Attendance and participation are mandatory. Please let me know in advance if you must miss a class. Three or more unexcused absences will result in a lowered grade.
The materials for this class will be generated by you, the students. In groups of two or three, you will be required to located, prepare, and present at least two timely news stories appearing in print or in an on-line version of a news publication or service. We will create a schedule for presentations early in the semester. You will be responsible for copying the story for your classmates and for identifying and explaining difficult vocabulary. You will also be responsible for identifying the five W's of the story, who, what, when, where, and why. Finally, you will need to prepare some discussion questions for each story. Additional instructions will be given in class.
The instructor will do his best to locate related audio and video files for each of your stories. However, if you can find related audio or video files on your own, that would be wonderful. Audio and video files will be used for your midterm and final projects.
Your midterm and final projects will comprise listening comprehension questions based on audio and video files related to your news stories.
Attendance and participation: 25%
Story presentations: 25%
Midterm project: 25%
Final project: 25%
Our Moodle is located at http://cailab.net/moodle. You are required to create a personal account on the Moodle within the first two weeks of the semester. Please use the same name for your Moodle account that you use in our class. If you use an English name in class, please use the same name on your Moodle account, either as your username, or if that's not possible because that name is already taken, then as the name in your profile. If you use your Chinese name in class, please use the same with your Moodle account. In short, the teacher needs to be able to look at your Moodle account and know who you are. Another way to make this easier for the teacher is to add your student number to your profile. We will talk about this in class. Also, please use a picture of yourself on your profile so we all know who you are. Don't worry, we'll go over all this in class!
Please feel free to contact me at any time.
Email: dan(at)cailab.net