What I have learned from NECTFL conference

The Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages was held in Baltimore from March.7 to 10. I have attended the conference in my student rate. And I would like to share my experience and what I have learned from the conference.

The first impressive session I went is a Mead Fellow Session: Teacher Training Program for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language. Actually its targeted audience is higher education teachers. But I also benefited from this session from his culture shock part. The presenter illustrated the differences between Chinese classrooms and American ones from the aspects of school law, privacy, sensitivity, instructional changes, etc. 

The second session is The Zen of Content-Based Language Teaching. I did not get any idea before I got to the session. What is Zen? What! Students could understand Zen before they have a higher proficiency of Chinese? Ms. Lin told me that it is totally a success. They knew that. They can learn Zen and they felt the classroom environment is really relaxing. What is Zen? Zen is eating, sleeping, washing dishes, wearing cloth. Zen is everything. Also, there are many activities that the teacher uses in her classroom. I wanna explain two of them. The first is creating Chinese Haiku by students. Here are requirements for Chinese Haiku: three lines; rhyme is not necessary; not limited to the number of words; express Zen spirit. Ms. Lin also gave us some examples from their students' free style Chinese Haiku.
1. 你让泡绑你
   可是泡已经放下
   你应该无住

2. 找不到宝贝
   我自己坐着哭
   看到宝贝在里面

3. 如果你要成佛
   那你已经错了
   必须做自己

4. 安心后
   别人有
   什么罪？

5. 我见山，是山
   我见什么都不是
   因为山是无

6. 不说也是说，不做也是做
   无住，不代表无爱
   空，不证明无暖

The second one I wanna share is skit. It is an interesting part for college students. Ms. Lin asked students to record their video outside the classroom and show the video in the classroom.

Another session I would like to share is Integrating 21st Century Skills into Standard-based Chinese. As a graduate student now, I know standard-based, which is 5Cs. But I never know 21st century skills. They are Life and Career skills; Learning and Innovation skills; Information, Media and Technology skills; and Core subjects and Themes. 

NECTFL Teacher of the Year Session is so amazing. Ms. Lee showed us Chinese Teachers' Bag of Tricks. I like it. She described several game-like activities to us about how to motivate students and involve them. 
1. An ice-broke activity - create a book and self-introduce

2. Use a piece of paper to summarize what learnt

3. Build a house and introduce your family. You can use this in the family topic. This is really fun. 

4. Go Fish. Use these small cards to play "Go Fish". Everyone got 5 cards. One talks to whom next to her, "do you have football?" or "do you like playing football?". If the other doesn't have football in one's hand, one would say "no ,I don't like playing football.". And the first one get one from left cards. 

5. The same materials with the 4th. All cards should be face down. Flip one, and memorize it. The other student flip another one. If you remember that, flip two same. Another game is bingo game.

6. Wild wind blow. The teacher says "Wild wind blow, wild wind blow." Students ask "Blow what?" Then the teacher says "Blow whom wearing white clothes." Then those who wearing white clothes should stand up and blow to another place. The one who does not get a seat is out. 

7. Heart Attack. The teacher puts pictures on the desk one by one. But the teacher should say different words with the picture shows. Only if the teacher says the same words with the same picture. Students can put their hands on the picture and he owns all the pictures on the desk.

8. Body parts and position can be taught in this way!

Let's go through to another session. This session integrates technology to second language teaching. The first is sketchup, with which you can design a house or room by yourselves. The second one is Google map. You can show a trip in front of your students. The third one is iMovie/Photo story. You can create your own stories with audio, visual, etc. 

The next session I attended is from Noah Geisel, the Teacher of the Year by ACTFL. He described his culture and communities activities in his session. And now I'm considering a topic which combine culture and second language learning together. It's a wonderful and fun topic. Here is the link: www.tinyurl.com/culture-communities.And here's Noah's culture RAFT: www.tinyurl.com/cultureraft.

Next I wanna share the session:Acquiring vocabulary: It's not just flashcard. Here 's the link:https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8yc9zP3fajJNnpoMERtZGVwZXc/edit?usp=sharing