Well, LA here dose not stand for Los Angles, and you certainly don’t need to travel to LA for resolving learning difficulties! All you have to do is turn to the so-called “Learning Ambassadors” (LAs) newly trained by the Student Learning Support Section (SLSS) that is under the Center for Learning and Teaching (CTA) of the university. These “ambassadors” were recruited by SLSS for the first time aiming to use peer power to convince and demonstrate to other students who have a less successful learning experience better ways of learning. SLSS organized a presentation not long ago informing to these ambassadors about SLSS’ work and events they will be hosting so that they can re-lay the information to other students when they are on their “diplomatic” missions.

Such information includes several workshops on learning strategies that will take place in this semester. Furthermore, there will be a writing contest on sharing positive learning experience with a reward of NT$ 3,000 for the best work. A series of speeches given by scholars, established public figures, and successful entrepreneurs are also well under way. For example, a speech given by Carson Chu, the host of “EZ English Class” on ICRT (a Taipei-based English radio station), is scheduled for today (Check it out at http://sls.tku.edu.tw).

At the presentation, other issues were also discussed. One of them was the problem of the identity of these diplomats. Wang Yue-cheng, a student from the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, who has worked for SLSS as an “ambassador” for a while, pointed out that many of his fellow students have difficulty remembering what he does despite his unreserved efforts in promoting SLSS and their missions. He, hence, suggested that names and contact details of people such as himself should be made clear and more prominent on SLSS website. Ku Ta-wei, the Section Chief of SLSS, promised to do so and vowed to improve the other issue that was brought up at the presentation, which was the registration system. As too many students did not show up at workshops after registration, Ku said that if a student does that twice consecutively, his/her right of attendance will be cancelled for the entire semester. As places are limited, those who are interested and committed in attending these learning workshops should go to I405 or dial extension 2160 for further details. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )