(1) Music lesson: "Ka-Ching" by Shania Twain.
P.S. Would Li Xiupeng and Xiao Hao again be so kind and bring your sound systems to the classroom please?! I have the music on a USB memory stick which I will bring along. Thank you. [Pse warn me at least a day before class if you can't help out!]
(2) Group discussion about holiday highlights and disappointments.
Note:
This is our first lesson for the new semester. We will continue with the same concept as on the other website and for all your comments, you would be allocated one mark (one percentage point) towards your final semester score. This time the total score for EC comments would be 20 marks.
Please submit your comments BEFORE each lesson as the purpose of this system is to encourage you to go through the lesson material before we have the lesson. I am not going to consider your comments if done after the lesson of any specific day (though you are welcome to comment after the lesson again, but your marks would only be for comments prior to the week's lesson). Students' command of English is not good enough to attend the class without being prepared for the lesson. Diligent students would use this opportunity to improve their language skills.
Finally, I am only going to discuss the website comments with you in the first class. Thereafter it is up to you what you decide about participation on this website. Students that don't participate at all, can't expect to pass this semester. And students that don't comment regularly, should not expect to do well this semester. I am doing this to help my students. If you don't want to accept my good intentions with this initiative, I can't help for that. But I trust that you would be sensible enough to make use of another opportunity (as you get here) to secure yourself a better future. :)
Replies
Glad you have good intentions for this semester about English, Zhang Qingbao! I have also read two books this holiday ... but mine were in English! What about yours ...?! :)
Glad to hear that, Li Zhiping! But this website is much easier to access that the other one, because the administrators (Josef and Tara, and some others) are frequently on the website and can fix problems quickly when necessary. Use this site now for your own benefit; you will never regret it.
Yes Shirley, there are many such schemes like the Sanlu one that are still going on today. People want to make money as fast as they can with no regard to other people. I don't see it will stop. It appears to me that the world's people get worse by the day. Sorry to hear about the bus episode. China has so many people and with so many migrants moving to the city, many people still acts uncivilized as they don't know how to respect others. As long as we don't also become like that and allow them to drag as down to their level. We must make a difference wherever we go. :)
Good comment, thank you Wendy. Yes, every coin has two sides! And in this case, it is good to follow that Chinese saying and move away from the popular (the extreme) perception that money and wealth is all that is important ...
Thank you, Yi Xizhuoma, for your comment. I hope your friends from Tibet will follow your good example! ;-)
Yes, Ren Zhihong, I agree, the people of today chase after money more and more and this is the message for the youth too ... "get more money, get good jobs for more money; money and wealth is everything; etc". And there is nothing we can do about it; the new generations are growing up in this 'money-race' and they think it is normal. But happiness doesn't lie in money and wealth ...
Wow, you and Amy Chen were in the same city this holiday and you both can do skiing! That must have been your highlight, Zhang Qian?! I'll hear from you in class on Wednesday!
You and Bao Zhengchao have something in common, Sabrina ... both of you don't like the song! But that doesn't matter as we can't all like the same songs and type of music (the world would have been such a boring place of that was true!). The message from the song is what is important here, I believe. And from the comments I noticed that most students have identified it and are not in agreement with that kind of self-destructive and hypocritical lives the North Americans used to live (living as wealthy, but rotting in debt).
Yes, I am happy too to see the old faces again! About your double accounts, I'll ask Tara to cancel your second one (the one with your name starting with a capitol letter as I see you are using the other account). We are not allowed to have more than one account here. I have two, but that is for practical reasons to test some of my actions on the website (without having to ask students every time) and they'd granted me permission for that. So, hope it's okay with you.
I didn't cancel it as I can't! But I ask them to do it and they did! But they said that you could have done it by yourself as the settings to your profile makes provision for that. Doesn't matter. Now you have one account again. And you can go to your profile settings and change your name again if you want to (for example, change your name again to a capital letter, Sabrina!). Your choice! ;-)
Annabel, I think Shania Twain's composed this song just to reflect the money worship she's experienced in North America (Canada and of course the US). Maybe she's living like that too, but it's my guess she's more likely trying to expose the hypocrisy of the North Americans (believing money is everything, buying what they set their eyes on, pretend to be wealthy, but knee deep in debt). I'm very worried that China may follow that road too ...
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