"Did you collect anything this week?"

No, I did not. But hopefully I could collect some next week. So far I can only remember that I once used "Obama's health care report" example to make sentences when teaching and at the same time reviewing the vocabularies, like "medical, reform, insurance..." (医疗，改革，保险）I asked one student, "do you support his health care reform?" in chinese. She answered, "no, i don't like his reform". It is potentially a good topic for discussion or dialogue. However, I was a little bit bounded by my drill thinking and time restrict. Or, maybe I was a little bit disappointed in her answer. I missed this opportunity. I forgot they are already third year students. They can do it.

However, for my first year class, when I taught the very basic phonetic symbols, I tried my best to make connection between the new knowledge and what I know about what students might know. For example, when I teach the sound "ao", I told them: "when somebody punch you or hurt you physically, what is your first reaction? Hurt, right? And you would also make the sound like 'aw" which is very close to this Chinese final sound". I think it may help to memorize it and my performing talent can bring more fun to the class. I really love to see their smiles when they heard that. That means they understand what I told them. Or it indicates what I told them make sense to them. They may think Chinese language, or specifically the pronounciation, is not that difficult. They make it, feel it and identify it in their life. The connections between what they know and what they learn are what i am trying to create in my first year teaching. For me, that is the foundation for all future communication on language and culture.