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.