I'm a Canadian expat living in Beijing, China, trying to learn Chinese and teach university students the English language. This newsletter is a companion to my YouTube channel wherein I post my own language learning efforts and travel videos.
How's your semester going?
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Heya, Just thought I'd drop a line to see how folks are doing. My last email expressed surprise at how fast time has flown, and continues to fly! We're now in the midst of the exam period and students are finally showing up to class and, shockingly, asking questions. There have, however, been a few instances of students using cell phones when they're not supposed to and that's meant a penalty for their score. This end of semester and ubiquity of technology (along with the rampant use of AI) has me thinking just what can and cannot be automated. After eight months back in the classroom, what's the reality of implementing AI and other tech into the classroom? In all honesty, I think a lot of basic courses can be automated and put into video format, and this will be a good thing for both the teacher and the student (and the university's pocketbook). What can't be automated, however, is the real life interaction of people. Even with the development of technology and all the wonderfully glitzy, glammy AI avatars, at the end of the day (or beginning) we deal with people. And AI isn't going to change that any time soon. Let me know how your semester is going and what your plans are for the upcoming holiday season. Hope you're well and studying hard. 加油! Steve |
Steven's Language Vlog
I'm a Canadian expat living in Beijing, China, trying to learn Chinese and teach university students the English language. This newsletter is a companion to my YouTube channel wherein I post my own language learning efforts and travel videos.
Heya, just letting you know that we got some news: BEIJING GOT SNOW! This doesn't happen very often so when it does you tend you get out and take a few pics. These are some pics from around the neighbourhood before the sun comes out and starts melting it all. Stay warm out there! Steve PS - We also published a video about this on YouTube if you want to have a look. ;)
Hey, It's late, but done. Just letting you know we have a new podcast episode up. SLV | Episode 66 | Does subject-specific language learning work? Show Notes Listen here Libsyn, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube In this episode we discuss the effectiveness of subject-specific language learning. Does it work better than a more generalized approach to learning a language? Many language learning APPs and books as well as many language classes are general in nature, that is, they don't focus...
Heya folks, Just thought I'd drop a line to check it. If you've been following along for a while you might find it strange that there hasn't been a podcast released yet this past week. That's because we're in the midst of a technology switchover. They say that learning keeps you young, or something like that, and our latest effort to learn something has been to expedite our video production workflow. Given all the crazy cool AI tech that's out there, you'd think that videos could practically...