"I feel very lucky that I participated in this three-week Startalk program. Dr. Tseng was very helpful and provided me many useful suggestions... I learned more about how to implement communicative tasks, use authentic material and create a student-centered language class... This program is very important for my professional development. The experience at UVA will become wonderful memory for me."

Reminiscence: 

The three-week Startalk program at UVA gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about language teaching strategies and practices. Dr. Tseng’s informative workshops made me understand how to create a language immersion class, how to use authentic material in different forms, and how to implement communicative instruction to maximize the effectiveness of students’ acquisition of target language. Throughout the two-week’s intensive practicum, I learned and practiced what I had learned in the workshop. I feel really amazed at how much progress a novice language student can make within two weeks. I think the new teaching strategy that I have learned is definitely effective because it gives students plenty of chances to really use the language to communicate in class. I will apply the strategy I learned from the program in my class in future.

I feel very grateful that I had the opportunity to join the program. I truly thank Dr. Tseng who generously shared her teaching expertise with us and gave us a lot of feedback after closely observing our classes. I also want to thank Ms. Hsu and Ms. Lin who were so nice and patient and gave me a lot of useful suggestions for my teaching. I also want to thank Jane and Regan, both of whom are very responsible and nice. I am also very glad that I got to meet all the teacher participants in this program. They are all very nice, caring, interesting and patient. I enjoyed talking with them, working with them, sharing with them and hanging out with them. The three-week experience at UVA will become one of the best memories for me.