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First try!

Wednesday morning we went on SL to go through an online meeting instead of having a class in the so-called classroom. First of all, I haddifficulties in moving because I had no idea how to move in SL; however, people seemed not to respond to my question. Maybe there were too many people chatting there or they didn’t get what I asked, maybe……QQ. In freebie island, I met H who was a freebie from germany and I instructed him how to go to other places but he didn’t really understand what I talked about. Perhaps because there was something wrong with my instruction (not clear and simple enough) or his English ability was not as high as I thought, he couldn’t immediately understand what I was trying to tell him.
Most of the time he responded “nice” to me, I thought maybe it was one of the clues to his English ability. He didn’t have enough English vocabulary or didn’t have much idea about pragmatics which meant he was not good at social talks in English. What’s more, his sentences were not grammatically correct.

hams: how are you?
Amandast: pretty good!
hams: nice
Amandast: u know how to move
hams: cann you speak germany
Amandast: sorry i can't
hams: ok
Amandast: well actuallu i speak chinese
hams: are you from a long time in this program? (not a correct sentence but I could guess what he meant)
hams: oh nice but i can not speak it
Amandast: not really, i'm a newbee
hams: ok this is the first day for me here
hams: i dont know it good (should be “well” instead of good)
Amandast: wow it's my second day
hams: oh nice
Amandast: me either
hams: and from where you are?
hams: ?
Amandast: u can go to newbie heaven first , there are lotsa of free stuff
Amandast: Taiwan
hams: oh nice

Several minutes later, he asked somebody else how to get to other places and left me behind even though I was still talking to him. At that moment, I felt he didn’t know what the hell etiquette is. A conversation without closing irritated me.

ortiz: whats up hams
hams: i want go to anothe place
ortiz: do you have any property?
hams: i dont now nothing
hams: no
Amandast: property? what did u mean
hams: i dont whant to be here
hams: is not nice
hams: how can i go o another city
Amandast: haha
hams: ?
Amandast: use search
hams Xue: then'
hams Xue: ?
Amandast Dezno: but i haven't teleported successfully so far
Amandast: BTW, hams u know how to move
Amandast: i have no idea
Amandast: how to waLK
(Then he didn’t answer me anymore and just walked away to talk to somebody else)
When I chatted with my classmates, I sometimes coded switch in English and Chinese. The reason why we did this was that we were short of vocabulary.

Amandast: 哇靠!!!!
Amandast: where's my hair
Amandast: my haven't plan to 出家so far
Cherry1213: ??
wienier: ???
Amandast: hu~it shows up
Amandast: when i log in my hair's gone

#
Cherry1213 Lemon: press 即時通
wienie: cause the window opens slowly
Cherry1213: and there is log chat

Educational Uses of Second Life

Turn into the body

Wednesday night, in order to get more free outfits such as gowns, I went to Alady Island but there were only a few people over there and it seems that I couldn’t get free stuffs in Alady Island. Actually, I felt kind of embarrassed because as a newbie, my outfit, hair and accessories looked unlovely. :( People I met in other places always wear gorgeous outfits which were suitable for the setting.

I searched “dance” on the bar and then chose to go to “Sweethearts Jazz Greeter”. There people were dressing nicely except me; therefore, I tried many times to accost people for asking where I can get free outfits besides to Freebie Heaven.

At first, I got sort of shocked because some people didn’t really talk to u and I was afraid if I would say something wrong to offend others, I would deliberate before I said it. Somehow I still got hurt at first for being ignored and left. Fortunately, I thought of Emma’s caution in class that we might have cultural shocks in SL so I didn’t give up to accost people. That was my first experience in exploring SL. Later I met a woman, Cherry, she guided me to the board where I could get free and gorgeous gowns, hairs and accessories. By the way, she also sent me many landmarks. When I was asking questions in public, a man who heard I needed free outfits gave much stuff to me for free even though I was not talking to him. How nice!

New ME

Then something interesting happened. I accosted a man who was dressed differently from other people in Sweethearts Jazz Greeter. Almost everyone was dressed up but he wore the worn outfit like a teenager. Indeed I appreciated his outfits. When I asked why he was dressed differently from others, he responded “I’m too poor to have something better”. I said “I am poor too”. Then he gave me 1000 dollars. WOW
He also told me I need to work on my shape hard and gave me some advices about which parts to promote. During the long chat, he told me lots of things and took me to explore other places. The most impressive words about SL he said was “it’s more than a game. Before he left, he gave me another 1000 dollars. How nice the experience was for me!

In the communication, I found out that people use lots of abbreviations and through the process of negotiation, we got more opportunities to practice our target language, maybe sometimes learning the tricks of asking for explanation.

P: mm You r on a very good way for your AV..
A: AV?
P: shape= AV= Avatar

People would often spell words wrongly but they didn’t mind if it would not cause misunderstanding of meaning. Sometime, there were some self-corrections happening. I think one of the reason is that P didn’t want to confuse me because I have been confused about what he talked about once. At that time, he didn’t correct his spelling but just instruct me in another way.

P:I can get somem oney (money)from my reserve. do you need?
A: what did u mean
P:mmm take what I give you please..
A: ok

In the negotiation sequence, we request, check comfirmation, indicate our understanging, agreement or nonagreement. Through the process, we somehow learn the way to communicate with and undestand each other. I use many emoticons and the man I talked to show his humor which made the atmosphere more relaxed between two stangers like us. We always deleted question or capital marks which would not interfere the understanding of meaning in our conversation.

A: what did u mean (clarification request & omission of the question mark)
P: mmm take what I give you please..(instruction)
A: ok
A: wow!
A: thank u
P: its my pleasure
P: love to help you
A: oh~so sweet
P: but you must work on your shape
A: how
P: mmm your eyes....
P: too too big
A: hahahah
A: i'll work on it immediately:P (emoticon)
P: mm when you can..
P: mm your nose is too big also.. its just an advice
A: thanks for tou opinion
A: where are u from
P: Mongolia
P: no.. kidding (humor)
A: hahaha
P: france

Annotation:USING DIGITAL STORIES TO IMPROVE LISTENING COMPREHENSION WITH SPANISH YOUNG LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

I 100% agree with the perspective that “stories can offer a valuable way of contextualizing and introducing new language, making it meaningful and memorable”. Teaching contents such as grammar, vocabulary and so on could bore students if they are imparted individually in sections like the way what Taiwanese English textbooks are used to being, including vocabulary, grammar and reading. Students will learn how to use the word instead of just remember the spelling of the word. Collocating with pictures could enhance the memory and make it easy to understand. It is more effective to arouse young learners interest by stories with abundant of pictures or even attract anime on the web than on the boring textbook with dead pictures. “This verbal information is commonly complemented with non-verbal information in the form of large pictures, which helps children reconstruct the storyline.” Through the design of interaction with the computer, learners might feel like play games rather than study so it may increase the ratio of exposure to the target language and decrease repulsion of studying English.
Computer-based technology is underutilized not only in the primary classroom but also in the middle school in Taiwan. Therefore, middle school teachers who would like to make use of internet-based teaching in Taiwan might encounter difficulties in non-universality of technology usage. For learners, at the beginning, sometimes it is indeed an uneasy task to deal with sophisticated technology no matter for elementary school students or college students so teachers’ instructions are indispensible to help students overcome tech difficulties.

Review5

http://gossipgirl-blog.cwtv.com/?m=200810 Oct. 31th
A blog serves as a channel of communication between blogger and readers (the audio company and the audience here). However, from the posting on Oct.31st, we see a 14-year-old Italian girl, Francesca, wrote down her opinion and then corrected the spelling error herself. Actually, it doesn’t matter for others to understand what the meaning is but she apologized for it. For some non-native speakers like Francesca or us, we pay much attention on correctness of grammar, spelling and so on so once we make a mistake of these; we will care about it much more than native speakers even though it won’t lead to misunderstanding of meaning.

On the contrary, a native speaker, Elina, made an indifferent mistake on her response but she didn’t even care about it because it doesn’t result in misunderstanding.

The entertaining blog serves as not only a channel of communication but also an environment of English learning. Learners acquire English unconsciously through voluntary entertainment as well as recreation.

What’s more, we see how native speakers use text characters as we typing abbreviation like ㄅㄅ(掰掰) even though we don’t have foreign friends who chat with us on MSN.

Music Videos of Gossip Girl

Over You

I'm With You


Secret - The Pierces


It's too late to apologize This song is my favorite.>/////<