The school visit: Li-Shan senior high school

Li-Shan senior high school is the school where Alice works. Before the visit, I‘ve already heard of the school form my senior who said Li-Shan is a good school and he wanted to be a practice teacher there. To my cognition, I think it must be a school with higher proportion of students entering the ideal school, just like most prestigious high schools in Taipei City. However, after Alice, the principal and other teachers’ introduction, I was very surprised at their decision and determination to hold such a different but outstanding school. Li-Shan aims at “scientific senior high school” and all the teachers and students need to know about research method which impressed me a lot, and I like it very much. I believe that research method will promote students’ logical and independent thinking that most Taiwan students lack, or maybe it’s only my deficiency. Just like Alice said, we must change our ways in teaching. Even though it’s a rough way to go, we still need to make it differently. I truly understood what Alice talked about because they make Li-Shan specialty and competitive rather than old-school teaching.  

 

When talking about the view in Li-Shan, it’s a beautiful school with a lot of tree. I love trees that make our environment more natural and comfortable. One of the buildings in the school is like a Disney castle with a clock, and which might be the highest and most notable building. We were all interested in that building and took a lot of pictures.

 

In Li-Shan, we observed two classes which were taught in whole English. We were surprised, but it seemed to be must, and students can follow and understand the teacher. The first class we observed was Ms Cheng’s teaching. At first, Ms. Cheng used a single word “luncheon” which is related to the lesson, and asked students to think about anything related to “luncheon” to make them focus and get into the lesson quickly. Then, the students got handouts and listened to the CD with handout. After finished the listening, students need to summarize what they heard and classify the vocabularies used in the article. To my surprise, most of students can complete it by themselves. I like Ms Cheng’s teaching because it was clear and put listening, reading and writing together. The teacher seemed to manage everything in a soft pace, and have a lot of interaction with students. She left space for students to have their own answers after thinking instead of telling them the answers.

 

The second one we observed is Ms Du. Ms Du used PPT with students’ pictures to show the body language, and which really caused great interaction and attracted students’ attention. After that, she gave student handout to ask them to find the main idea of each paragraph. Some students did very well, but some needed more time to do it. Maybe it takes times to do the practice, but it’s useful for students’ to improve their reading skill. At the end of the class, Ms Du used a short movie to show how body language can be used so vivid, and the movie was also impressive. For Ms Du, she always tries to use visual aid in her teaching to make students see and know what it is.

 

After the observation of the two classes, I think that teaching in English is quite important for students to improve their listening and get into the English learning situation quickly. Besides, the teachers in Li-Shan really show us how much love and passion they have for students and teaching. There is still a long way to go for us to become an English teacher like them, but I am happy to visit Li-Shan and learned a precious experience.  

The school visit : Long-Man junior high school

The day we visited Long-Man junior high school was a rainy day that made it inconvenient to go out, and we tried hard to get there on time. After a long time of transportation, we finally arrived at the school and were surprised at the beautiful sights and magnificent buildings.

 

Even it is in the Taipei City whose land price may be pretty high, Long-Man junior high is different form the crowded buildings and narrow space outside. It makes good arrangement of the room and leaves a lot of space for students and teachers. I was very surprised not only at the hallways which are wider enough for students to roller-skate, and also the café seat for teacher’s using. Besides, the consultation room is quite comfortable and private. There are also well-equipped experiment classroom, art classroom and the studio which impressed us a lot to make their own films. The architecture there is also set in particular meanings. All of those show how the school provides a nice and comfortable environment for all the students and staff. Everything in the school seems to be set after seriously consideration, and I admire it a lot.

 

The teacher who showed us around is a very enthusiastic and energetic English teacher. When we were sitting in the conference room, a person jumped into the room, which made me surprised and wondered if every English teacher there is so energetic. Thanks for his guide and clear introduction to make us see how wonderful the school is.

 

After the tour around the school, we have classroom observation to do. When we got into the classroom, the teacher, Ms Huang was blaming a student in a strict manner for his wrong attitude. After that, Ms Huang made sure that if anyone didn’t bring the homework, and checked the answers together. After checking the answers, Ms Huang left time for students to ask questions and correct the wrong answers. Then, the students were given a test. When finishing the test, it was only five minutes left, and Ms Huang asked students to open the book to have a short lecture. During the class observation, I think the class management is a part that we need to learn, and I really saw how a teacher successfully managed a class. Also, I loved the handout the teacher gave; it must take Ms Huang a lot of time to complete it, and I believed it will enhance students’ learning. However, I am curious about the time management because of only five minutes left to teach. It’s hard to say because we only observed for a period and couldn’t make any judgment. Sometimes things are time-consuming, but we still need to take care of them.

 

 

Assignment(Speaking)

 

My reflection on Teaching Speaking

 

After reading Alice’s activities for training students’ speaking, I think the most important thing is that the instruction instead of conclusion. The teacher just makes the rules or gives them the central idea, and students follow the instruction to create their own content. The activities include doing research, situational activity, dialogue, speech, experience sharing, role play and etc, which using attractive topics and lots of group work to enrich the whole job. Those activities have functions and are useful to make students not promote their speaking, but also listening, writing and creativity. Why creativity? I think the activities are creative and leave a lot of space for students to create and perform in the way they want, and use the language lively. I love those activities which must take a lot of time to complete. Hoping that I can also make activities like that.  

 

Besides, speaking may be the most difficult part for Taiwan students. Some students have learned English for many years, but it’s also hard for them to speak English or talk with foreigners because they’re afraid of making mistakes, including me. I seldom have chance to speak English very often and train my own speaking skill. Therefore, I am afraid of speaking English, especially in front of the public. I know I am not used to it enough. However, in this class we discuss and share with each one in English as most as possible, and I think I’ve gotten a little progress in speaking even though I still need to improve my own skill in English.

 

Assingment (Listening)

My reflection on Teaching Listening

 

The difficulties interfere students’ listening may be varied and need time to solve. However, the frustration may cause students to refuse learning, and lower the learning effect. Therefore, how to create a comfortable situation for students to get used to listening little by little or use different strategies which could interest students become important. In class, we talked about listening difficulties for each level learner and classified the activities for them. Before that, I never thought about learning process like that and never thought deeply about difficulties for each level learner with different activities. Now I know better about the difficulties and the way to help solve those problems for different level learners. It’s useful for me to teach in the future and provide assistance for different students.

 

In addition, I really liked the way Alice wanted us to present in the class because we just got books and questions, and then we discussed and shared to integrate and complete the whole idea. It was interesting and trained our cooperation within groups. I also liked the activity that one person goes to read and memorize the sentence, and another listens and writes it down. It trained our listening, speaking, writing and memory. I did the activity for my elementary students with simple sentence, and they love it!    

Assignment (LessonPlan)

My reflection on lesson plan

 

I think a lesson plan provides a teacher to prepare and think about what the class is going to be taught before teaching. Also, a lesson plan gives a teacher a clear guidance and steps to remind him or her whole structure of the class. In this way, a teacher won’t be lost or stray form the main goal of the class.

 

In a lesson plan, I think the main purpose should be mention first. When we get the main purpose we want to achieve, then we know what elements we can add to the lesson plan, such as activities, time management, evaluation, etc. When we clearly know the steps and the whole procedures of the class, we will be more confident and can handle the class better than not having a lesson plan. Therefore, making a lesson plan is important for teachers. A good lesson plan will makes good teaching. However, it doesn’t mean that we need to put any tiny things in a lesson plan and totally follow it because there are always emergency in class. We still need to transfer it with what the class goes.

 

Lesson Plan

Lesson Plan (Sam-min, Unit1 Images of Animals, Book1) 

1.      Lesson: Unit 1 Images of Animals

2.      Purpose:

(1)   Understand the images of animals and know better

about them in using language.

(2)   Learn to describe animals, and then know more

about the key to describe something.

(3)   Know the sentence patterns: 

(1) Vt + DO + prep. + IO = Vt + IO + DO

       (2) It seems that S+V = S seem(s) to +V

 

(4)   Practice how to form a paragraph with the correct

 format.

3.      Time: 6 classes

4.      Equipment: textbook, computer, handouts, CD player,

blackboard

1st class
Time	Procedure		Material
10 min		Warm-up 1. Form groups 2. Do the “warm-up” on the text book. 3. Share other images they can think about these pictures on page3 with group members.	Text Book
20 min		Activity І 1. Each group discusses three to five animals and describes their images. 2. Share their group discussion with the whole class, and try to find some interesting images.	Worksheet1
20 min		Activity II 1.      Give few idioms related to animals on PPT, and ask students to discuss what they mean and why they used in that way. 2.      Teacher explains the correct meaning and uses of the idioms.	PPT.
Assignment Each group prepares few words, idioms and phrases and looks them up on the dictionary, including the pronunciation, uses and examples, then share with the class next time.
2nd class
Time	Procedure		Material
35min	Vocabulary Students go on the stage to share what they found on those new words, idioms and phrases.
15min	Vocabulary 1.      Teacher reads the new words and students read together. 2.      Teacher adds more information.		Text Book
1.      Prepare for the quiz of vocabulary, idiom and phrase.
3rd class
Time	Procedure		Material
10min	quiz.		Quiz sheet
25min	Sentence Patterns Teach sentence patterns.		Handout1
15min	Sentence Patterns Do the exercise of sentence patterns in the text book.		Text Book
Assignment 1.      Review the sentence patterns. 2.      Preview the reading, and underline the sentences which are the same pattern with what they learned today.
4th class
Time	Procedure		Material
10min	Worm up 1.      Form groups. 2.      Teacher prepares few words, idioms and phrase, and then asks students to draw lots to make a sentence. Each sentence gets different points, and the group which gets the highest points is the winner who can get candies.		Lots Candies
5min	Reading Teacher read each paragraph and students read together.		Text Book
35min	Reading Give students the handout which is the reading context with blanket. Students have to fill in the blank when listening to the teacher.		Handout2
Assignment Mark the important sentences and points on the text book. Prepare the quiz of grammar used in the reading
5th Class
Time	Procedure		Material
10 min	quize		Quiz sheet
15 min	Discussion Form groups and choose some animals to describe students themselves, their friends or their family. Then, each group share one with the class.
20 min	Listening 1.      Each student gets the pictures about the animal on p17. Listen to each paragraph and find the right picture to stick on it. 2.      Show the whole sentences to students and make sure the answers.		CD player Worksheet2
5 min	Listening After reading those sentences, listen again.
Assignment Try to find some information that you are interested in.
6th Class
Time	Procedure		Material
15 min	Paragraph Introduce how to form a paragraph, and the correct format.		PPT
10 min	Paragraph Compare the better paragraph and the worse one. Find false on the paragraph.		PPT
15 min	Paragraph writing Students use the information they get to write a paragraph about an animal.		Student’s homework
10 min	Feedback Students share their writing with each other and give feedback.
Assignment Prepare for the quiz of unit1 Rewrite the paragraph after getting feedback.

   

Assignment (ICT)

My feedback and reflection of ICT lessions  

 After 2-week ICT lessons, I truly know more about ICT in teaching. Before the class, I just know little about the ICT, or the traditional way used in teaching and learning. The introduction of ICT makes me realized that ICT can be used in varied ways which contribute flexible and effective learning opportunities to students, such as the use of PPT shown from Alice impressed me a lot. Before that, I haven’t seen anyone use PPT in that way to teach English.

 

The idea surprised me and reminded me that imagination and creativity in teaching are necessary. I believe that a teacher who can make good use of ICT will bring brand new learning experience for students, and that’s what I want to know and need to learn. I expect I can keep all these things in my mind and create my own way using ICT in my teaching when I became a teacher!

Assignment (2008/02/26)

Q: Which of these approaches do you hope will have more influence on your teaching in future?

I think that Grammar Translation, Communicative and Affective humanistic approach will have more influence on my teaching, even though I don’t konw if I can do it well or not.

For a non-native speaker,  grammar translation is necessary for students to know what a sentence mean, and which will make them know better about the language. I know grammer would cause some pressure on students, but I still think it’s a way to learn a language well and clearly. 

Next, I think the Communicative Approach is quite important,too. If we can’t use the languge in daily life, then languge learning is meaningless. Why do we need languages? Because we want to share and commute with each other. One day,when I was teaching in cram school last year, I said”Take 10 minutes’ break”. Then the greatest student in the class said”what? Turn to page 10?” After saying that, he started to open his book and other studnents laughed.  He is good at grammar and reading, and always gets the highest grade in English in the class. Howerer, he can’t use the language in his real life. That incident really makes me think more about the purpose of language learning and the approach of English teaching.

As for the Affective humanistic approach, I think each student is unique and potential. I tend to ecourage them and lead them to find their advantages in learning. I always belive affective humanistic approach could be influential for teaching the subject.

All in all, not just one approach can be meaningful in teaching, but differnt kinds of approaches can make my teaching flexible and effective.  

Q: What stragegies will you use to make your teaching more effective and meaningfull?

To make my teaching more effective and meaningful, I prefer the student-centered teaching. As a counselor, I can  provide what students lack or need. In this strategy, I can ensure that students can get what they want and learn what they need. In addition, I’ll use a lot of eye contacts and more interactions with them, attracting their attentions and enhancing their interests in learning. 

Further, I would like to set up different standards for each student, and won’t be stingy to reward them if they reach their goals. Therefore, students whose grades are not on the top of the class still have motivations to move on. For me, strategies vary with teaching experience and students’ individuality. With my self-development, I belive I will find more strategies to practice in teaching.