ARCADIA

       最终决定今天还是要写中文, 虽然在网页输入系统中打中文甚是繁琐，有些字也打不出来。但总感觉英文写起来很仓促，会让我感觉感情很浅，抑或是很委婉, 刚写到兴起处，却已是戛然而止。

       翌日，听室友数来在澳洲的日子，一转眼四月有半. 我向来对时间不那么敏感，既无意于留澳，对回国也无所谓期待。

       Penrith的生活，大体上很适合我的个性，平静闲适. 住宿在换了homestay之后, 自然好很多。比如上周,Mel 带我们去海滩看雕塑. 美中不足的是，澳洲的阳光太过刺眼.

       论文进展得极为缓慢，慢得超过了我的预期。打着教育的幌子做语言学的论文，虽说是符合我最初的想法，但在这做这样的论文，终究不是那么顺利。当然，有积极的一面，一切都在逐渐清晰起来。我自己也无法预计 metaphors, social semiotics, policy documents, 这些会在多大程度上指引我今后的发展, 现在我所能唯一知道的，就是把这篇论文做到最好. 无论多难. 希望我可以做到在12月初的时候，顺利完成COC.

       中文教学，也占去了我一部分的精力，2天时间说多不多，周三会时常让我无法再集中注意力在论文上. 周二, 更多的是在进一步了解澳洲的小学教育，顺便教点数学……。每一次在Blackwell看三四年级的学生跳Ballroom dancing都会让我感动,感动于快乐竟是如此的简单和美好. 周三是真正正经教中文, 2节课。上周的课，还是上得很糟糕，尤其是第一节课。不管怎样，我还是确定了一些事情，比如说中小学老师不适合我。一遍遍重复，会让我自己都觉得很没意思.

       这些日子下来，有些问题时常会困扰我:

       比如说为什么要学语言？

       比如说一个人对某一种语言完全没有兴趣，为何非得学那种语言？

       比如说文化，有时候我在澳洲看到的关于一些中国的文化，连我自己都觉得那么陌生。

       对于传统真的那么重要么？如果在历史的进程中，它注定被淘汰又奈何去挽救人们不那么感兴趣的东西。

       又例如，上次在学术会上听一个博士生讲拯救土箸艺术。既然是一种艺术，创作者是否是源自于该艺术的发源者有那么重要么？只要创作该艺术的人能真正理解和创造及发展艺术，这就是对艺术的传承和发扬。我不会介意一个能够表现书法艺术的创作者并不是中国人.艺术是属于整个人类的. 当然，书法这门艺术不仅仅是被全世界欣赏的，更重要的是，书法作为一种艺术，是人类智慧和文明的体现，是可以被全世界所分享的。

       写到这篇日志末处，想起国内或是国外各处的朋友, 希望大家一切都好.

     I  exprienced two things these two days and I came up with some thoughts.

 

     This is what i sense from my landlord and her mum. Something happened to her and her mum just slept outside on the sofa the whole night the day before yesterday to make sure she's ok. Her mum are there for her these days to take care of her.

 

     I was very sad yesterday. When a teacher drove me home and asked me if I'm ok, I cannot untrol my emotion. My tears were rolling down. When i walked into the room, Mel, my landlord saw me and asked me in a caring voice i totally lost the control my emotion. 

      I think partly because I was too tired and I didn't feel well these three days. My stomach have ached for a few days and I cut my fingers a few times and burnt myself in the hand by accident. Unfortunately I got inflammation of one of my fingers. I  think I probably get a little bit fever yesterday that could explain why I felt my body was burning yesterday. 

     On Tuesday early morning, I was so sick that I did't think I could pull through this week. Anyway, I calmed down myself and went to the primary to observe and did a little bit teaching. It was not that bad. Spending a whole day with kindergraten children, I gradually felt good and I was happy that day. I found out that I pulled through.

     I became really unhappy yesterday mostly because I still got trouble in dealing with a teacher at high school. I don't wanna comment her. It's meaningless. I just want to figure out a solution. I will be in that community for another year. I think i am the person who likes freedom and at least respect and understanding. Maybe it's my fault that I am not a sociable person. I think I tried to communicate last semester, and it seemed good. However, it seems that what i did last sememster was in vain.

    

     I leant to be a good listener but I should also learn to express myself even between friends.

     My friend as a standby wrote to me that it was not that bad yesterday. Reflecting on that class, every minute I spent there is torment for me. Maybe I am childish in a way. However, I don't really think so. After university days, compared what I did in NIT with high school days, I don't think I'm childish in facing problems. I'm not rebelliant and overindulgent myself. I'm trying to solve the problem which makes me happy but reponsible. Anyway, i think we can sit down and fix this.

 

     I was sensible and mature yesterday, i think. Even i felt very depressed and I sobbed for a while before the lesson. I managed to control my emotion in the class. It went as good as I had expected.

 

     I had a very good sleep yesterday. I feel good today. My health gets better and the inflammation gets better.

I heard this song this Tuesday at Blackwell school chorus. I was greatly moved when i was standing outside the visual studio.

Enjoy and have a nice National holiday for my friends home and abroad.

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I can almost see it
That dream I am dreaming
But there's a voice inside my head saying
"You'll never reach it"

Every step I'm taking
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking

But I gotta keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking

I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep going

And I, I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on

'Cause there's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Somebody's gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

Keep on moving, keep climbing
Keep the faith, baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith, whoa

Keep on blogging in English! Still, no CHinese language system. One thing i need to clarify is that I do have a way to type Chinese in an inputing website, but it takes too much time and enegy to do so; besides some of the Chinese characters cannot be displayed in this website.

I selected some daries in my reflection in Teaching Chinese as Foreign Language. If you are interested, you can go to blogger to see the whole version.

Sep 23, 2009

I experienced a first dust storm in my life. In the morning, the sky is grey and a little bit orange. I planned to take a photo to record the weather. However, feeling chilly I gave up my mind, which turned out to be a big mistake. One thing is that I missed the opportunity to record such an event. Another thing is that since I came to Australia, my zest for taking photos came to the nadir.

During my stay in Australia, the first few days I just felt tired and had no intention to appreciate and take photos around. Then I just lost the interest to take photos. Bad things came when I really would like to take photos. Due to lack of practice, I found myself very bad at taking photos. In an important ceremony for my friend, I didn’t catch the moment which could never be back for my friend. I missed it and I felt really depressed and guilty. When I take a close look at those photos I took that day, I feel terrible.

I went to a ceremony for the last year’s volunteer group and from that ceremony I realised that I have been impetuous in these two months. I have been long had the feeling of not being correct, but for a long time, I cannot figure out why and what it is. Last week, when I thought about my brief presentation for the research proposal, I felt desperate and I rang my friend. Her words made me soothe and from then on I focused on my work again. I always feel thankful that I have a friend here by my side, a very good friend that always gives me help no matter these very hard times in uni for me or in Australia, opens my heart and enlightens me. Every time being with her I can soothe myself and calm down quite a bit. As always, I will use the word "appreciate" to describe my exact feeling.

Thus, practice and keeping calm will be the next part of my life in the following days.

Today, I had my third teaching trial in James Erskine Public School for Year 5 students. Also it is the good opportunity to prepare for proper Mandarin teaching for the new term. I’m gaining the teaching experience from these trial lessons.

I made full preparation and a 15-minute plan worked out for 50 minutes’ class. However, in another way, it indicates my poor time estimation. Noticing that many students absent for the lesson because of the bad weather today, I adjust my lesson plan a little bit. The whole lesson is a revision one. The objective of this lesson had been to further broaden their vocabulary in food names and a new sentence patterns. However, the real class was to refresh their memory about the five food names they had learnt last week and arrange a sentence by using small cards with only Chinese characters on them. (This is not a proper design, because the students have no idea of which each word means. I changed this activity in the second class and it worked out better than I had planned for the first class.)

The time control of each activity for me is still my weakness. The second class, in particular, some students had too much time in the activity of sentence ordering.

I found that Aussie students have a strong sense of competition. Today, many activities I conducted are based on groups. Most of the students showed high motivation in involving the activities. In the second class I was quite impressed that a group behaved towards an activity. The activity is that one student from a group come to the blackboard and draw a picture on a food and his/ her group members should guess the exact word in Mandarin. In the first round, a student from group A was not clear about the rules of games and comparing to a student from group B, the first student was greatly lagged behind. In the second round, when another student from group A was drawing pictures, they respond the answer in a simultaneous voice and loudly. That’s what I expect that most of the students can tell the name of the food in Mandarin. I had thought the activity can let student to learn the names. Actually, it is the sense of competition drove a group together giving the answer, because different voice at a time cannot be very clear for me. So it is with groups B.

Aussie students are also interested in playing BINGO. You can give students 5 words to let them choose two or three out of five. You have two words in your mind. When you say stop and the students who have the same answer as you will say "BINGO". It’s just all about guessing. In the second class, I noticed one student that never shows any interest in learning anything participating in this game actively. Keeping students interested is the key to leading students in learning a language. From my experience in learning German, I never gave up learning just because my teacher always keep me interested, it is difficult though.

Having a good plan, being flexible and sticking to the systematic introduction of knowledge is the prerequisite for a successful lesson. Keep on moving!

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Sep 18, 2009

During this week, I keep on doing observation in the Blackwell public school. The week before, I was quite impressed by the ballroom dancing by students from Stage 2 (Year 3 & Year 4). Teaching primary always comes to my mind as something not so attempting nor attractive for me, but for that moment in the primary and a few weeks ago watching stage 1 (Year 1 and Year 2) children dancing offered me a sense of happiness and some sort of feeling far away from hustle and bustle. I was actually moved when I watched them do the ballroom dancing. They danced so well, behaving in such a polite way like ladies and gentlemen, they were so young though. Suddenly, I was delightful and enjoyable in my inner heart. I had a gut of feeling that happiness is so simple that I could easily feel. The children were innocent and amiable. The dance is so graceful. When you were looking at those kids so engaged in the dancing, I couldn’t tell how great feeling I got. Then the happy dance follows. They danced to the active music, applauding with partner, with mates in the other circle or just for themselves. I dare say that their happiness also passed through everyone in the stadium. Last week’s observation was valuable and impressive in many different ways.

In this school I saw how mathematics works in the stage 2 level, which made me to think that I can combine the number teaching in mandarin with numeracy. I taught some children numeracy last time. I still find myself a little bit impatient in teaching basic numeracy, such as adding 10 to 15 or 3 * 5=15 stuff. Frankly speaking, I cannot deny that I got tired and bored when I was teaching the girl 5+10=15 several times, but she could not get it. The answer she gave me was 12 or 5 or 8. At that moment, I doubted myself whether I taught so poorly. I was sort of desperate.

Another class conducted by an old teacher. He sang an Irish song and he was really an amiable person. I love his class. Maybe I prefer to be with old people. He showed me a picture book which was a present from his daughter. He read the poem called Andy’s Gone with Cattle several times. He showed the picture and explained the meaning of the poem. It was nice and touching. Then I went to another class where the classroom teacher is male. He played the catch and throw game with the students. I asked him what the point of doing this is and he told me that the aim of this activity is to train the students to focus.

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