Learning from the Virtual Community

        I joined in a Google Communities named English language learning.The creator of this community is a TESOL certified English teacher with qualifications from Oxford Seminars. And this community is created for people around the world who interested in learning the English. You can feel free to post any questions you may have, the other members of the community could help you to find the answer. This is a community where people with all varying degrees of language proficiency can learn from one another.

        As a non-native speaker, I could learn a lot of new knowledge and informations from this community, such as  specific grammar point (Commonly Misused Adjectives in the English Language; Rules in Using the Apostrophe), culture (Halloween experience in the USA), and using English in daily life(Asking for directions).

        On the other hand, as a future teacher, all the information in this community could be my teaching materials in my classroom. All the knowledge are there, clearly and systematically. What I need to do is digest them first ,and then find an appropriate way to put them out and teach to my student.  For example, if I am teaching adjectives and I want to enlarge my students’ vocabulary, I might only use adjectives part (see the picture on the left side, which is sited from my community) , because the verb part is not related to my teaching plan and that is too much information for my students to digest.

        At last, since all the members are from different parts of the world. I could also ask them about their English learning and teaching situations in their countries and compare them with my in China. I always want to know the similarities and differences about teaching English. Sometimes, it is amazing to find out that the people you never know before have the same idea as yours, and even you all teaching English, but the way people teach is differ in thousands of ways.