Chris' Wonderland

Paraphrasing Paraphrasing is one of the most effective skills in language learning. However, it is one of the most difficult tasks for EFL learners. A lot of learners are usually confused with the big term which makes them mistake it for summarizing. Paraphrasing and summarizing indeed overlap in some way, but they are not exactly the same. Citing from Cambridge Advanced Dictionary, paraphrasing is a skill to clearly repeat something written or spoken by using the presenter own words, often in a humorous or a simpler form. One thing needs to be emphasized: the presenter, either the speaker or the writer, cannot loose the original meaning; instead, he or she needs to stick with the primary information and make it clear. By contrast, summarizing is to express the most important facts or ideas about something or someone in a short and clear form. There are three kinds of summaries in general. They are brief, extended, and summary-response summaries. A brief summary only focuses on the aut...

Republic of Creativity Today, I read an article named "An Introduction to Critically Thinking in Picture Books," written by an elementary school teacher. Normally, I won't pay much attention to the Chinese articles especially the ones that refer to teaching reflection. After all, I had plenty of reflection in my brain and also published not a few articles under my belt. However, this article mentioned a special term that caught my eye. It is ATDE. ATDE stands for asking, thinking, doing, and evaluation. Although it is quite common to see the components, it reminds me whether I apply them fully in my teaching when I am preparing for the teaching job next semester. In fact, teaching material in English is not difficult for English teachers, but designing activities is. At least, it is the challenging ones for me to design activities to achieve the teaching purposes and please my students at the same time. Well, well, just ask, think, do, and evaluate. Haha, it is not for st...

Recharge Myself It is happy to see my being vibrant and alive. However, there are times when I feel burning out or running down. It seems the right time. A sound, coming from my heart, reminds me that I need to figure out the underlying cause for exhaustion and inefficiency, and I need to find a way to recharge my battery. Take meditation? Or tune in a moment of silencce? Taking an honest look at how I have been thinking, feeling and acting, I find a certain behavior pattern and relationship that is out of alignment with who I am now. I need to cut down some situations which are draining my energy and time. Can I get clear on the root cause? Can I weed it out and better direct my flow of energy in the future? I hope so.

Jessica's Creative Story

A Fishing Boat vs A Maritime Defense Frigate The event of Tiaoyutai Islands occurred again! Territorial issue? Perhaps. But it is about the lives of human beings! I don't know why the Japanese maritime defense frigate "willfully" rammed the fishing boat. The fishermen could die for this collision. In fact, if the frigate really thinks the boat intrudes their territory, she could cry out to drive the fishing boat, not colliding it directly. It seems like a strong man who rapes a lady without any weapon accuses her of "committing adultery." Of course, it is for sure that people in Taiwan gave a spontaneous outcry against the "outrageous act." But if there were not, would our government take any further action? I really appreciate that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has guts to ask the Taipei representative in Japan to return to Taipei for so-called a home consultation. After all, this incident is promising to escalate into a Tiaoyutai crisis.

Practice makes perfect! It is a permanent saying for anyone. See! Here is the evidence.

To follow the flow of the modern society, it is necessary to keep track of all the fragments. Likewise, leaving some tracks is important, too. Here is an example for you to see whether time indeed changes someone in somewhere.