaching goals this year will be very similar. Good luck as you continue to prepare!
ReplyDeleteAs for the headless body pillow....wow! That is something I have never seen before.
Take care, dear!