SOFIA AFIDCHAO

SA

I had been in the teaching profession for many years teaching students coming from different cultures.

Location Philippines

Achievements

Activity

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    How to ask someone’s plans

    Thanks for all these great lessons

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Weekly oral task

    Ni hao!
    Wo jiao Sofia. Wo shi philippine ren
    Hen gaoxing ren shi ni

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Welcome to Week 2

    Thanks for the insights

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Responding to feedback

    Thanks for the review I got from @ Sinphaxay Thongsombath.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Discuss and share with us

    I'm working in China currently so I want to learn mandarin.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Your final essay

    Sharing with you my essay:
    https://write.as/tzmiekbicdrdt.md

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What next?

    Thank you. the essay writing activities are great!

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Evaluating Chaohua's first draft – Part 1

    The criteria for organisation and ideas are achieved. I was just thinking if he could have added some statistical evidence to his claims to make it more convincing.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Writing your plan

    Essay Plan:
    Background: Baguio City - The most visited city in the Philippines. It's the summer capital of the Philippines. It has cool weather with an altitude of 5100 feet. Its located at 1600 meters above sea level and nestled within the mountain range.
    Thesis Statement: Why Baguio is the summer capital of the Philippines.
    Paragraph 1
    Paragraph...

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Deciding which ideas and evidence to use

    The diagram is indeed helpful in mapping out the ideas: which to include and not to include

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What next?

    thank you for the learnings.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Compound sentences and linking words

    To help my students remember the linking words, I let them use the code: FANBOYS - for, and, neither, but, or, yet, so

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Writing about your home town

    There are more than 7000 islands in the Philippines.
    There is a dearth of trees now to give space to buildings.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What next?

    Thank you for the inputs and suggestions. The activities and quizzes are very helpful.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What essay title would you choose and why?

    Discuss the reasons why learning the English language is important. I have chosen this topic because I have a good background in it and it has a general significance.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Choosing a title

    Very good suggestion.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    How to greet each other in Chinese

    Ni hao. Wo shi Sofia. Wo shi philippine ren. Wo shi laoshi. Hen gaoxing ren sheni.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Welcoming you to the course

    Hi. I'm Sofia, currently working in China. I'm hoping to improve my Chinese language with this course.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What next?

    One thing I learned from this weeks lesson is to understand the essay question before developing the content. Thanks

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Write your own paragraph

    I'm from the Philippines, "The pearl of the orient seas", where you can find over 7,000 islands, fine beaches and coastlines.
    In the past, these islands, beaches, seas, and coastlines were guilelessly pristine. People would relish their beauty and charm. Nowadays it's sad to note that most of these islands and waters have been polluted brought about by the in...

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Xiao's second attempt

    His essay has improved.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Read and comment on Xiao's first attempt

    Content: his ideas are evidenced by his actual observation and his knowledge of his country's history. These evidence gain for him trust from his readers.
    Organization: I think he has to work on his connectors as he develops his essay to make the transition from one point to another easier to follow.
    Language: he has to check on his word choice, spelling,...

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What ideas would you include in this essay?

    There are a lot of things to talk about the past and the now of my country though I would zero in the culture of learners as this has a great impact on me as a teacher.
    In the past, students are more focused, critical, and follow instructions without any hint of grumbling. Today, learners are faced with a lot of distractions more so those from technology. I...

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What do you think academic writing is?

    I'm both a teacher and researcher. I teach writing but I never really considered myself as a writer. Joining this course I believe will help me fill in the gaps of my writing skills.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What to put in and what to leave out

    A. Items to include:
    1. Learning objectives for direction
    2. Links to other subjects, careers, and local links to the real world.
    3. Practical or contextualised activities.
    B. Items not to include:
    1. Timings
    2. Prescribed assessments and activities
    A factor that influenced my choice: Our curriculum is test-driven, hence learning is focused on...

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Your current scheme of learning

    star: straightforward curriculum linking learning to real-life situations
    star: free implementation of teaching strategies according to students' level of proficiency.
    wish: To teach to the construct instead of to the test.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    The take home messages

    Thank you for these well - mapped pointers. They are indeed important reminders.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Your learners' profiles

    Base on the result of the entry test my students have different proficiency levels: pre-intermediate and beginner.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Learner profiles and assessing competence

    At the beginning of classes, I require my students to fill in their "profile cards". These help me to get some information to understand and relate with them better.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Assessing language learning

    I see my learners are getting more confident in expressing themselves. I think this is because of my continued reassurance that "It's ok to make mistakes".

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO replied to Bernard Lewis
    Feedback on talk

    yes..this is also what i usually do. Giving an opportunity for student to self-correct their errors and it usually works.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Using Visuals in the Classroom

    Since i teach ESL, visual images are always an ingredient in my lesson. i deliver my lessons through power point presentation so all these pictures, video, and audio are easily embedded.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Visual Journeys - using picturebooks to generate interest and talk

    Great resource material. I use visual images to teach vocabulary. I also use pictures for speaking activities, where I show each group a picture with different settings and personas. The group will put life to the people in the picture by creating dialogues according to the situatuation suggested in the picture, then they act it out in the class.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Planning for student talk

    We do role plays and group works. Pair work is not feasible due to our big class population.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Genres in your classroom

    I asked my students to write a narrative essay since we just reconvened after the mid- autumn holidays. I mapped out the features needed including stating purpose of the essay, and including the three important parts of the essay. In each part,I asked questions to guide them. For language, I reminded them to use the past tense of the verb which they learned...

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Giving feedback on our learners' writing

    I never tried recording my feedback. I think this is interesting and I would like to try it.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Our learners' writing

    The essay has the basic parts of an essay: introduction, body, conclusion. Background information is provided which I think is important to pursuade the reader. The conclusion is straightforward but has a strong impact on the reader.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    The genre cycle

    Thanks for this. I usually just do the 'building.. and modelling...then to individual constructing...' due to time constraints. But as presented here I think it's best to do all the steps..

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Farewell!

    Thank you. Awaiting for more courses from you.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Key learning

    I would follow through the explicit vocabulary instructions, focusing on active practice. Thank you for all the learnings and enlightenment.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Teaching vocabulary across a school

    thanks for sharing the PPT.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Which activities are the most effective?

    i usually use the Frayer model and word association which is similar to word mapping. I would like to try the Paint chart model.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    Why and how pupils choose their words to study

    I usually do this by asking students to fill in their vocabulary charts with these categories: words I know, words I know a little, and words I don't know. These give the students a chance to play an important role in vocabulary instruction which is often times only given to the teacher to do.

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    How to use strategies of word selection

    Thanks for the illustration. But I'm still not confident with how to categorize between useful and important words. Actually even in the illustration, Rebecca was saying "... put bide in difficult words but I think it’s a really useful word". The term "useful" and "important" here are a little tricky. I hope you can give a more concrete example or non-example...

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    How can you choose words to teach?

    How do you exactly put these methods in the teaching process? is this a teacher or student tasks?

  • SOFIA AFIDCHAO made a comment
    What does the research say?

    I didn't know that reading aloud is one strategy to teach vocabulary.