Lila' s blog

New Farm BBQ

2006-11-09T19:28:00.000+10:00

Today two of the Jiangsu teacher training classes will have BBQ in New Farm Park. Because Muli, the administrative assistant at QUT has other things to do, so Jane and I were asked by Semmi to lead those two cohorts of Jiangsu uni teachers to go there and enjoy BBQ together with them.

Last week, there was another BBQ for the other two Jiangsu cohorts. Jane and I were invited to join. We arrived at the shuttle bus station on time, but the Jiangsu teachers were so eager to have the BBQ that they caught the earlier shuttle bus and left for city. We waited for them in the bus station for more than one hour, thinking of this and that possibilities. The time for our waiting was so long that we were very hungry and felt light in the head in the ferry after we finally decided to go to the park to see whether they took other buses to go there. When we arrived, they have already finished their BBQ.

Having learnt a lesson from last week, we came out of our office thirty minutes ahead of the scheduled time12:20. Luckily, we arrived at the shuttle bus station earlier than the teachers. Five minutes after we arrived, the teachers came to the bus station by twos and threes. When the 12:05 shuttle bus was going to leave, the earlier coming teachers would like to go without waiting for the others. What should we do, we were not their administrators, but just helpers guiding them the way, and they would not obey our words. We had no way out but to let Jane go together with them, and I just left, waiting for the other teacher’s coming. So we finally arrived in New Farm Park by two groups.

Having these two interludes, I do not have the interests of BBQ. These experiences made me thinking that even uni teachers do not have the concept of timing, and they care little about others.

Hope Everything Be Fine Tomorrow

2006-11-08T16:13:00.000+10:00

My husband is going to have his final oral seminar for getting the degree of Master of Engineering tomorrow. He has left for Huazhong University of Science and Technology which is in Wuhan for a week to do the preparations. My poor daughter, as having no adult to look after her daily life, was sent to my mother’s home in Kaifeng, where she has no school to go into, but to learn by herself. After her father finished his final oral seminar, he will go to Kaifeng to pick her up, and then go back home.

Looking behind the past year, it is unimaginably difficult for my. As I was in Australia and couldn’t give him any help in doing housework, he has to do every day cooking, to look after an old and a young, his 82-year-old father together with our 12-year-old daughter, give 9 hour classes every week and finish his thesis at the same time. It is really a tough year for him. Now everything has passed away, hope everything in tomorrow goes smoothly for him.

2006-10-01T19:23:00.000+10:00

Today is the National Day of China. No activities are organized whether by China Consulate in Brisbane or by Chinese student organizations in QUT.

From today on, people throughout China will have a whole week holiday, and the most interesting thing in this year’s week-long holiday is that this year’s Mid-autumn festival in on 6 Oct., just within the whole week holiday, a double happiness. So this year, Chinese people will have enough time to enjoy these two holidays.

The Mid-autumn festival is the second most important traditional Chinese festivals around the year, of course, the most important one is the Spring Festival. Almost all the Chinese festivals are for family’s reunion, with this Mid-autumn festival in particular. It is said that on the day of the festival, the moon will be the roundest, the clearest and the biggest around the whole year, which represents the reunion of the whole family. All the members of a family will enjoy moon cakes, a round cake to indicate the moon.

On the night of this festival, all the family members will enjoy moon cakes and at the same time enjoy the beauty of the moon. There are countless poems describing the beauty of the moon on this particular night, and all the people can recite some of them to express their feelings on this particular day.

Jacaranda

2006-10-01T18:17:00.000+10:00

Yesterday Jane and I celebrated China National Day by having an outing together. At seven, we each bought an off--peak daily ticket first to Cultural centre at South bank, then went to New Farm Park by ferry. But we were disappointed in New Farm because we did not see any blooming jacaranda flowers, nor did we see the market selling cheap fruits and vegetables in the power house, we were told the market was only held twice a week. We found that it was too early to finish our outing, so we decided to go to University of Queensland, another place which was supposed to be a scenic spot of enjoying jacaranda. This time we were upset again. The jacarandas here were the same as those in the New Farm Park, they just became to bloom, only a beginning. But people could recognize jacaranda trees because they had purple spots here and there on the crowns of trees. As the jacarandas in the city have been in blossom for about two to three weeks, and had the tendency of dying, but in these two places they just began to blossom. Why? Through careful observation, I found two following reasons. First, the jacaranda trees in the city were younger and smaller ones, but in the two places we visited yesterday were older and big trees. Second, wether the jacaranda trees in the New Farm or in UQ were along river side, the temperature in these two places we visited yesterday was lower than that in the city. I remembered there are sentences of a prestigious Tang Poem describing the similar scenery: flowers in the plain areas died, but peach blossom in the mountainous area began to blossom. Though we did not see the blossoming jacaranda as expected, we actually enjoyed our trip by ferry which was the first time for both Jane and me in Brisbane. It was really a lovely day!

History of EKKA

2006-08-12T19:47:00.000+10:00

The Royal Queensland Show or "Ekka" as it is now affectionately referred to by Queenslanders, is the largest annual event in Queensland continually attracting more than 600,000 visitors each year. In 2003 around 600,000 visitors flocked to the RNA Showgrounds during the 10 days of the Show. The Show is staged by the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland (the RNA) in August each year. It has often been referred to as the time when "the country comes to town" for a huge range of industrial, commercial, agricultural and horticultural judging and displays. These aspects, coupled with the Show's Main Arena attractions, showbags, unique food and Sideshow Alley makes the Ekka a family tradition with something to delight, interest and amuse people of all ages.

EKKA

2006-08-10T19:48:00.000+10:00

Today my friends and I went to EKKA! It is really a great show that I have ever seen. I saw all kinds of rides, birds, cats, cows, sheep and showbags as mentioned by the teacher in the language school yesterday. And I still saw lots of things not mentioned by the teacher: a huge bunch of bananas, all kinds of Australian made fruits and vegetables. The strawberries in season gave me strong impressions. Being so fresh and so ripe, they were so lovely with their red color and sweet taste.

It is the first time for me to see so many amusement facilities at a same time, being so colorful and adventurous, I felt dazzling and dared not to experience but I still enjoyed children' happies and their excitment when being thrown high in the sky. Today is also the first time for me to see crowds of people in Australia after my coming for six months though it is quite a common thing in China. You would ask "How many people?", You can just imagine the crowds of people coming out of the cinema after a film is over. But unluckily, I missed the woodchop competition, as for the other competitions including the cows, bulls, horses, dog and cats, I can't enjoy them because of not knowing the competition standards. I just bought a showbag of beef snack, but when I came back home, I found out that it was products of New Zealand, not Australia.

EKKA is both familar and unfamiliar to me because in some sense, it is a little bit like the temple fair in China when Spring Festival is coming. But actually it is a part of Australian culture.

Two classes in Langport English Language College

2006-08-09T15:58:00.000+10:00

Being a helper, this morning I led ten boys and girls from Jiangsu Province studying in QUT to Langport Language College to observe English classes. The ten guys were divided into five groups and I just followed one of them. Our group observed two classes this morning. The General English Level 3 class and the Reading Level 3 class. I was greatly attracted by the first class because the teacher taught us lots of terrific things.

At the beginning of the class, the teacher gave students ten minutes to have a group discussion about festivals in their own coutries. Then the teacher asked several students to repeat the festival celebration taught by their partners. Soon we knew festivals and their celebrations in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Germany and Brazil. After that, the teacher introduced EKKA, the roral Queensland show which will begin tomorrow.

The teacher first introduced the history, activities, competitions and showbags in EKKA, then distrituted the map of EKKA and its first day activities to each student. Finally students were given fifteen minutes to discuss what they are going to see tomorrow. Throughout this class, I not only learn a lot about EKKA, but also was attracted by the teachers' teaching methodology.

My second time to experience CLN618

2006-07-27T15:46:00.001+10:00

July 22 was the first time for our CLN 618 workshop but the second time for me to experience it. Last semester, in attending the first workshop, I couldn't fully understand the lecturer and our guest lecturer Chris in Alaska online. But this time, I even could enjoy Chris' humour in giving the lecture. In addition, this time's online teaching was also greatly improved. Christ's voice was very clearly. It was really the highlight of this unit, I hope we can have more chances to receive online teaching given by people in different part of the world.

My second time to experience CLN618

2006-07-27T15:46:00.000+10:00

2006-07-22T13:47:00.000+10:00

Bascal

2006-07-15T07:48:00.000+10:00

Among the four French guys in my share house, there is one particularly different from the others from the first sight. His name is Bascal, He is yellow, a second generation Chinese French born in France. French is his native language, his second language is English, third is Cantonese, and fourth is mandarin. After he arrived in Brisbane, his French friends said you’re a Chinese, so it would be easier for you to find a job in Chinese town. The boss in Chinese town had an interview for him, first in English, his English was not very good, then in Cantonese, his Cantonese was worse, finally the boss tried mandarin and found even the worst. He is not the person that the boss is looking after, a boy who can speak both English and Chinese well. Of course, he lost the chance to get this job. Later Bascal explained that he could understand the boss’ Cantonese and mandarin, but could not express his own ideas in these two languages. As a second generation of immigrants, his French friends regard him still a Chinese, but Chinese find him a little bit different because he can not speak Chinese and his way of thinking is more French styled than that of Chinese. It is difficult for him to find a culture to follow.

French guys in my share house

2006-07-11T16:10:00.000+10:00

Two weeks ago, four French guys holding working holiday visa became new tenants in my share house. Their purpose for coming to Brisbane is to find a job in their summer holidays, to travel in Australian and to practice their English. Their coming brought great energy to the share house. The evenings are no longer deadly quiet, but were filled with mixture of their heavy steps on the old queenslander, their French talking and the loud sound from TV telecasting the football matches of the Germany World Cup.

As the World Cup went into its semi-final, each match became decisive, so those football fans would never miss any match. Whenever there was a match, and no matter how late it was, they would get up and slipped into the sitting room to enjoy it. Because I just lived opposite the sitting room, as a result, I became the most serious victim of their enjoying the football matches.

Owing to French football team’s wonderful performance, it went into the final to play against Italy to get the World Cup, which greatly encouraged those French guys’ patriotic feelings. On the evening of the final, our share house was very quiet because the French guys all went to bed early in order to be able to get up during the night to see the match. Unfortunately, France lost the game and for several days, these guys were in a sad mood.

My Sleepless Night

2006-07-02T18:36:00.000+10:00

Last night, I was very tired and sleepy, so I went to bed early at about half past ten. But soon I was waken up by steps of climbing stairs. The French guys in my share house came back. I heard them going to the kicten to make food. I thought after they finished their food, they would go to bed soon. But I was wrong. After they finished their food, they began to watch TV in the sitting room, which is opposite my room. I looked at my watch, it was almost one O'clock. Then, I began to hear the noise of the football match. Oh, they were going to watch football, terrible, that meant that I had to endure the noise for at least two hours. But I was totally wrong. After they enjoyed the first football game, they enjoyed another, the two football matches finished till this early morning. Last night was actually a football night for them, also for me, because I spent a sleepless night hearing the explanation of the football match. Though they had lowered the sound of TV, but due to the quietness in the night, I still can clearly hear the noise.

This morning, I accessed the internet and knew that last night French team won Brazilian team, had become the first four top teams in this World Cup. In the following days, there would be four more wonderful matches. Will that mean that I have to spend another four sleepless nights?

Clusters of Clouds

2006-07-02T18:35:00.000+10:00

Brisbane is a beautiful city with rivers and mountains. During my four months’ staying here, what impressed me most is neither its rivers nor its mountains, but its blue sky. In most of the times, the sky in Brisbane is pure blue, without any clouds, just like a huge sapphire hanging above. However, as winter is coming, I found that the blue sky changed a bit, with clouds interspersing here and there. Yesterday afternoon, I saw a special phenomenon with clusters of clouds drifting in the sky. The shapes of the clouds changed in the process of their drifting: some of them are changed into horses, others are changed into mountains, sheep… The sky is just like a beautiful picture made up of clusters of clouds.

When I was very young, I could see the blue sky in China, similar to that in Brisbane. But now, in some sense, seeing the pure blue sky and the twinkling star nights are just our dreams. Now, we can only see blue sky in only about 1/3 days in a year, and the stars in the nights are seldom being seen. My daughter asked me time and again that “Can you actually see the twinkling stars in the night? Have you seen the meteors in the summer’s night?” My answers are “yes”, but difficult for her to imagine that beautiful scenery. Because of the cities’ quick development and the pollution, it is our dream to see blue sky in the daytime and to experience twinkling stars during the night again. Things have changed a bit in recent years, but we still have a long way to go.

My experience in using the Optus SIM card

2006-06-28T19:21:00.000+10:00

My mobilephone was broken, so the day before yesterday, I went down town and bought a mobilephone in an Optus shop. The new mobilephone I bought was the cheapest one, 59 dollars a new phone together with a 10 dollar SIM card. But I could not predict that a terrible experience began.

Yesterday morning, I activated the SIM card on line. Half an hour later, I received a message from 194888, instantly, my mobilephone was blocked. I could not do anything but first to turn it off, and then turned it on. As for the content of the message, my mobilephone could not read. As I was wondering the matter, another message came, and blocked the mobilephone. I did as what I had done before, and found out it was also a message coming from 194888. The same thing happened five times within one hour. I was so furious that I phoned the service line of Optus, 1300555002, the phone receiver checked my account, and told me that, once I received the message, the money in my SIM card would be charged one dollar. Till that time, five dollars had already been charged from my SIM card. I was eager to know how to deal with it, because if I did not take any action, my ten dollars would disappear very soon. The Optus man seemed quite familiar with this thing, he told me to do two things immediately: Firstly, created a message with word "stop" to send back to 194888. Secondly, phoned 1800444407 to ask them stop sending message to my mobilephone. As for my loss of the five dollars, he told me that after I did the two things, phoned Optus back, they would put it back into my account. I did what he asked me to do instantly and it seemed that the two things I did worked, no new devilish message was sent to my mobilephone again.

This morning I phoned the Optus sevice line to deal with my lost five dollars in the SIM card. To my surprise, another phone receiver did not what to follow the words said to me the day before, he explained that the message was not sent by Optus, but by another company, just like a kind of promotion. But I told him that when I bought the mobilephone, the salesgirl told me it was free to receive any message, and for those kind of evil message, Optus should take actions to stop them being sent to its customers' mobilephone in order to protect the rights of its customers. ... Finally, he agreed to put the money back to my acount.

I really do not know whether there is any implied stories between Optus and the company sending the evil message, but I just what to let others be alert to this kind of evil message and know the way to deal with it.

Cheers for Socceroos

2006-06-28T16:22:00.000+10:00

The Socceroos are so wonderful that they are the only team in the Asia-Pacific area to be within the top 16 teams in the World Cup. The most striking thing for the Socceroos is that this is their first time taking part in this great football. The victories of the Socceroos reminded me of the Chinese football players, who are a group of people spending much of their time not on football, but on other things; namely, doing business and having one after another scandals. Four years ago, Chinese football players first took part in the World Cup jointly held by Japan and South Korea, but they did not win any game, even one score. In China, football is the most popular game having a long history. In Tang Dynasty, which was more than one thousand years ago, Chinese began to play a similar ball like present football. But as the history goes on, the football standard of Chinese people did not have great improvement. Football in China has such a big problem that people all over China try to find out its solution. But no one knows the answer. Some people say the terrible abilities of Chinese coaches were the source, so foreign coaches were hired one after another, but they still could not solve the problem. Others say China football is terrible because we lack stars, but in recent years, several Chinese football players have joined some famous European teams. In China, Chinese football is a topic, whenever people talk about it, will just shake their heads. The victory of the Socceroos is a good lesson for Chinese football players.

Down but not out

2006-06-19T15:03:00.000+10:00

This morning, the Aussie Socceroos gave a charming performance, but came up in a 2—0 loss to World Champion Brazil. The big news of today’s Courier Mail is “Down but not out”. On seeing the idiom, I feel amiable to it because I taught the text “Lady Hermits Who Are Down but Not Out” in the intensive English reading course for non-English major students many times in my fifteen year’s teaching experience. Actually, this is the first time for me to see this idiom in practical English. Till now, I can still remember the process of teaching that text: the explanation of the text usually began with the explanation of the origin of the boxing term “down and out”. Hope the Aussie Socceroos are just down but not out, try to avoid defeat against Croatia on Thursday, and finally go into the second round.

Difficult Understanding of English Abbreviations

2006-06-10T13:56:00.000+10:00

The time drawing my attention to English abbreviation was I saw "HP" in Robbe's blog. What is "HP"? This abbreviation is so familiar to me, I tried hard to search in my memory but finally found out that what I am familiar with is "PH", a chemical unit for deciding a material is whether acid or alkali, but not "HP". After reading her blog, I began to know that her "HP" stands for "Hot Potatoes", a software for teachers to create website in language teaching. In the following days, "Hp" occupied my mind, there must be something related with it. Finally, the answers appear. One day I sat in front of my desk and opened my computer, "HP" in the computer moniter attracted my attention. Of course, this "HP" stands for Hewlett-Packard, name of the computer producer. The other day, I went along Herston road, and saw a "HP" on a roadside sign by chance, only God knows its meaning I think. Abbreviations are widely used in English, but for non-native English speakers, they are really difficult to understand because of lacking background information and the high frequency of repetition.

Chinese also has abbraviations, but they are not so commonly used than those in English. On one hand, those abbreviations actually save time in communication, but on the other, it often causes more time to make explainations, or even cause midunderstandings. There was once a famous dialogue of Xiangsheng, comic dialogue in Chinese traditional arts, satirized the abuse of Chinese abbreviations. One typical example from that dialogue of Xiangsheng is as followos: Zigong Grinding Wheel Factory is abbreviated as "Zisha", meaning committing suicide, so the man coming from this factory is called as "Zishade", meaning the man who is going to committ suicide. In Chinese, abbreviations are not often used unless the the abbreviation has become a fixed term, or the speakers are all aware of the meaning of it.

I finally publish my third assignment in google's free space

2006-06-09T11:19:00.000+10:00

I finally publish my third assignment in google's free space: http://free.1gbfreehost.com/hncyliyu . If you want to own a free web space, try to register in the following website: http://free.1gbfreehost.com/login.php .

On my successful publishing the webpage, I would like to give my thanks for Owen's telling the news, Kat's finding out the weibsite and Debra's finding out of making internal links in it. This free webspace is easy to use, just like Wiki, but there's still some problems we have to solve in the process of using it.
1. How to let the pictures within a webpage appear in their fixed places
2. How to upload a webpage having a frame. and let each part of the fram appear in its fixed place
3. The color of the webpage and the font of words change a bit after we upload the webpage
But before solving these problems, we can use it easily and for free. Remember that at present time, we'd better try to upload simle webpages having internal links and without picutures.

Visiting Careers and Employment Expo

2006-06-06T08:08:00.000+10:00

Last Friday morning, I went to Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre in South bank to see the national the Careers and Employment Expo. The exhibition actually surprized me, because I saw Australians working in almost all lines of works there: army men, policemen, customs officers, lawyers, office clerks, farmers, carpenters, hair designers, doctors, post office men... , each line of work all went there to attract young people to join them. A head of a plane from the air forces, cars from car sellers, mine rocks, models of donkeys and sheep were all in display to attract audience's attention. If the audiences have interests, they can pick up hammers to be carpenters, take spades to be gardeners, or just take pairs of scissors to be hairdressers or barbers. In general, all lines of works are trying to attract young people to join them, which is quite different from China where job seekers are trying their best to attract the employers' attention. In China, before 1995, all uni-graduates could get a job assigned by the uni, whether they were satisfied with it or not. But with the quick expansion of universities' enrollment in the late 1990s, things changed upside down. Instead of being assigned to different working posts, students have to find works by their own, or with the help of the uni. In recent years, with great amount of uni-graduates coming into the society, it is not so easy for them to find a good job. If peole go to a Chinese employment expo, what he can see is only crows of stuedents sending their resumes to different companies and trying to attract the employers. In order to help students finding a job, each Chinese uni even has established an organization to do this work, and even more, each department also has a committee in charging of this issue. And at the end of each uni-year, the media will publish the job getting rate of each uni, those unis having a low rate will have a low rate of students' enrollment in the coming year. Just a couple of days ago, Chinese Education Ministry formally declared that the uni-graduates are just common labours. In doing this, Chinese government is trying to change uni-gradutes' notions, and let them be practical that they should do what they can do instead of just seeking high salary jobs.

We find a wonderful virtual space, but it does not work well

2006-06-05T17:13:00.000+10:00

On Friday afternoon's drop in session, we decided to create a mutual space to link or display our third assignment of CLN618. Owen mentioned that he read from the ad of google, saying that it will provid 1GB free space for its users. Greatly encouraged by his words, we began to search for the website and Kat secceeded in finding it out and sent it to all the other classmates through Gmail.

After getting the address of the website, I eagerly registered and tried uploading my document. It was easy to create or upload a file, but it is very difficult for me to see hints of my files on the free webspace google provided me. I did not know where they had gone, I tried to click on the refresh button again and again, but still no results. What's the problem? What should we do? On Wednesday, as soon as I see my classmates, I will ask their experience with the free space provided by google.

I finally finish my third assignment

2006-05-31T08:41:00.000+10:00

Through a number of days' hard work, I finish my third assignment, but not completely finish, I have to send my module to two of my classmates and ask them to give comments. But, anyway, I am on my way to finish it.

The process of writing the third assignment is also a good oppotunity for me to review the theories fo CALL and to write my own feedbacks of learning this course. This assignment is very meaningful.

Many of my classmates used hot potatoes to finish their third assignment. But I think it might not be a easy way for foreign students to follow because of our limited English ocabulary.

Third assignment is progressing

2006-05-29T17:04:00.000+10:00

My third assignment is in progress. I began to create the website by using dreamweaver though I haven't finished the whole module. This will be the second website I created, of course it should be more complicated than the first one. So this time, I tried to create several webpages and linked them together to the mainpage instead of just creating one webpage in the first time. Though I spend much time and energy and made countless mistakes in making the links between different webpages, yet they are all valuable experiences for me to practice creating a website and the writing of the module itself is also a process for me to construct new knowledge in CALL.

This morning I viewed Robee's wonderful work by using hotpotatoes to create different types of exercises of dinosaurs. I tried hotpotatoes, but did not find a suitble way to create a module for learners. Her assignment also gave me new ideas. Thanks Robbe.

My idea about the third assignment

2006-05-26T16:59:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I saw some of my classmates' blogs and their comments, I found that they were all busy with the third assignment which should be handed in next month. After seeing them, I had an idea that maybe some of my classmates misunderstood the directions of the third assignment. I think what Debra asked us to collaborate in our third assignment was to give comments to other classmates' module in order to finish the whole assignment, but not to co-writing the third module. In the first and second assignment, we have already practised the usage of technology which can be used in ELT, now it is the time to valuate our knowledge about CALL theories. So what I plan to do is first to write a module about the popularization materials about computer assisted language learning for my colleagues, then invite two of my classmates to give their comments on my module. Up till now, I've finished the first part of the module, and have inveited one classmate to give me comments, I hope with the help of my classmates, I can finish it soon.

I began to make my third assignment

2006-05-22T17:19:00.000+10:00

After two days' patient waiting, my revision of the WebQuest in the Questgarden finally appeared. For these days, I began to make preparations for the third assignment of this CLN618. What should I do? I thought for quite a time and decided to prepare a seminar about the knowledge of CALL to my colleagues. Being busy teaching each day, my colleagues had little time to refresh their knowledge, and many of them even have wrong ideas about CALL. For them, a computer plus a projector equal to CALL, or teacher's using PowerPoint plus word processor equal to CALL. They do not know that CALL is actually a new field full of interests and wonders. So I think it is the time for me to prepare such a CALL popularization seminar for them.

WELLCOME TO CHINA : CALL FOR PAPERS

2006-05-20T11:44:00.000+10:00

The 5th International Conference on ELT in China & the 1st Congress of Chinese Applied

LinguisticsTime: May 16-21, 2007
Venue: FLTRP International Convention Center Beijing
Hosts: China English Language Education Association & Beijing Foreign Studies University
Co-hosts: Translation Association of China, the Association of Chinese Sociolinguistics, the International Society for Chinese Language Teaching
Organizer: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press
Theme：Language, Education and Society in the Digital Age
Sub-themes: language policy, teaching reform, teaching methodology, teaching of English at tertiary, secondary and primary levels, distance education, course design and material evaluation, ESP, SLA, CALL, bilingual education, teacher development, testing and evaluation, lexicography, computing linguistics, intercultural communication, corpus linguistics, translation and interpretation, sociolinguistics, ethno-linguistics, teaching Chinese to speakers of other languages etc.
Registration：$US180 (including meals)
Working language: English and Chinese
Number of participants: 1,500
Abstracts: 500
wordsDeadline: Oct. 31, 2006All abstracts should be submitted via our official website:
http://www.celea.org.cn/english/
If you have any inquiries please contact:
Mr. Liu Xiangdong
Tel: +86 10 88819582
Email: celea@fltrp.com

Why the refresh speed of Questgarden is so slow

2006-05-19T16:54:00.000+10:00

This morning, I edited my WebQuest in Questgarden and refreshed it again and again, and the preview showed that everything is OK, I thought I finally finished the second assignment. But to my surprise, when I logined on the Wiki and saw my WebQuest was still the old edition. I remembered Robee once met this problem, and it came to me today, what I could do was to wait for it refreshment.

This afternoon I tried again and still saw the old edition, so I went to the lab( the computer in my office could not access the Questgarden) again and published the changes again and again. I hope soon I can see the new faces of my WebQuest in Questgarden.

Welcome to Henan

2006-05-18T11:57:00.000+10:00

Thanks for Debra’s comment. An international conference on applied linguistics will be held in Beijing in next May, the conference is calling for papers. I’ll find out its details for all the participants of CLN618 and publish the latest news later. Hope to see you in China next year, and hope you could pay a visit to Henan after you finish the conference in Beijing. Welome to Henan, China. As for the good time to have a tour in Henan, I think the best choice is in autumn, and the second is in late spring.

As for the early autumn, that is the middle of September, the weather in Henan is very much like that in Brisbane now. In the early morning and late evening, there will be a little bit chilly, but during the daytime, it is quite warm. More important, during this period of time, Chinese people will celebrate their traditional Mid-autumn Festival, people can buy delicious moon cakes in different kinds. Besides, autumn is also a season for the harvest, and Henan is the planting centre of peanuts, sweet potatoes together with apples, pears, dates, guavas and persimmons of China. If you come to Henan at this time, you can go to the orchard to pick up dates and persimmons, pull peanuts and sweet potatoes. If you come a month later, you can enjoy the world famous chrysanthemum show in Kaifeng. The whole city is like a sea of flowers with all kinds of chrysanthemums. After you enjoyed the beautiful flowers in the city, you can enjoy Kaifeng baozi, the traditional and typical food of Kaifeng and after that, pay a visit to the theme park of Song Dynasty to finish your trip to Kaifeng.

As far as the late spring is concerned, the weather in Kaifeng is much cooler than that in Brisbane now, but we have a lot of fun. If you come in the middle April, you won’t miss the annual peony show in Luoyang, peonies are colorful and elegant, which had been nominated as one of the Chinese national flowers. If you come about ten days later, you can pay a visit to the cherry orchard to pick up cherries or go to the strawberry orchard to enjoy them. Welcome to Henan, to see, to enjoy and to experience the originated place of the five thousand years Chinese history.

I create my Chinese blog

2006-05-17T15:10:00.001+10:00

I am considering our last assignment these days. What should I do with it? Whom should I looking for to make comments on my CALL website? I should have a careful study of the task directions again, communicate with my classmates and then make my plans to create my CALL website.

Today I had an idea to write a Chinese blog, to tell my friends in Chinese what I see, hear, and learn here in Brisbane because people can not access the website of blogger in China. Then where do Chinese write their blogs? Some famous Chinese websites provide virtual space for Chinese to write their blogs. I tried the website sina first, but its process of creating a website is very complicated. For one time, my code is wrong, for another time, my username can not be accepted because there’s a repetition. So finally I gave up and shifted to another website “sohu”, and easily created my new blog. After I singed in, I found a great difference in the blog of sohu and that in blogger. The former does not provide the bloggers with a choice of their blog template, so the appearance of my Chinese blog seems rather dull. Tell you another interesting thing: when I was asked to give a name of my blog, the Chinese typing system in my computer is out of work, but I have to choose a name for it, otherwise many of my former works will be useless. As a result, I just type several English words “under the crux” to name my blog.

Two more pictures in the date orchard

2006-05-12T09:43:00.000+10:00

These two pictures will let you have a clear view of the dates. The left picture is Cindy and her friend standing in front of the red jujube design made of 80,000 dates, with a height of 4.6 meters, and believed to be the biggest one in the world. The right picture is a close view of the ripe dates, which had already turned red.

Guess where is Cindy in?

2006-05-12T09:39:00.000+10:00

This is a picture taken in last autumn. Guess where is Cindy in? What are the things she is holding in her hand? and what kind of fruits are in front of her? Have you ever seen or eaten this kind of fruit? They are dates!

Dates are the products of Xinzheng, a town near Zhengzhou. The annual Xinzheng Date Culture Festival opens at the “Miss You Much” date orchard at Mengzhuang Town where the date planting area is as large as 150,000 mu. Xinzheng has 38 varieties of dates, and the “Miss You Much” orchard has almost all the varieties in China. Last autumn, Cindy and I together with some friends went to the"Miss You Much" orchard to attend the date festival. The festival was not only a date festival but a grand show of date culture. The gate of the orchard stands a red jujube design made of 80,000 dates, with a height of 4.6 meters, which is believed till now the biggest one in the world. Along the two sides of it are various patterns of steamed buns decarated with red jujubes, showing the patterns of Double Dragons Bring about Good Luck and Peony of Happiness and Wealth, which all expressed the local people’s wish for a well-off life.

Visitors could not only pick fresh dates, but also enjoy colorful authentic farmers household meals. Traditional farming tools are also available for visitors to reflect on the life style in the old times.

Research Expo

2006-05-10T14:19:00.000+10:00

Yesterday morning I went to A330 to visit the research expo of Education Faculty. I was surprised to find out that QUT had such a way to let people know its scientific researches being done. In China, we usually have this kind of expo only for scientific researches because they can be converted into economic benefits on being known by other people. But for the researches of art sciences, no one cares about their results too much, and there’s always no way even for more people to know what one is researching now. So I think this will be a good oppotunity for the colleges and other people to know the lecturers' research work and take part of it for those interested, if possible. Besides, in the expo, I found out an interesting phenomenon, that the research products done by the school of early childhood are abundant. Their lecturers published a lot of books and journal articles, which may be due to the reason that it is easier to do researches on children than doing researches on adults’ foreign language learning. So an idea flickered in my mind that why do I choose children’s foreign language learning to study, which might be a little bit easier to do the investigations and to collect the data, because they always tell the truth, and one more important reason is that, all children will hand in what you gave them for a questionnaire. But that’s just an idea.

A method to post a picture in blog

2006-05-09T09:48:00.000+10:00

We often need to post a picture in writing a blog in order to let it be vivid, but how to do that? After posting blogs for several months, I finally find out the best and the easiest way to post a picture in a blog. You should do as follows: Firstly, choose “posting” button, then “create” button. Secondly, click on “picture” button, then “browse” button, now you can either adding an image from your computer, or add an image form the web. After you’ve made your choice, you can also choose the layout and the size of the image. Besides, you can also change the size of the picture by first clicking on it, then dragging the picture to whatever size you want. Finally, don’t forget to save your change and publish it.

Do you want to know what I did in posting a picture before finding out the secret? I’ll tell you if you don’t laugh at me. First, I copied a picture and wanted to paste it, I tried many times, and failed. Then I accidently found out a notice telling me that I could post pictures to my blog by downloading a software called Picasa, I did as what I was told, and found out the way to post a picture to my blog. But I also found out a limitation of posting pictures from Picasa, that is we can not choose the size of the pictures that we are going to blog.

Thanks for Kat's comment

2006-05-08T11:45:00.000+10:00

Yesterday, I expressed my idea of creating my WebQuest again by using Questgarden in my blog. Very soon, I found Kat's comment and she told me a good website which I could try to publish my WebQuest. Thanks Kat. I tried the website she told me and found out that it is actually a virtual space for people to create a website, but by using their template, which is just like the Questgarden. In other words, I have to create the website on a certain web space provided by them,but can not upload my website created by using other software on it. What a pity!

Another thing troubled me a lot these days is my flashdisk. Yesterday on our third workshop, I accidentablly found out that the document I saved in it became unreable codes, I tried to delete the documents, but failed, so I found no way out but to farmat it. From yesterday to this morning, I have already formated my flashdisk four times, I don't know the reason, but I think this time it really has something wrong.

The third workshop

2006-05-07T14:59:00.000+10:00

Today is the third and the final workshop of our 618 unit, Technology in Language Teaching. I am surprised to see the terrific WebQuests made by my classmates. Compared with the WebQuest designed by my classmates, mine is just around the average, and even worse, Kat, one of my classmates, pointed out a fatal problem in my WebQuest. That is, I forgot to design the “Task” part for my students. I accepted her advice, and decided to add this part soon. Debra asked us to link our WebQuest to the Wiki, but my WebQuest is designed by Dreamweaver, and I can not find any space to upload it to the internet. What should I do? Make another one by using Questgarden, that will be really a burden, but it seems that I have no choice, but to have a try!

Two more pictures of Cindy

2006-05-06T08:47:00.000+10:00

Cindy's Painting

2006-05-06T08:40:00.000+10:00

I was greatly moved by the comments of my classmates, Here I would like to introduce my daughter's painting to you.

I have a twelve-year-old daughter, her name is Cindy and she is now a primary school student in her fifth grade. She likes painting and maths very much. When she was very young, she began to show her talents by drawing everywhere, she could do calculating which supposed to do by children older than her, and she also had a keen observation by finding out the differences of pictures very quickly. When she grew up, she developed her skills in painting and began to be interested in writing. Last term, she had three compositions published, two were on newspapers, in the gardens of students writing, the other one was on the website. She has been taken part in a composition class for three years. Each week, she has to go to the downtown area to attend a lecture on writing compositions. But one thing troubles me a lot, that is, she does not like English very much, she can follow her English courses, and her marks are ok, but she has no interests in learning English, she said English was too difficult, the grammar, the pronunciation and the spelling, she could not manage all these things at the same time. I have to confess that maybe she does not have the ability in language learning because she could speak words when she was almost two years old. When she was in the first year of her primary school, she spent much of her energy to distinguish the differences of the pronunciation of several phonemes in Chinese Pinyin, and even to try to learn the correct pronunciation of some of them. Anyway, I am trying to encourage her to learn English well, because it is very important for the living of her generation. After I came here in Brisbane, I teach her English once a week on line by using Skype, I know her English is progressing, but I do not know how to arouse her interests to learn English well.

Chinese Golden Week

2006-05-05T11:28:00.002+10:00

Today is 1 May, national Labour Day, a holiday for all the labourers in the world. On this particular day, the Aussies will have one day off, which was the same as Chinese before 1999. Since 1999, the Chinese government decided to give people a whole week off by three holiday days together with four days borrowing from the two weekends before and after, and the government called this one week holiday as the 1 May Golden Week. We have another one in autumn beginning on 1 Oct. our national day, as the 1 Oct. Goldwn Week. The major reasons for setting these two goldwn week holidays are to push the increase of our national economy. Chinese government encourages people to travel and to consume on these two weeks. As a result, many unexpected things happened: Firstly, this caused great difficulties in transportation. It is difficult for people to get whether a train ticket or an air ticket to go travelling. Secondly, the scenery spots are full of people, and the strong impressions left in the travellers’ mind were not the beautiful landscapes, but countless crows of people. Thirdly, a whole week holiday for the whole country is quite long, and many urgent things couldn’t be done by related people on schedule. Fourthly, because people’s consumption ability is limited, the long holiday only caused people’s concentrated consumption, which is not a good phenomenon in economy. So as a result, in recent years, many scholars suggest cancelling these so called two golden week holidays and what most people do are having a trip nearby or just having a relax.

2006-05-05T11:28:00.001+10:00

2006-05-05T11:28:00.000+10:00

Hope everyone pays the money for another year's viewing the free tutorial on the website of Automic Learning

2006-05-05T11:27:00.000+10:00

The deadline for the free tutorial on the website Atomic Learning is coming, and I am thinking of making good use of it in these final days. Since our first free use of this website on 31 March, I have viewed all the introductory part and some advanced parts of Dreamweaver MX 2004, movie maker 2 and Picasa 2. Besides, I have taken notes of some important processes in order not to forget. With the knowledge getting from this tutorial, I successfully made my first WebQuest by using Dreamweaver, made four short movies by using movie maker 2 to compose the video clips being taken by my digital camera, made several picture movies and a screen saver by using Picasa 2. I thought I really have learned something and I really want to continue my learning from this course and also from the free tutorial given by the website Automic Learning.

I told Debra my desire to continue viewing the free tutorial on the website of Automic Learning, she said if each student paid AUS$1.80, we will have one year’s free visit. I think that’s quite cheap, I hope all my classmates would agree to pay the money, so, we will continue our viewing it for another year.

My plan for the uni holidays

2006-05-04T18:20:00.000+10:00

From today 14th April on, the uni will have a four-day Easter holiday together with a week uni holiday, totally there will be a ten-day holiday. What will I do in these days? I am going to do the following three things: Firstly, write a paper on the features of English computer and network terms. Secondly, try to finish viewing the useful tutorial courses on the website of the autonomous learning, because the days are fewer and fewer toward the deadline of our free trial. Thirdly, try to make a small movie by using movie maker.

For a long time, I have the idea to write a paper on the English computer and network terms because in my using these terms, I found some interesting rules in their formation and Chinese translation, I just want to conclude these features. My paper is tend to analyse four kinds of word formations in English computer and network terms including abbreviations, compound words, loan words and noun groups, and also discuss the skills on how to translate English computer and network terms into Chinese by using literal translation, free translation, transliteration, non translation, and integration of free translation and transliteration.

Easter Morning Tea

2006-05-04T15:42:00.000+10:00

Today is April the 13th, the day ahead of the Easter Day. Being a foreigner and a non Christian, I have little knowledge about this particular day except knowing that people exchange coloured eggs to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As for the coloured eggs, I have an interesting thing to tell you. When I was in China, I once bought a beautiful coloured egg made of cloisonné, so in my deep mind, I had the idea that all coloured eggs are craftworks for people to enjoy their beauty, not the eggs for people to eat. But when I arrived in Brisbane in the early February, I saw large numbers of coloured eggs made of chocolate being sold in the market, later I found
lovely rabbits and even carrots, also made of chocolate joined the team of Easter gifts, but no craftworks of coloured eggs. I asked the old man sharing the house with me and the other four persons, he told me that the Aussies just use the coloured eggs made of chocolate to celebrate the Easter Day. Besides, I find another interesting phenomenon of the Easter Day in Australia. That is, in north hemisphere, the Easter Day is in spring, when all the plants begin to grow and to flower, and the chicks will break the crust of eggs to grow, so all these things have the symbolic meanings of the resurrection of Jesus Christ’s rebirth. But in the south hemisphere, in Australia, the Easter Day will be spent in autumn, so it will be difficult to find things having symbolic meanings of the rebirth of Jesus Christ.

Considering that this is the first time for Annly and I to spend the day, the TESOL Unit invited us to have the morning tea to celebrate it. Semmi organized the morning tea, and brought the Easter cross bans. During the morning tea, Semmi and other lectures explained us the history of this day, and Aussies’ habits of celebrating it, and told us the cross on the ban actually represent the cross suffering by Jesus Christ. Finally, to our surprise, TESOL Unit sent us each a chocolate rabbit as an Easter gift. Thanks a lot for TESOL Unit and their considerate lecturers, I really enjoy this day.

Nostalgia

2006-04-10T08:16:00.000+10:00

After reading a Chinese novel on line yesterday afternoon, I was deeply moved, not for the books’ attractions, but for its description of Chinese life I was so familiar with. I felt homesick, the book remind me of my parents, my husband and my cute girl. During my eight weeks’ stay in Brisbane, I learned a lot through attending the two lectures given by Debra. Besides, I still read some books, finished two papers and learned how to edit a webpage by using Dreamweaver. I tried to concentrate on all the above things and left me no free time to think about my family in China. I did well in the past eight weeks, but that novel caused my nostalgia. The attached is my daughter's picture when she was only two and a half years old, this year she will be twelve years old.

I finally find out the reason of my problems in editing my WebQuest

2006-04-08T16:17:00.000+10:00

For this whole week, I am busing creating my own WebQuest introducing Henan Province to my Aussie friends. During the night before last, I edited two video clips in my laptop and wanted to paste them in my WebQuest so that my webpage might be a multimedia one. But after I finished my editing, I could not remember the method to paste them in my webpage, so I had to wait till yesterday morning to know the method through the Atomic Learning Webpage. After coming to my office, where I could access the internet, I hurriedly saw the tutorial on line, and followed the steps taught by the Atomic Learning webpage to try to paste the two video clips on my webpage. Following the process was not a difficult thing, but when I pressed the previewing button, no sound, no video clip, I failed. I tried many times and failed the same number of times, I did not know the reason. In yesterday afternoon’s drop-in session of Debra, I consulted her, she told me that I might save the file in a form that the computer did not allow and asked me to use the hyperlink method to connect the video clips to my webpage. I though a while, and could not find a suitable way to set the hyperlink. So I just put them away. After I came back home, I wanted to try practicing the link again in my laptop, but, luckily, when I press the button F12, the video clip automatically played. So fantastic! I see! I used a Chinese software stalled in my laptop to edit the two video clips, but the computers in QUT did not install that software. As a result, they can not play the two video clips I edited.

I am making progress in my WebQuest.

2006-04-07T12:07:00.000+10:00

Thanks for Debra’s great help for providing us the username and password for the tutorial document of Dreamweaver 2004 MX. I have known the basic rules in editing a webpage by using Dreamweaver after learning from that free tutorial, and I have tried my best in the past four days to edit a WebQuest for my Aussis friends to get to know Henan province, China, where I come from.

As far as my own experience of learning Dreamweaver from the free tutorial course is concerned, I believe it is full of wonders and explorations. I learned it in the following way. First, viewing the free course one unit after another, then marking some important points down in my notebook, after that, trying to put the theory I just learned from the tutorial course into practice.

Two days later, after knowing the basic rules of editing a webpage, I began to edit my own WebQuest: first making a design, then getting resources from the internet, and finally editing the webpage. Till now, I have finished half of my webpage, and if it goes smoothly, I think I can finish it by the end of this weekend.

During the process of my editing the webpage, the major problems I met were the connection between two different frames of a webpage and the inserting a video document into the webpage. For the first problem, after trying for countless times, I successfully solved it, but the second is still an obstacle influencing my progress in my editing the webpage. I hope I can solve it in Debra’s drop-in session this afternoon.

Besides, I experienced a very funny thing in my editing my webpage. On Tuesday afternoon, after having spent the whole day in editing the webpage, I copied my file and prepared to continue my work at home in my laptop in the evening. But, when I came back home, opened the webpage, I found that I could only view, but not edit it. Thinking I might not copy the document completely, I stopped my work and tried to copy the file again the next day. On the next day, I opened Dreamweaver, clicked on the document to save it, but I failed. During the lunch time, I had a talk with my husband, a computer teacher on line, and told him my experience. After hearing my odd story of opening my webpage, he laughed, and told me that if I wanted to edit the webpage, I had to open the file through Dreamweaver, if I opened the webpage, what I could do is just to view, not to edit. Oh, I see! Dreamweaver is so complicated in editing and viewing!

a new discovery

2006-03-14T10:59:00.000+10:00

I have a new discovery of blog. Once you paste a post on it, you have to wait for sometime to let it show on the blog. Don't worry !

eeee

2006-03-12T16:15:00.000+10:00

A picture

2006-03-12T16:11:00.000+10:00

QUT

2006-03-12T16:09:00.000+10:00

dddddd

2006-03-05T12:52:00.000+10:00

ddddd

a picture

2006-03-05T09:53:00.000+10:00

paste a picture

third time

2006-03-04T16:20:00.000+10:00

This is the third time for me to practice, interesting.

2006-03-04T11:06:00.000+10:00

Hi, I am going to stay here for a year, wow! too long for me!