recollection of this semester

The semester is almost over, and I am so happy.This semester was another challenging one for me because I took two unrelated courses with my major: the Films of Akira Kurosawa, and Blogs:New Independent Media.

To conclude, these courses were beneficial for me. Though challenging a new field needs some courage for me, it gives me self-confidence and sense of accomplishment when I complete it.

Among three courses that I have taken through this semester, the most hard but impressive one was "the Films of Akira Kurosawa". During the first eight weeks of this semester, (because this is a eight-week long course) I saw 16 movies, read three books and ten articles, and wrote three reviews a week (total 24 reviews) and two research papers. They were over 18,000 words writing totally. This course needed a really hard working.

Other difficulties of this course were its inconveinence of getting the movies that the professor listed. I bought most of listed movies through the Internet, but sometimes late delivery problem happened and made me nervous. Similar unconveinet thing happened when I rent a movie in the video shops,too. They did not have some movies that I needed because the movies were so classic. In short, it was a course that needed a very intensive hardworking, and left a lot of DVDs as a memento of a course. It was hard but I'll never forget it!!

This blog course was interesting for me. I come to have lots of knowledge about "blogs" and learned issues related to blogs or the Internet. I had many opportunities to read others' opinions as well and made my English blog and web sites. What an interesting exprience!

The last one is one of my major courses: Teaching reading to English Language Learners.

I finished a big project of this course recently. It is a kind of field exprience project. It includes choosing a student whom I teach, toturing the student at least eight times, and writing tutor logs. It also involves developing various kinds of teaching materials, games, and resources to teach the student. It was a forty page long assignment. Today I presented this project in the class and finished this course!!

By the way, I got a scholorship certificate in the Nigh Center today. It is for international students and the title of the scholarship is "international honor scholarship". I am sooooo happy to get it.

The Chocolate War

I sometimes read any books, without any purpose, just for killing time. Because this book, “The Chocolate War” (by Robert Cormier), has occupied my small, shabby bookcase for a long time, it was no wonder that I picked up the book one day. Anyway, it was not a thick book at all, and even didn’t look difficult to read. Besides, the word “chocolate” in the title enticed me (becuause I like chocolate), though the following word “war” was somewhat skeptical to me. In the end, it turned out that this “chocolate” was nothing to do with some kind of “sweet” things that I had imagined. :) However, this book seems to be an interesting book in the genre of young adult literature. This book won many awards, such as An ALA Best Book for Young Adults, A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year. And the movie version was made in the 1980s. Isn’t it enough reason to read?

Here’s the story.
Jerry Renault is a freshman at Trinity High School. In this school, there are the Vigils, a secret school society who keep the other students under control by giving cruel assignments. Brother Leon is an assistant headmaster and he wants the students to sell twice as many boxes of chocolates during their annual chocolate sale. The Vigils give Jerry an assignment to refuse to sell chocolate during the first ten days of the sale. But, after ten days, he still refuses to sell chocolate and this makes Brother Leon and the Vigils and all of the students in the school furious. The Vigils threaten him mentally using phone calls and make him feel fear. Archie, the assigner of the Vigils, manipulates the situation to make Jerry an outcast in the school. He uses Zanza, who is a bully and animal-like boy, to make Jerry a victim of harassment and violence. In the end, the Vigils make Jerry participate in a boxing match. In the boxing match, Jerry is beaten and severely injured. That’s it.

Obviously, this is a book to make me think a lot. As a challenging book, it makes me ask a lot of questions about symbolic meanings that the story contains. For example, Jerry’s poster presents the theme of the book in a simple way. The chocolates become a symbol of defiance and nonconformity, not just for Jerry, but for the entire school. However, the whole story makes me feel uncomfortable in dismay. The realistic description about the truth of the universe where we live makes me disgusted in some way. The result of the confrontation between Jerry and the Vigils that symbolize the order/rule of the society is so miserable and makes me frustrated. It is true that this is a good book in that there are many controversial ideas in it. However, it depicts psychological and physical violence too directly and vividly, and I felt nausea in the cruel ending.
Personally, I don’t like this kind of story, because I don’t have guts to endure the misery of innocent people. Consequently, this book made me depressed and gloomy.

An article about free reading

I recently read an interesting article about "free voluntary reading" written by Krashen. He is a really famous scholar in the field of "TESL" and his article gave me insights into the importance of a "fun reading."

The author suggests “free voluntary reading”, or reading because you want to, which is often called sustained silent reading (or SSR) in schools, as an efficient method for students to have higher levels of literacy. He points out the significance of the pleasure in reading and maintains that SSR helps students develop richer vocabularies, understand complex oral and written language, and become proficient writers and reasonably accurate spellers.

Krashen reviews some negative researches, such as the National Reading Panel (NRP) report, and reputes the results of NRP. He shows the evidences of their flaws, and indicates that NRP overlooked many studies of effective, long-term SSR programs as well as the importance of recreational reading for students in English as a Second Language classes. He also presents some excellent researches, which were conducted by Warwick Elley, or Fay Shin’s 2001 examination, in order to support his claim that free voluntary reading or an SSR program is a much more pleasant approach than regular skill-building instruction, and benefits the students.

To achieve the desired effect from free voluntary reading, Krashen focuses on the importance of easy accessibility of books for children, indicating that many studies, such as a study by Jeff McQuillan, confirms the “more access > more reading > better reading” relationship. Studies show that there is a strong correlation between an individual state’s average NEAP score and its students’ access to books. For children of poverty, libraries are their only chance. We need to make investments and improve libraries for children who need them the most, children of poverty. Krashen concludes that encouraging students to read for pleasure and providing them with interesting reading materials are necessary steps for the students to become highly literate readers.

Jazzercise

I started a new exercise last week. I don't like to exercise much, but this exercise, which is called "Jazzercise," is really interesting.

I've never heard "Jazzercise" workout before my friend introduced and took me to the center. After free experience for one day, I enrolled the class and got a membership card.

The fee is only 25 dollars per month due to student discount.

From Sunday to Saturday, I can go anytime and anyday and even go twice a day. But, it is so intense work that it's impossible for me to go twice a day. In fact, it seems to be hard to go once a day.

Anyway, "Jazzercise" means simply "Jazz" + "exercise." Is it too simple? :)

Jazzercise is a fitness program that combines elements of jazz dance into aerobic exercise.

It includes cardio, strength, and stretch for one hour. During first thirty minutes, intense cardio exercising provides, and then strengthing with weights and stretching are followed for the rest of the time.

You will be really sweaty for the first thirty minutes.

For first four days, I was really aching all over, but finally I overcame my ache and my body got used to it.

Now, I am totally getting my energy through this new exercise.

Surprisingly,I feel that my body is improving everyday!!!!!!!!