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A Visit to Lishan Junior High School

As entering this small campus, I, suddenly, walked into a happy Neverland filled with joy, laugh, youth, and energy. Oops! I could never believe all the students here are almost ten years younger than I.

     The class we visited is so called EGRC, English Gifted Resources Class, composed of some gifted students in English from each class. What a small class it is? There were only six or seven students that day. Knowing that all the children there have talent for English, I wonder how the teacher had lesson with those gifted students.

     Mr. Hsu, the teacher of the EGRC, seemed to drive a light carriage on a familiar road, started the class by asking a few questions about some pictures to review the students’ memory. I was not surprised that those students always gave response actively. They seemed to be the knowledge hunter zealously. And then, Ms. Hsu played CD and asked students to repeat the dialogue they heard. Of course, all the students had good accent and intonation. The class proceeded, Mr. Hsu began to explain the main part of the context by paraphrasing, expanding the meaning of the vocabularies, and making more and more examples to the students. Everything there was perfect. The course went smoothly without any obstacle, just like an ideal model.

     I wonder how those incredible children learned English in their childhood. Do they come from well-income family? Or are they really genius in language learning? Since they have no problems in learning English, I don’t know what the teacher should teach them? More vocabularies or foreign culture? They are good at their English accent and grammar structure, and, doubtless, it seems that they would become more like native speakers one day. I am still learning, and looking for what a role of such kind of teacher should be. But I did learn lots of things from those gifted students and the teacher. I believe that I would find out the answer during my own teaching in the future.

    

Grammar Lesson Plan

Grammar Lesson Plan

My visiting to Lishan High School

I reached LishanHigh School at about 8:30. That was really a shock for me at the first glance at this castle-like school with the high buildings on the mountainside. After a while, there were two students leading us, group A, to the classroom in which I thought I would really get some practical teaching experience at that moment.

     The first teacher we visited was Ms. Liu. She impressed me a lot with her vivid teaching style. At the beginning of the class, she reminded the students with some vocabularies taught last class. And then, she started the new lesson with the listening drill of the context. After that, she asked students some questions about the listening context. As a member of toastmaster, Ms. Liu, of course, made her students answer the questions she asked in English Something kept in my mind was that she repeated those questions asked to the students lots of time. I really think that is a good way to attract the students’ attention and highlight the points of her questions to the students. She led the students deep down inside the plot of the context with those questions. She set a good model of elicitation method in her teaching style. In this way, the students might induce the main point of each lesson by themselves, and that made them remember and understand the lesson more clearly.

     The second teacher was Ms. Yuan, a totally different teaching style teacher from Ms. Liu. Ms. Yuan, at the beginning, wrote the phrase “Handling Stress” which the students had learned last class. She told students that they would have a different activity this class. Then, she gave the students the handout and asked them to write down their problems in life. After that she wanted everyone to find at least two classmates to help them solve those problems. Vincent, Hyde, and I also wrote some suggestions for the students to conquer their problems. I do think that was really a good activity for those students. For it not only made the students use English in something else beside the English textbook, but also made them share their inner feeling with each other, included the teacher. That is, definitely, a good way to motivate the students in learning English in daily life.

     After the two classes, we had a small teaching-experience-sharing meeting with those teachers. I did learn lots of things from those admirable teachers. English teaching not just a English skills teaching, but something else. What is that? I am still looking for. But after this visit, I think I have make the idea clearer and clearer.  

Grammar Translation Method & Communicative Approach

This issue seems to be some kind of ambition pursued by most of the second-language-teaching teacher. However, I think that we should, firstly, clarify what the main purpose of these two kind methods. In Communicative Approach teachers believe sufficient exposure of L2 to learners might, deservedly, make them acquire the rules of L2. On the contrary, the adherents of Grammar Translation Method believe that the complete grammatical rules provided to learners beforehand might benefit the learners the most in L2 learning. Back to the issue, I do believe that there is universal grammar within all human being’s language system. And individual languages are variations on the basic design provided by UG. All languages are parameters in which there are basic rules shared by every language and different rules belonging to each language. If the learners are in the sufficient exposure of other language with enough time, they, of course, might gain the rules that are different from their own language. However, in Taiwan English teachers in school are limited in time to teach. And I don’t believe that there would be a good English learning environment and enough time for English learners. Therefore, Grammar Translation Method does save lots of time. And when teachers transmit the grammar rules, mother tongue would be necessary for students to understand the rules as clear as possible. But I also agree that only-English-allowed class will benefit higher level learners.

Comments for Group1

I was so impressed by the self-made video of group1. It seems that the rest of groups may undergo some kind of pressure from such good presentation of group1.

     I did think the teaching skills shown by group1 presented an important trait of teaching, attraction. However, I still have some suggestion for group1 and the rest of groups, including ours. Creation in teaching strategy does play an important role, yet we should allow for the different type of students that we encountered. Take the presentation of G1 for example, though playing game is fun for most students, we need to have all the students of the class in hand. Namely, while some are playing, some should also have things to do at the same time. Then it would not make some students feel bored.

    At last, I still like what the G1 has shown for us. I hope our group could have the same great presentation for the class, even better.

Areas of Scientific Knowledge Foreign Language Teachers ought to be Familiar with

Being a foreign language teacher, h/she should be, especially, familiar with the culture of the language. For the reason that, language learning is not just to know how to utter this language but to know how to communicate with the people of the language in certain environment. All the teachers should know how this language operates in specific circumstance. Therefore, the culture is a very important field of the language with which a foreign language teacher should be familiar.

Is teaching a craft of a science?

For many people, teaching is a science because it needs accurate teaching skills and to transmit the knowledge precisely. As far as I am concerned, I see teaching as a craft. Teaching should be along with lots of things interacting with human being, and not just a serial of impassive mechanical action. When the teaching proceeds, it is not only knowledge transmission but interaction of teachers and students. So I think teaching is a craft fulling of art-like skill that deals with the human relationship.

My teaching beliefs and philosophy

Due to the great difference between the first and the second language acquisition, grammar plays an important role in the second language learning. I’ll teach my students based on the grammar teaching approach. I believe it will help them a lot in constructing the rudiments of the language. However I do believe that the enough stimuli of the target language in a suitable environment may help the students to pick up the language soon. Therefore, I will also provide a good target language learning environment for my students to learn their target language, English.