Because this newspaper is critical of the Communist Party, it is blocked in China. Thus, to read it, I need to use a circumventor. I’m currently using Friendsteroxy, but these sites are, unsurprisingly, always getting blocked so I don’t know how long that will last.

This week, I talk about the K12 Online Conference, primarily giving some of my thoughts on the pre-conference keynote. Keynote speaker David Warlick talks about how Web 2.0-type technology is changing how we should approach our students, and I reflect on how this applies to language teaching. I also make some comments about the state of education in China in light of the points mentioned in the keynote speech.

I start by talking about how last week’s headline activity ended up going differently than I’d planned. I discuss some of the difficulties of looking critically at current events here in China and also talk about some of the uncomfortable issues that came up. In doing so, I refer to this article from Beijing Newspeak about food safety in China.

I next describe my upcoming lesson based on giving advice. It follows the pattern I’ve been using this semester of reading, writing, discussion, listening, discussion, roleplay and review. I put the listening and second discussion activities below.

Finally, I briefly outline the introduction to sentence-level intonation that I recently gave my students.

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Advice Activity

I read the following list of travel advice aloud to my class and asked them to tell each item back to me. I answered vocabulary questions, and then had them discuss why each of these pieces of advice would be given. In addition, I asked students to discuss whether they agreed with each pieces of advice and if they had any advice to add. We then talked about the reasons behind each piece of advice as a class. Finally, I asked my students to practice giving each piece of advice and explaining the reason behind it to their partner.

1. travel on a private tour (age gap between younger/active travelers and less active/older travelers)
2. wash your hands with soap at every opportunity, and carry disinfectant
3. drink and brush only with bottled water
4. bring binoculars, sunhat, sunscreen, small packs of toilet paper
5. research the destinations before you go (there won’t be any English brochures, maps, or street signs)
6. bring a mask (air pollution)
7. beware of shopping excursions which are not listed on your itinerary (might end up racing through thousand year old art and architectural treasures to spend hours in stores)
8. bring lots of one dollar bills (tips)
9. on the train try to get a seat in the middle of the cabin (away from the toilet, loud banging door, and cigarette smoke)

Please feel free to email me or post in the comments if you have any questions or suggestions.

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For example, check out this recent post detailing a cover-up of pollution statistics.

Dr Zheng said nearly half of all urban drinking water sources failed to meet national standards in 1981, and, in 1998, the failure rate was more than 83 per cent, according to studies carried out by his institute.

Their latest survey suggests more than 450 drinking water sources in key national environmental protection cities could not meet the standards, a number six times higher than the official figure. But these results have not been made available to the mainland public.

“If we release these figures to the public, there will be total havoc … The figures we reported to the central government are classified,” he said.

“There is only one correct figure you and Xinhua can report, and that is the official figure.”

TESL-L – The main list has over 30,000 subscribers. There are also sublists dedicated to CALL, IEPs, jobs, young learners and ESP. Archives of each list are also available to subscribers.

Wikigogy – A community website where teachers of English as a second or foreign language can develop and share their EFL & ESL lesson plans and teaching practice. I haven’t looked at this one too much yet. It seems pretty new, but the activities seem well outlined.

I begin with a discussion activity that I came up with after seeing this clip of students tormenting their teacher in Beijing. After having students share what they knew about this, I had them go through a set of discussion questions (below). I found this news story via the Hao Hao Report, a cool website for content on China.

Next, I briefly described an upcoming job. I’ll be teaching 20-30 junior and senior high school teachers for 17 hours during the last week of the semester. I believe that I’m expected to teach them English, but I’m more interested in helping them with teaching techniques. If you have any experience with this type of thing and would like to share your ideas, email me.

I next talked about a discussion activity on athletes and money. I got a list of the highest paid athletes by combining a domestic list and an international list. The questions we discussed are listed below.

The last thing I mentioned was the website dropping knowledge.

Beijing Boy Activity

1. Is this behavior unusual?
2. How did students usually behave in your school?
3. What do you think the punishment should be for these students?
4. Why do you think students would act this way?

Athletes and Money

1. Why do you think we pay athletes so much money?
2. Who do you think is the highest paid athlete?
3. Who do you think is the highest paid non-American athlete?
4. Who do you think is the highest paid female athlete?
5. Which sports / countries do you think are in the top 10?
6. Why do you think advertisers want athletes to represent their products?

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or want to share some ideas of your own.

If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, here is the feed: podcast feed: feeds.feedburner.com/ESLetc/

I begin by briefly discussing Kira’s Earth Day activity, which I finally put online. (sorry!)

I next discuss a couple of discussion activities that I used this past week dealing with advertising and money. These include two sets of discussion questions (see below) and having students create their own ads. These topics were popular with my students (university-level in China) and I think would work in a variety of ESL/EFL settings.

I then move out of the classroom to talk about some of my concerns over the growing consumer culture here in China. I refer to a variety of sources, including this report by the Armed Forces Pest Management Board that claims that “only 7% of garbage [in China] is properly discarded”. I also mention The Educated Giant, a recent article on Chinese education by Nicholas Kristof.

Finally, I talk about my plans to bring discussion of news articles (and possibly a message board) into my teaching next semester. I briefly mention the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the communist party.

Advertising Discussion Questions

1. Describe your favorite ad.
2. What ads don’t you like? Why don’t you like them?
3. Is it OK to advertise products to children? Why or why not?
4. Do you believe advertisements? Why or why not? Give specific examples.

Money Discussion Questions

1. How much money (per month) is enough?
2. What do you spend most of your money on? What do your parents spend most of their money on?
3. Do you think most Chinese people worry about money? If so, what do they need more money for?
4. Do you think most American people worry about money? If so, what do they need more money for?
5. What would you do with your time if you had enough money not to work (but weren’t rich)?

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or want to share some ideas of your own.

If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, here is the feed: podcast feed: feeds.feedburner.com/ESLetc/