Evaluations
Personal Information
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An ePortfolio of Educational Technology
"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow." John Dewey
HANYANG UNIVERSITY
Some Reflections on My Work at HYU
I have taught at Hanyang University for three years and love going to class because the students here are incredibly motivated and energetic! The images on the right provide a quick snapshot of my excellent experience here. A PDF file with more evaluation results is available here.
Most of the courses I teach involve presentation skills and academic writing. For most students, these are two of their least favorite language learning activities, so when I see how the vast majority of these students take intelligent risks and never give up on them, I am really impressed.
Public speaking is one of life's greatest fears for almost everyone. In fact, according to The Book of Lists, Jerry Seinfeld, and others, most people fear public speaking more than they fear death! However, the students who face that fear and maximize their efforts with their BAE/PAE presentations are also the students who develop the most in their one-to-one English conversation skills.
In fact, on many occasions, I have seen learners progress from depending on student translators at the beginning of the semester to being able to have an English conversation independently by the end of the semester. This kind of progress is most impressive and it is mainly due to the efforts these students are making to prepare for their presentations.
One of the other key factors for their great success is the confidence boost that results from effectively using visual aids in their presentations. From the very start of each semester, I begin encouraging and preparing students to use such technology as PowerPoint and Prezi in their presentations. Although this technology may initially be a bit of a crutch for them when they first start, my students' increasing self-confidence eventually helps them to overcome their greatest fears; subsequently, they begin to rely less on technology and more on themselves and, thanks to all the practice they've been doing for their presentations, their rapidly improving speaking skills.
Therefore, I think we have an excellent curriculum and that this is exactly how technology should be utilized in education: to enhance and improve our students' learning experiences!
PAE Presentation Contest
Below are some images from last year's PAE Presentation Contest. The first picture is me with Hong Moon-Young, who is an English Language & Literature major from one of my PAE classes. Moon-Young was 2nd prize winner (although I felt she should have gotten 1st prize).
