Lab 3

Lab 3
We were given a really great task today. There were so many things to do. It was kind of experiencing a teacher’s role. Me and Cherrie worked together.

We spent a lot of time searching for great stories. At last we decided to do an article called “You don’t have to hate your first job” from USA Today website. It was an article about what attitude we should have when doing our first job. When we read it, Cherrie introduced me a really useful online dictionary—Cambridge Dictionary Online. It has easy explanations in English which is just the material we want to design our questions.

After reading the article, it was time to create an English teaching program on air, just like Studio Classroom. We were writing transcript in the first place, but then we decided to just quickly run over what we should say then get recording because there were little time left. Thanks to Cherrie for she always covers me when I forgot to say something. It was actually fun to pretend to be a teacher teaching on air. But I also recognized that it must take lots of effort and preparation before in order to give listeners a great and interesting lecture in English.

Next we started to design comprehension questions and wrote summary. Creating questions was not easy, too. We have to be in students’ shoes to guess what kind of problems they would encounter or confused of.

The greatest difficulty is definitely using Hot Potatoes. We did not have time to figure out how the software works, therefore, I spend the weekends watching the videos a Chinese elementary teacher created. I found out that Hot potatoes were actually not really hard to use, because the environment were basically the same. Me and Cherrie finally finished our test webpages, and we were soooo excited at the moment. If we had more time, I believe we could do better. I really appreciate teamwork, because we could complement each other, ask questions, and learn from each other. I also realized that a teacher has to prepare so much teaching materials

Here is our website!!!!! Go and take a look!!!
Hot Potatoes by Cherrie and Christina


※News link:http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2007-05-28-oplede_N.htm?csp=34
※key words and their English definitions:▲Source: Cambridge Dictionary, Wikipedia
1.catamaran noun [C]a sailing boat that has two parallel hulls (= floating parts) held together by a single deck (= flat surface)

2.Costa Rica(literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica (Spanish: Costa Rica or República de Costa Rica, IPA: [re'puβlika ðe 'kosta 'rika]), is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the south-southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. Costa Rica was the first country in the world to constitutionally abolish its army.

3.entrepreneur noun [C]someone who starts their own business, especially when this involves risks

4.gorgeous adjectivevery beautiful or pleasant

5.pinch yourself verb [R]You say that you have to pinch yourself if you cannot really believe something that has happened because it is so good or so strange

6.whine verb [I] to make a long, high, sad sound:

7.nostalgia noun [U]a feeling of pleasure and sometimes slight sadness at the same time as you think about things that happened in the past: nostalgic adjective

8.scurry verb [I usually + adverb or preposition] to move quickly, with small short steps:

9.obsess verb [I or T] If something or someone obsesses you, or if you obsess about something or someone, you think about them all the time:
10.font (LETTERS) noun [C]a set of letters and symbols in a particular design and size
※comprehension questions and answers


Q1: How old did Dustin Ashley Tester first pick up surfing?
Ans: 14
Q2: Why does Tester spend a lot of time “pinching herself”?
Ans: She thinks the life she is leading is too good to be true.
Q3: What may be the cause to send college graduates scurrying into grad
school to postpone the process of getting a job?
Ans: Well-meaning family members wax nostalgic about "paying their dues" at first jobs where they manned the office coffee pot.
Q4: What possible situation would we encounter when we find a job in Career fairs feature booths?
Ans: it’s hard for us to find the job that we’ve been dreaming of.
Q5: In the article, what is the attitude suggested toward getting a first job?
Ans: Try to find pleasure in the job. Change the attitude toward jobs from tiring works to self-fulfilling dreams.

※SummaryDustin Ashley Tester surfs everyday, but she is not on vacation, it is actually her job. Tester is one person who is lucky to find pleasure in work. But many other young college graduates are scurrying to grad school to postpone the process of getting a first job because a dream work seldom exists. The article tells us that we don’t have to hate our first jobs, we can even fall in love with them-if we ask our selves the two questions: What do I love so much I'd do it for free, and how can I get someone to pay me to do that? Find out answers to them, and you will never “work” again.