My students working hard in the computer lab

My students are asking their classmates some questions so that they can write a short paragraph introducing their classmates. They are asked to write the introduction of their classmates on bolg. They will learn how to use blog soon.

Rank one at Google search engine in Taiwan

My website (keyword: Michael Wu) is ranked the first one at Google search engine in Taiwan among the 27,600,000 results. However, when you key in my Chinese name 吳文舜, my website has not been ranked the first one as it was before. :-(

Travel Grant from National Science Council

I received a letter from National Science Council (NSC) on May 10. It said that they would reimburse my traveling and accommodation expenses up to NT$50,000 on my trip to Brisbane, Australia from July 4 to July 6, 2006. I am going to present my paper titled "Mental images and contextual clues: A comprehension study of animal idiomatic expressions in an EFL environment" in PacSLRF 2006 held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. It's the first time I get travel grant from NSC in Taiwan, which is an encouragement to me. I will try my best to present my paper and hope that I can also get some feedback from the audience.

English writing teachers

I took three English writing-related courses at Tamkang university this semester. One of my classmates said that I am a WWW (three writing classes) student this semester. Once I took three writing classes, I found writing is the most difficult skills among the four language skills. Of course, you have more time to construct your ideas, edit your drafts, and make multiple revisions; however, the most challenging part of writing to me is that you should be careful about what you write, for it is black and white (or 0 and 1 in this digital age). Therefore, people can retrieve it and any obvious errors will be easily spotted. Speaking, on the other hand, has different challenges. In most situations, we do not have time to organize our ideas or rehearse it before we speak out. Nevertheless, you can "deny" your errors unless someone talk to you records your conversation.
The other day, one of my classmates asked a question in one of my writing classes. I think it is a pretty good one. She asked whether we English teachers should become good English writers before we can teach English writing. That is to say, can we teach English writing if we can't write English properly? Think about this question if you are an English teacher. I will talk about this issue in my later postings.
I will try my best to write something and post it on this blog, probably a couple of postings every week. Let's see how it works.

BubbleShare

I just found a wonderful site called "BubbleShare". It is still in its beta version. I created a photo album for my daughter Yvonne. I upload photos, record captions, and put URL links to my blog. Here it is.

This album is powered by
BubbleShare - Add to my blog

Tung Oil Garden Cafe

tung oil garden cafe 6
Originally uploaded by MichaelWu.

Since my wife was going to treat me a dinner in Maoli, on the way to the restaurant we stopped by legendary Tung Oil Garden Cafe where tung flowers blossom in May. We tried to visit this garden cafe last year, but we couldn't get in because it was too crowded. We visited Tung Oil Garden Cafe out of season this year. Although we didn't see any Tung flowers, it was much better to sit in the beautiful garden while there were not so many visitors. If you live within one hour drive to Maoli, you are welcome to visit this beautiful and cozy garden cafe.

Google search

Google search
Originally uploaded by MichaelWu.

If you type my Chinese name in Google, you can find my personal website listed the first one. What surprises me is that I don't use my Chinese name in my English website. It's amazing.

Who is this lady?

My wife Shiang when she was young
Originally uploaded by MichaelWu.

If you are smart, you should know that this young lady is my wife. She took this picture around 1985.

Miyako_Islands

Miyako_Islands
Originally uploaded by MichaelWu.

We took the Star Cruise to Miyako Islands, Japan.
Date: June 28, 2004

Ocean_Park

Ocean_Park
Originally uploaded by MichaelWu.

Before Diag Dour family left Taiwan, we went to Ocean Park in Hualien.
Date: June 22, 2004

18_peak_mountain

18_peak_mountain
Originally uploaded by MichaelWu.

During Chinese New Year holiday, we went to one of the best scenes in Hsinchu, Taiwan -- 18-peak mountain.

My dear family

Tunghai01
Originally uploaded by MichaelWu.

Place: Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan
Date: Dec. 25, 2004

Upload from cellphone

I took this photo on Jan 23,2005. But I forget where I took it.

upload photo from email

This is a photo of my son Howard when he was four years old.

My daughter helped me blowdry my hair when she was two years old.

After you publish your photo with Hello, you can also edit your blog. It's pretty cool.