Annusmirabilis·Style

今天的聽課感想

昨天周老師來到了公司，於是我今天一大早和Rachael一起被支到了沙河，一個叫做北京科技職業學院的地方聼來自Arizona State University的Donald and Billie Enz的關於兒童腦神經發育的講座。兩位都是美國學界知名的專家，而且都是教師世家出身，說起話來很一般的老外不一樣，語調適中，用詞講究，吐字清晰，理解起來一點困難都沒有。嗯，一看就是專家。

今天講課的内容，基本上把我對幼兒語言習得的認識又往前推進了一些。原來語言學，尤其是language acquisition這一領域，局限于一嵗半（18個月）大左右的兒童。因爲從那個時候開始，家長能夠明顯感覺到孩子張口説話，從一個字，兩個字，簡短句最終到像成人一樣的使用語言。不過今天，兩位專家把我的這種認識提前到兒童的pre-baby階段。雖然，在孩子沒有出生前，乃至於出生后的十八個月内，幾乎吐不出一個有意義的單詞，但是從母親懷孕4個月開始，他們的學習生涯就已經開始了。

具體的内容不談太多了，今天發現了有意義的事情。

第一，儅孩子出現胎動，用小腳開始蹬踹的時候，可以用手指輕輕的按被踹的位置。很多時候，通過這種方法可以實現和孩子的互動。往往孩子可以更用力的蹬踹，把你的手指推回。你在輕輕的按壓別的部位，有的時候他們還可以跟隨招你的手指，到下一個地方去……我覺得很有意思。誰要是正在懷孕，可以照此嘗試一下。

第二，愛，對孩子非常重要，要用一切辦法告訴孩子，你愛他們。因爲這可以減緩緊張和不安的情緒，可以產生相互的依賴和信任感，可以降低孩子的心跳頻率，使他們能夠更加的專心于自己的對知識的習得。“要有愛！”這雖然是依據很kuso的話，但是確實是真的。

除了講座以外，今天還有一些別的成果。今天見到了金色陽光、小橡樹的創立者，他們都是中國業界的精英了，一家一家的把幼兒園拉扯大，自然有很多心得。聊天的時候，得知了教育學這個專業在美國似乎並不好混。不過現在只能詳細調查了。 

PS：今天回家突然看到對外漢語群裏面的一個消息，說漢辦打算在今年12月底準備一次教師資格認證考試。怎麽說呢？準備了兩年多的新考綱沒有出來，現在準備說考試了。這不是找罵呢嗎？純粹被耽誤了。

PS：不論如何，還是要好好復習。

PS：天氣變涼了，樹葉變成了美麗的顔色。公司有一縷特別的，從靠近樹幹的一側開始到枝梢，由綠到紅，一路變過去，特別好看。只可惜，所有美麗的東西都很短暫（除了愛）。由於相機和照相技術的問題，畫面不是很好看。

Ideas on Child Language

Jean Stilwell Peccei in her famous work Child Language introduced us a vivid picture of how children acquired their mother tongue perfectly within five years or so. 

Since every language is a unique and rather complex symbol system, such a quick mastery is definitely an astonishing, interesting yet confusing phenomenon. Pros and experts has carried out thousands of experiments and figured out lots of great theories, among which those of Skinner, Chomsky and Piaget are the most renowned ones. Peccei’s Child Language is based on their theories and is trying to tell us every detailed fact of children acquiring their mother language in every aspect ranging from labelling items, producing sounds to making adult conversations. 

The recent research proves that children do not learn their language by imitating their parents, nor do they have a set of inborn systematic rules of language, they acquire their language by looking, listening and testing through thousands of mistakes and failures. The greatest value of this is that children play an active role in their language acquisition. Therefore rather than your teaching your kids they learn themselves. 

As it is proved, there are many phases of children acquiring a language, the first of which is the one-word period. In this period (around one month old), babies tend to use one word to express themselves. In most cases their word is labelling things, but sometime they also try to convey more complicated meaning by one simple word, for example a baby pointing a plate of biscuit said, ‘biscuit,’ through this it was trying to tell its mother that it wanted a piece of biscuit. 

The author then talks about how kids understand the meaning of a word. It is largely because of the mistakes of underextension and overextension. Mistakes is a special way that help children grow up and learn more and more about the world. A kid may firstly indicate all animals with four feet crawling on the ground as cats, but when he gets the word dog, he understands the differences between cats and dogs. His understanding towards the world thus improved.  

It is observed that the first 50 words a child acquires are mainly nouns and verbs that cause something to move. But when they grow older, they are ready for something more difficult than that. They learn comparable adjectives. Although it seems easy to adult, it is quite a challenge to kids. They shall understand that a tall boy may be still shorter than a short adult. That is, something is relatively tall, long or old, and it is only a matter of comparison. 

When kids equipped themselves with enough words, they entered the two word stage of their language acquisition. There are several kinds of word combination of their two word sentences; this is obvious evidence that kids are developing their awareness of the semantic role of a certain word. They begin to understand that different meaning elements could be combined together to produce the overall meaning of a sentence. 

Experts tend to use the length of kids’ sentences to describe their language development. I personally believe it is partially because that the complicacy of English language is closely related to its length. Whatever, when kids get older and older, they use more words in their sentences, and they gradually aware the grammatical role of the words they apply in their sentences. That helps them use correct cases and tenses in their conversation. Of course they make lots of mistakes. But this is strong evidence that they are testing their sentences and they are trying to decode the mysterious regulations of English language by themselves. 

Children then learn to answer yes/no question and to use auxiliary verbs, and that help them to understand and answer WH questions. And then kids use several ways to make words. And finally they start real conversation.  

This is how children get their language semantically. But in the meantime, they still have to learn speaking their language out. Articulations are tricky. Sometime it is very difficult for a kid. So children automatically omit something in their pronunciation. This omission helps them make the pronunciation easier to fetch. They have lots of other ways to reduce the complicacy. But their mistakes and failure in communication will tell them which is acceptable and which is not. 

This is of course a very brief summary of the book and the technical part is not the most important thing in this matter. The most important thing is, kids will acquire their language themselves. They learn from errors and they grow from failures. So have some faith with your child, they will manage all.  

It shall be noticed that this is a book concerning child language as native language. Is it all true when applying to kids learning English as a second language? Is it all true when applying to kids with a multilingual background? Further studies are still needed.  

英語寫作

英語寫作得有兩种能耐：

把很多的事情用盡可能少的語言表達出來，

把很少的事情用盡可能多的語言表達出來。

教师毁了英语？

既然有这个题目，说明第一次试讲是失败了。十八中终究还是一种奢望，在如今的这个毕业就失业的年代，一个教学质量好又离家近的学校是可欲而不可求的。当然讲课的时候自我感觉良好，但是老师不这样认为，所以我就跟设想中的每天骑车上班，带个耳机装酷的日子说拜拜了。

第一次试讲的失败给了我好多的教训，也给了我第二次试讲的机会。这回是在第五十七中学。我们出人意料的在校门口遇到了一个质量不错的保安。不像别的学校的那样作威作福，说话挺和气，给我的感觉良好。这回是给老师讲，我是一头雾水，心里忐忑不安。好在我在比较靠后的位置，能听听大家都是怎么讲的。宋薇讲得不错，小霍讲得也不错。不过从结果来看，好像小霍技高一筹，试讲当天就得到了复试的机会。我们只能慨叹技不如人啊！

在试讲的时候又看见种组。这可是老面孔了，当初在十九中的时候就有她。不过可惜的是，从来没有听过种组讲课。那天是头一遭。不过跟我想象的真是差不多，跟实习时候准备的教案一样，都是一上来what’s the date today?这也算是补了实习时候的差吧~

那天去的还有几个老教师。他们的语音都非常不好，口语也相当一般。我一直以为我的口语算是次中最次的了，堪称垃圾中的垃圾，可是没想到在这些老师面前我倒是还有信心找回些颜面。难道真是教师毁了英语？我记得在高中时后的老师英语都还不错啊？可后来听吴超伦说王兰薇是外国学历……在回忆一下初中的英语老师，除了记得老师总嫌我说得慢以外，还真没什么记忆，她似乎没说过一句完整的英文。难道真的是教师毁了英语？想起来后怕。若真是这样，那岂不是被毒害了许多年？若真是这样，自己岂不是杀手？又要去祸害一方？如果这样还不如失业算了……

这么想起来，王兰薇真是个好老师。她真的没教过我什么知识，只是给了我兴趣。我觉得在众多教师中他是没有祸害英语的那些之一。我将来也不祸害英语，也不糟踏学生，要么像王兰薇那样在组里不好混，要么像刘伟那样天天带个耳机听，沉醉于自己的世界了。真想问候一下王老师，不知道她身体怎么样了。

说说论文

    刚去找邱耀德谈完话，基本的论调是我的论文设计的不够完善，要求我去好好的作调查。真是不明白当初怎么就交了那么个题……本来想轻轻松松的抄抄看看就好了，结果还是弄得那么麻烦。不过春天来了，心情好，就硬着头皮这么干下去吧。

PS：真是期待周末去放风筝，虽然很可能是没有风的天气，虽然大家各有各的难说的事情，但管它呢，好好的玩儿两天吧。关于工作的事情，在朝着我本不想看到的方向走着……

第一次试讲

刚从十八中回来，心情比较轻松，不管成功与否，总算完成了处女秀。至于明天早上那个，我觉得不靠谱，也没什么可准备的，暂时可以放松一下子了。

今天讲课应该还算顺利。除了在播放音频文件的时候报错，说“不能播放指定文件”。于是本来想让孩子听录音，就变成了叫学生们一个一个起来读课文，总算没干场。这件事情的教训是：作讲演还是讲课，如果需要使用软件投影支持，应该先花几分钟把做好的PPT或者是软件考在硬盘上，以备不测。吃一亏，长一智，下回就应该不犯这种错误了。

今天课的缺点还有一个。就是前面extensive reading部分用的时间很多导致后面的intensive reading部分过于紧张。所以后半部分没有时间让学生思考，就直接把答案给出了。看来在以后做教案的时候关于时间的问题还是最难掌握的。

讲课的话还是按照我的意思讲的。关于底下听课老师的反应，我倒是没注意。可能我太过专心于讲课了。从这么看来，老师还是一份我能全心投入的事业。这种事情是没有逻辑的，不能靠思辨来解决，是不是做老师还是得跟着感觉走。

讲课了，也长经验了。总之今天比我预计的好，我也就安心了。至于结果怎么样，我还真是没谱。不过看着十八中门口的示范校的牌子、它区重点的名分还有离我家很近的地理位置，这种就是我最好的选择。

PS:虽然今天7点就起了，可还是差点迟到。不是因为家远，是因为路不好走。要绕很大一个圈子才能到达，加上二环路早晨实在堵得厉害（2.8公里的路，打的用了17两银子！），最后我是用跑的才到达了学校。进门遇见惠鑫，互相鼓励了几句就分手了。还要批评一下北京的的哥。今天的的哥真不厚道。明明那个进二环路的岔口开了有10多年了，愣说不知道，开着车就要奔天坛；明明别的车道都很通畅，非要捡长队排着，也不并线，我就一个晕字……

学了好多知识

今天去中关村把电脑装了。说到我那个电脑，还是姐姐送给我的。它陪伴我走过了整个高中和大学的时光。甘俊霖很佩服我的忍耐能力，说：“八年了，抗战斗胜利了，你这个电脑居然还在岗位上”。其实，那么长时间不换电脑，其实挺对这个电脑有感情的。因为毕竟，八年了，这部电脑记录了我的酸酸甜甜、苦苦乐乐。

在今天攒机之前，跟我的同学们商量了很长时间了。主要是关于电脑的配置问题。我真得感谢在这个问题上给与我帮助的所有的人。虽然今天在中关村对于配置的修改很大，从AMD的Athlon64 3200+变成了Intel的奔腾4 611，总的来说性价比提高了。我也想明白了很多问题，电脑不能攒那么好的，够用就好。引申来说，就是谁也不知道下一秒钟会发生什么事，所以任何对今后的投资都有一定的风险。从经济学角度来讲，就是增加了时间成本，因此为了减少成本增加效率，就应该挑选比较主流的配置。最后，还有什么摩尔定律、超摩尔定律什么的，也没搞懂，不过总算明白一个道理。

今天攒电脑的时候果然出现了不兼容的问题。X800GTO和精英的主板不符，在运行Aquamark的时候出现了问题，内存报错。不过幸亏刘荣威和甘俊霖，还有攒机的人坚持不懈，终于找到了问题所在，最终用了一块儿6600GT。我觉得这个显卡还好，不够用的话可以再单换了……

新电脑感觉不错，和我的电脑桌很佩，都是黑的。只是三星的金将军光驱颜色有些不协调。不过出于人民币的考虑，还是忍耐了这点瑕疵。我已经像Koogle借了移动硬盘，马上就可以考《草莓棉花糖》和《蜂蜜与四叶草》回家了，无限期待啊……

PS：我很珍惜每一个眼前的机会，为1%的希望付出100%的努力。希望上天能够眷顾我，让我下周的面试和试讲都一切顺利！

PS：超摩尔定律：指骨干网带宽9个月翻番，10年翻1000倍。又叫“光纤定律”。