Teaching English to Kids in the Family with Duolingo: Tips and Thoughts
Disclaimer: I don’t work at Duolingo. I did not get paid to write this article. I welcome any discussions.
Three months ago, my mom, currently living in China, gently asked me on a phone call, regarding whether I’d be ok with spending some time with my niece and cousin and tutor them English.
“Of course, of course!” I told my mom, “you don’t have to convince me any further.”
I always enjoy the task of teaching English, and having studied applied linguistics at grad school gives me even more confidence to say: I not only am interested in it but also know what I am doing. Well, I do sometimes go back and review my “teaching philosophy” that I wrote for one of the courses I was taking.
So, how did I get started with the lessons with them? To gain more understanding of their own proficiency levels, I decided to tutor them individually as a start.
Challenged by Choosing The Color of Your Kanken Backpack? I Want to Help
I wanted to give my boyfriend a Kanken backpack as a gift. I know he always wanted one, so it should be a very safe gift. But what color? When asked, he said he wasn’t sure.
Could I help? I asked myself.
What can I do to help him make a decision of the color of this Kanken backpack without rushing him, and more importantly, while making him that he knew it was his own decision?
When Home Is Where Instagram Is Illegal
From a 10-day trip back home to a Netflix documentary about Instagram.
There is a phrase between a good friend of mine, Mel, and me — after she returned to China after four years in the US that seemed like a lifetime we shared — “Instagram freedom.” Whether she has Instagram freedom or not at the moment completely depends on whether she is physically in China or not. Taking a vacation traveling to Europe, yes, she is back to “having Instagram freedom”; having dinner at home in Beijing, no, she does not have Instagram freedom.
A little bit of unnecessary quick background info:
Do you know that Instagram is blocked under the great firewall of China? Maybe you do. Maybe you also know that all Google products (of course, it includes Gmail, YouTube, or the Google search engine), Netflix, Facebook, and most academic websites (e.g., my Alma Mater, UCSD), are blocked too?