Re-consider my ways of teaching after getting trained in America

                                         By Tan Hongtao

 

I.                 I. Show a great passion and love to your work and your students.

       Dr. Archer is a famous expert in the culture and communication research. She is friendly, kind and elegant old lady so I showed my great respect and admiration when I first met her at the classroom. When she began to give us the lecture about the culture and communication, I realized that she was wise and knowledgeable. We all felt her passion and love through her soft and friendly voice, encouraging eyes, funny actions and sweet smile. Although she is in her sixties, she is full of energy and passion like a young lady. I clearly remembered such one scene in class. One classmate didn’t pronounce the word “synthesis” correctly because it was a new word for her. Dr. Archer wasn’t angry at all. Instead, she smiled at her and uttered the word slowly dancing with the rhythm of the word’s syllables. We laughed and danced like her. All of us quickly caught how to pronounce the word. It may not be possible to see such a famous old lady to do this in the front of the whole class inChina. Maybe you can’t understand why she did so. In my opinion, it is her love for her students that makes her do it naturally. We quickly fell in love with her and her classes. As time went by, we felt relaxed in her class and enjoyed her class. There were many trivia things like this. Every one of us could feel her love, passion and wisdom through her classes. She was a very successful and respectful professor in our mind. Therefore, as a teacher inChina, we are responsible for students’ learning and their bright future, we ought to show a great passion and love to our career and our students. I know it is easy to say but hard to do. However, I will try my best to devote myself to my teaching career and my students because Dr. Archer set a good example for me. This is the most important thing that I have learned from her. 

          II.  Try to prepare every class carefully and apply student-centered learning methodology in class.

During the training, the teaching resources that were used in class were carefully selected and prepared by Dr. Archer. I clearly remember that we got a special workbook about culture and communication when we attended her first class. From the cover of the book and its content, all of us felt that she had got everything ready for us and known what we needed indeed. The focus of this course is very useful and meaningful for ESL teachers. This showed that she had read everyone’s self-introduction carefully, which was sent by email before we came here. It is very moving for us. So we had no doubt that she could take us through a beautiful journey of study at the very beginning. In her classes, we saw more details that could prove her thorough preparation. We admired and respected her more. For example, she took a large suitcase with her every day, in which there were many magic things, such as pictures, color pens, small cards with some her handwriting on them, some small gifts…. You can imagine how much work she had done before she came into the classroom. Therefore, from what she has done for her students, it is not hard to find that she takes much care of students and pays a lot of attention to students’ need. To be a successful teacher, we should prepare every class like Dr. Archer so the classes will be more effective and efficient. Besides making careful preparation, she tried to let students get involved in her every class. She firmly regarded the students as her teaching center. She gave students a lot of time and chances to think and discuss. In her class, we were divided into a few groups. She usually let everybody think first and then we shared the answers in groups. In order to involve more students in the class activities, she designed some games in her class. Although we are adults, every one of us likes the games and enjoys them a lot. The games made us relaxed and interested in her class.  She dealt with students’ feedback carefully and patiently. In her class, we could ask her questions anytime and she stopped and answered it. So she cared a lot about students’ responses and students’ learning process. This reminds me that I should hold on the methodology of student-centered learning, which is proven to be effective and efficient. She likes to use games to let students be involved in class. Activities in games can make students more interested and concentrated in what they are learning. They also can show students’ creativeness and subjective initiative. Teachers should learn or create more games to make students have fun learning English. Another thing that could show Dr. Archer’s student-centered strategy was that she adjusted her teaching plan in accordance with the students’ physical and emotional situations. For example, on Mondays, we were tired and sleepy. When she realized that, she designed some games to arouse our interest and she taught us to sing some beautiful songs. As you can see, it is not easy to apply the student-centered teaching in class because students are always changing. However, if we want to be a good teacher like Dr. Archer, we ought to adjust ourselves to meet all of students’ need.

     III. Make full use of pictures in different ways.

InChina, as our nation becomes stronger and stronger, it is not difficult for some schools to buy more modern teaching facilities in the classrooms. So it is common for us to use PPT, computers and videos in class. Before I came toAmerica, I thought I got used to the teaching facilities. I was wondering if American teachers were better at using them. To my surprise, in Dr. Archer’s class, she had all of modern teaching facilities in the classroom but she preferred to use a lot of pictures. She used pictures to teach new words, to let us discuss in groups, to write some sentences to describe them, to review new vocabulary and play games with them. When these activities were done, she collected our work and put it on the wall beside the pictures. As time went by, the four sides of walls were the pictures and our work. At the beginning, I didn’t understand, later on I understood why she did like this. I think screens are farther from students than pictures in the classroom. The material on the screen disappears faster than pictures. But with pictures, students’ work can easily get together with the pictures and can be collected and kept. From students’ points of view, they can closely touch what they are learning and they can feel their progress in the learning when they see their work on display on the walls. This will increase their confidence and encourage them to learn more and better. As for using picture, one thing impressed me a lot. When she taught us about word “perception”, which is abstract, she gave us several pictures and asked us to look at pictures and answer the questions rather than gave us the definition directly. After we finished them, we talked and argued about our answers. Then she told us we had own perceptions of the pictures. We really understood the meaning of the word. How amazing it was！On the one hand teachers should try to use the modern teaching facilities in class; on the other hand, we don’t forget how to use pictures in class.

        IV. Use music to create a relaxing atmosphere to learn and reinforce and review what students have learned.

Before I came fromChina, I sometimes played music at the very beginning of class to let students to get ready to learn. When I had Dr. Archer’s class, I knew music could be use in many ways. In her class, when we talked about some emotional things in the pictures, she played a piece of classic music, which stimulated us to have more sensitive feelings about the pictures. So we wanted to express more. At the end of everyday training, she also played some music for us. While we were listening to music with eyes closed, she concluded what we learned that day. With the help of music, some vivid pictures of learning came out in the mind. It is an absolutely effective way to review. It is my first time to experience the magic of the music in class. I will definitely use this to help me to teach my students.

All in all, getting trained in the UH is worthwhile. I do hope what I’ve written above can help you to teach students more effectively and efficiently. I’d like to get any comments and suggestions from you.