Reading prompt#4

Levy and Stockwell talked about a focus on the learner. Designer should try to be sensitive about the learner’s characteristics and the learning context. It means that the designer is supposed to know well about the learner’s background, such as gender, physical abilities, education, cultural, goals and computing experience and what the design is made of or why it is made for. That’s the way the designer can make something attractive to learners. The better the designers know, the better design they can make. Learners are encouraged to be involved in the design, because they know themselves best and they know learners like them better than the designer. Like the example Levy told, students write Hot Potatoes for each other, or develop learning and review strategies to share with one another, the result must be better than the activity involves only the designer.

I am interested in East Asia culture, especially the articles and comments wrote by western people. By reading those articles and comments, I will find out something new about my country and her neighbors, something I wouldn’t know in home. Besides, that makes my English improved. I found a website about learning English years ago. It provided me one word a day and all of these are frequently used American English. Since I first learned BrE and then learned AmE, that website really helped me a lot. Unfortunately, I know nothing about RSS at that time, so I’m trying to find it again. For using with students, I think follow some news is good. Whatever language on the news is up to date, that avoid the risk of using out-of-date word and make students be aware of what is happening all over the world. Language learning should not be separated from the real world.