School Visit Report on 4/25

 On Tuesday, I headed for Zhongshan Girl’s High School for my second school visit. Different from last visit in Fanghe,Alice arranged a high school level for observation this time. Since I didn’t have the experience of teaching high school students or even a chance to visit a highly prestigious high school like ZSGSH before, I was looking forward to today’s visit in Zhongshan.

Classroom Observation

In the beginning, in order to encourage students to respond spontaneously in class, the teacher made a deal with them. (If they behave well and volunteer to answer questions, the teacher will delay the vocabulary quiz to next class.) Being aware that we (student teachers) were going to observe her class, the teacher decided to offer them a bonus (a positive reinforcement) in expectation of creating a more interactive ambience. This was very different from Teacher Emily ( Fanghe Junior High School), who didn’t give concession to students by sparing a quiz. The variation depends on who the target learners were. In my point of view, students in junior high school were young so that Emily tried to be as good as her words. If she skipped the quiz, students might form an attitude that they would have no quiz once a while. But for students in high school, especially in Zhongshan, they were old enough to be responsible for one’s learning. Even though the teacher delayed the quiz, she considered that students had all prepared in advance. As long as teachers sensed positive reinforcement would stimulate students in some way, they certainly could add it to their teaching and thus foster students’ performance. Anyway, it could be a proper strategy to adopt occasionally in the light of various situations.

The first activity was cooking style matching. Students worked in pairs so as to find out the correct English definition of each verb, e.g. grill/roast. I saw the teacher in the effort of expanding students’ knowledge of food, the topic of lesson eight, by giving them extra materials to read. Even though their English proficiency was much better than normal high school students, they might still have problems understanding new stuff written in English at first. Therefore, the teacher asked them to complete the activity cooperatively instead of individually. I like the idea of working with their partners because students can share their understanding and opinions with each other and thus have the courage to guess the answer. I noticed that this cooperative activity worked well because students were guessing, negotiating and searching for the clues, which would impress them a lot in the end. Despite working in pairs, I would like to encourage them to answer in English. They could explain the reasons why to choose this definition by supporting clues they found in English after telling everyone the Chinese meaning. Since most students were merely restating the key words or sentences from the handout to defend their choice, they should try to say it in English so as to practice oral speaking.

What followed was an introduction of several recipes by showing slides. After the teacher assigned students homework about searching for an English recipe on the internet, she showed them some examples and explained how they could initiate homework when going back home. This would be a good and clear demonstration because students saw a concrete product in advance. The teacher then was sure that students would do the assignment in a right way. Apart from this, the teacher interacted with students while showing students those recipes. She asked what the possible ingredients are, what the dish would be like, and how they would like the dish. I recognized that this kind of talk could arouse students’ interest in longing for exploring the recipe more. When they guessed wrong, they would burst into laughter. An interactive atmosphere like this was what I would like to develop in my teaching. But, I would leave the part of reading aloud to students, which meant I would randomly choose students to read the recipe in class. If the teacher read the recipe from beginning to end, the students listened passively and might not pay attention to the content until they were being asked questions.

The last procedure was filling in the blanks with proper food or vegetable names so as to complete the idioms. This was a very good supplementary material consistent with the topic they were learning. We all knew that idioms and slang were hard to learn; nevertheless some of them were commonly used by native speakers in everyday life. Instead of giving them twenty-four idioms to fill in at one time, I would choose three to four interesting, funny and meaningful idioms for students to further delve into. For the rest of the idioms, students could finish them after class. Aside from this, I would offer short paragraphs describing the origin of the chosen idioms. Maybe I would design some activities, such as role play, matching, so as to engage students in the context and thus engrave those idioms on their memory. If I just threw them into twenty-four idioms all together without explaining or doing some activities, it would be hard to expect students to memorize or use them in real life afterwards.

My Reflection

I recognized that the teacher put a great emphasis on cooperative activities. Finding this method could prompt students to perform well, the teacher tried to provide chances for them to work together. As what I’d learned form Alice this semester, her teaching philosophy was “Return the stage back to students.” In order to achieve this goal, the first step was to engage students into the learning process. Through this process, students could develop skills like how to negotiate, how to express one’s ideas, and how to convince others. These features were beneficial for a student to possess for life.

Sitting in on an English class in ZSGHS, you would be amazed that each classroom was well equipped with rich digital resources. The teacher could choose to use Powerpoint to teach or play a movie alternatively. This phenomenon was so different from the time when I was a high school student. At that time, when I listened to Studio Classroom at school, I had to listen to a very poor radio and most of the time I couldn’t hear the content clearly. By making the best of these abundant resources, ZSGHS was able to present students’ various learning multimedia resources in the way teachers want.

After talking with teachers at the meeting later that day, I realized the importance of creating a cooperative working team. Within this team, teachers (team members) designed task-based or theme-based projects together, shared extended resources or materials with one another (like the idioms used in the class I observed), and spread their enthusiasm for teaching around. All these efforts were proved by winning an “Excellence Award.” I was touched to see the diligence of both teachers and students. Owing to a very cooperative and interactive working staff, students were nurtured, molded, and grown up. I regarded the two groups (teachers V.S. students) as mutually influential and correlated. I did believe that dedicated teachers will bring about sedulous students; even putting it the other way around would also be true.

One more thing I’d like to share was the change from controlled learning to independent learning or autonomous learning. I observed that teachers in high school centered on fostering students to be capable of learning by themselves. The ambiance in high school is much more relaxed and liberal than junior high school setting. The teacher in high school would not urge that students go home and memorize something. Since students in high school were mature enough to be responsible for their own learning, they had the right to choose what to learn and how to learn. Being a teacher, he/she acted as a facilitator or a friend who guides students to move forward, who demonstrates how to make a choice, who offers suggestions, and who furnishes students with ample resources to refer to.

All in all, no matter students are advanced learners or beginners, the core lies on how to provide students “i+ 1” input so that they will grow bit by bit. Like the case in Zhongshan, since learners have the potential to be educated further, they will be nourished by project as “More than English.” However, knowing exactly what students need requires a keen observation which takes time to cultivate. After visiting this school, I feel there are more things I need to further in the future.

“Whole Language Conference” on May 24th~25th

Dear all:

The father of whole language, Dr. Kenneth Goodman, is going to visit Taiwan in May. He will give a speech covering topics about theory of whole language and his research. If you're interested in whole language, don't miss this chance to have a talk with this famous professor. ^^

Date: May 24th (Wednesday) 13:00 ~ 17:30

         May 25th (Thursday)    8:00 ~ 12:30

Location: National Taipei University of Education

Please click HERE for detailed information.  

To know the topic more, you can refer to ~

1. Brief introduction in Chinese 

2. Book: On reading (written by Kenneth Goodman)

3. Book: What's whole in whole language? (written by Kenneth Goodman)

School Visit Report on 4/11

The school we visit really endeavors on their job of educating students. In the class I observed, Teacher Emily is a young energetic and enthusiastic teacher. From her interaction with students, she must have put lots of effort on building up the close relationship. There are lots of perspectives I observed during her instruction. I invite you to take a look here.

This is my first time to visit a junior high school as a student teacher. Am I going to do my practice here? Nope. I VISIT Fanghe Junior High School and OBSERVE an English class. Before I go there, I have pictured a possible scene I might see in a junior high school: a teacher teaches in the lack of enthusiasm; the classroom is crowded and dark; students are boisterous and rebellious. However, a visit to Fanhe completely breaks down my conventions to a junior high school. It’s far beyond what I’ve envisioned in the light of my past learning experience.

Orientation:

The principal gave us a briefing of her school before we plunged into the classroom and observed a teacher’s demonstration. I was amazed at how enthusiastic and cooperative the staff was. The principal and teachers ranked students’ well-being as their priority. Before initiating any projects, the staff would gather around and ponder over topics like, “What do our children need?” “Where is our children’s superiority?” “How can we take advantage of the geographical characteristics of our school?” What I observed here were issues focused on learner-centered learning. Furthermore, teachers would not push students onto the stage without getting them to be prepared first. Take English Drama Competition held in second semester of 8^th grade for instance. Teachers would spare time practicing writing, speaking (pronunciation) and performing from the first semester. Since students were guided and nurtured step by step, they would possess the confidence and courage in presenting the drama in the end. Apart from this, what students learn from this experience was more than language itself. Through a group activity like this, children had learned the ways to cooperate with peers, to negotiate with one another, to be responsible for one’s business and to capture audiences’ attention. These capabilities teachers brought up to children were precious heritage to them for life.

This reminds me of the working experience I had at a private language school. One time, I noticed that when students were undertaking a group activity, they were being harsh on one another and were reluctant to cooperate with their team members. I then discussed this problem with my teacher (my boss) because I was concerned that this kind of behavior might be an obstacle for them to build up an amiable relationship with others in the future. She gave me this reply without hesitation. She said, “No matter how great a student performs in his/her test, what I concern most are his/her proper attitude, right behavior and nice personality. If we don’t pay attention to these inappropriate behaviors and indulge them in conducting their own way, we will truly lose them.” What my teacher told me indeed impressed me a lot. I was so touched by these words because what a teacher should instruct was more than knowledge. We should care more on shaping students into a pleasing personality which would be with them all their life.

Classroom Observation:

I was pleased to see how energetic and vivacious the English teacher is. As far as I was concerned, Emily wasn’t an instructor merely. The atmosphere between Emily and her students was so friendly that students view her role as a friend. I was surprised that Emily knew students’ “language” quite well. Owing to this, she could easily catch up with what students were talking about and give them a proper feedback. But, this didn’t mean that she would allow students to be impolite or to behave without rules. When students didn’t behave properly, she would be serious immediately. Furthermore, she balanced well between the role of an observer and the role of a facilitator. Through the whole class, Emily paid attention to students’ performance when she was reviewing or introducing new materials. When she detected that students couldn’t respond to her question smoothly, she would offer proper cues to guide them or recall their memory. She was sensitive to what students need now and what obstacles might hinder their output.

When I observed the various roles Emily played in her class, I was sure that everything was possible. Though I may wonder about how theories be put into practice while I was reading, I saw a very good model from Emily. Through Emily’s demonstration, she showed the role of a teacher was not only an instructor but a live human being who cared, understood, gave an aid, and shared. She mastered these roles in a mixed and natural way and the variation catered to the multiple situations encountered in a classroom. In my point of view, to be a well-rounded teacher wasn’t an easy job. How could I switch my roles appropriately and offer fitting responses when I face diverse situations? I think I would discuss my difficulty with my colleagues or advanced teachers. Being a novice teacher like me, consulting with teachers who have dealt with similar situations before would be a good way to start from.

Talking about the strategies Emily used in her class, I did find some from her instruction. She drew examples from students so as to review the grammar they had taught previously. This would make the practice more interesting to students. When it came to vocabulary part, she would not give the correct pronunciation to students immediately when students couldn’t say the word by themselves. She would segment the syllables and then lead them to combine the syllables from one to two and to the whole word. One more thing that deserved noticing was the immediate feedback of the quiz. Emily reviewed the quiz soon after students had done the test. By going through the quiz, students could check their understanding directly and know how well they’d performed so far. Apart from this, students knew where to improve from the suggestions given by Emily. As for the teacher, she could switch today’s schedule a little bit by adding more practices or further explanation on the confusion that students showed on the test.

  Observing Emily’s instruction, I found the teaching depended more on teacher’s role. Learner-centered learning was not much in the class. Maybe the reason was that students in this class were low-achievers who needed lots of drills and rote learning so as to build up their understanding of English structure. I like her idea of asking students to self-read before she plunged into dialogue explanation. Even though students couldn’t know exactly what each sentence or word means, they could grasp a rough idea in their mind. But, I would like to discuss with students after they’d self-read. Emily gave the translated Chinese to students soon after students finished self-reading. I was thinking how she could ensure that students were improving their ability to read. She did ask students to underline the words they didn’t know and thus check their understanding of the dialogue. However, a girl sitting in front of me underlined only two words. (She only got 44 points in the quiz.) I was not saying the scores would indicate the girl wasn’t a good reader. I was only curious how this phenomenon appeared. Maybe the girl understood the words but had no idea about the dialogue. If I were Emily, I’d like to spend some time having a short discussion with them. By this way, I could check how well they’ve been progressing so far.

My Reflection:

In conclusion, I saw various dimensions of language teaching in Emily’s class. What I’m sure was Emily’s enthusiastic attitude in instructing. This would be a great gift for students in Fanghe. From the principal or teachers I had observed so far, I noted that whatever projects the school planed or held were in the hope of bringing students the best welfare. How to foster students to be a whole person is the belief held by all staff. The experience to visit Fanghe junior high school was only a start to know the real situation in schools. I can’t wait to experience the visits to other schools later.

An Honor to be acquainted with Prof. Virginia Juettner

Dr. Juettner gave three lectures at Tamkang this week. I only participated the last two speeches because I had a school visit on Tuesday. But, I got a bonus! Dr. Lin invited her to NTUE for a conversation with her graduate students. I was there too!

Ms. Virginia has been teaching for 35 years. With her rich experience in teaching career, she puts emphasis on evaluation or assessment in her research. In her point of view, "Assessment drives instruction." If your assessment is evaluated by multiple choice, fill in the blank, or other memorizing stuff, it won't lead your teaching to focus on nurturing students' critical thinking.  That is to say, if teachers expect to have what they're teaching get to where they want to go, then they need to give students the opportunity to practice or assign tasks for students to accomplish. Otherwise, there will be a mismatch between teachers' instruction and students' performance.

She also mentioned, "Learning things creates more Questions than answers." I still can't grasp the essential of this statement, but I'll keep exploring the wisdom in it. If any of you have some ideas, I truly appreciate your sharing here.

BTW, Dr. Lin and I accompanied her and her husband to Baoan Temple. There was a Baosheng Cultural Festival. We were lucky to watch a Taiwanese opera there and they really enjoyed it. Though it's raining cats and dogs, we did have a great time on Friday. I'm so happy to meet this couple. ^^

For some photos, please visit here. 

A novel experience in learning Chinese Teaching

Every Saturday, I have to travel a long way to National Chengchi University for Mandarin Studies Program, a intensive course that trains those who want to teach Chinese as a second language. It's not an easy job to be a Chinese Teacher (In my article, Chinese Teachers are those who teach foreigners instead of native speakers). We as Chinese will take it for granted that we are definitely able to teach Chinese because we are "native speakers." Before I had a language exchange student last semester, I do think this way. Then, I find out this is a MYTH about language teaching.

Take English teaching for example, those native English teachers teaching in cram schools rarely have the knowledge about "how" to teach English. If you've worked in cram schools before, you'll notice that many native speakers are poor in explaining grammar, KK phonetic symbols, or even spelling out the correct vocabulary. But, they do speak good or fluent English.

After attending the Mandarin Studies Programs, I truly feel that "PROFESSION" is what a "good" language teacher requires. When we're teaching, we aim to provide a clear and logical way of language learning. If we don't have enough profession of that language, we're simply "showing" instead of "teaching" a language. As in Chinese teaching, a reasonable teaching would be impeded by the lack of knowing how Chinese forms, what its phonologic elements are and what SLA is. Then, I think of English teaching. It's important for teachers to have some background knowledge about "phonology". By studying the variants or similarities between target language and native language, language teachers are be able to predict possible obstacles learners may confront and thus prevent it in advance. Even though learners are making predicted errors, teachers will have a better idea or knowledge in helping learners go through this stage. Therefore, I would recommend future language teachers to enrich fundamental knowledge of phonology so as to master languages more profoundly and skillfully. (I know that phonology may not be intriguing. ^^)

Homework, I Love You

By Kenn Nesbitt

Homework, I love you. I think that you’re great.

It’s wonderful when you keep me up late.

I think you’re the best when I’m totally stressed,

preparing and cramming all night for a test.

Homework, I love you. What more can I say?

I love to do hundreds of problems each day.

You boggle my mind and you make me go blind,

but still I’m ecstatic that you were assigned.

Homework, I love you. I tell you, it’s true.

There’s nothing more fun or exciting to do.

You’re never a chore, for it’s you I adore.

I wish that our teacher would hand you out more.

Homework, I love you. You thrill me inside.

I’m filled with emotions. I’m fit to be tied.

I cannot complain when you frazzle my brain.

Of course, that’s because I’m completely insane.

My Teacher Sees Right Through Me

By Bruce Lansky 

I didn’t do my homework.

My teacher asked me, “Why?”

I answered him,

“It’s much too hard.”

He said, “You didn’t try.”

I told him, “My dog ate it.”

He said, “You have no dog.”

I said, “I went out running.”

He said, “You never jog.”

I told him, “I had chores to do.”

He said, “You watched TV.”

I said, “I saw the doctor.”

He said, “You were with me.”

My teacher sees right through my fibs,

which makes me very sad.

It’s hard to fool the teacher

when the teacher is your dad.

⊙⊙∥ ～I’m suffering the PAIN that Alice just went through

"When it rains, it pours." How LUCKY I am!

Though I've save my recent translation work and course assignment in my laptop, I put some works done previously in my spare hard disk. Then, it just died out today! I may be luckier than Alice because I didn't lose the work I've done lately. But, I just can't help but think of those precious tasks I did in the past two years or more. There's one more sufferer who wants to repeat the words again: NEVER, NEVER forget to backup your files.