Gillian's Blogs

Gillian’s Reflection and Feedback of Third School Visit on May, 16th, 2006

2006-05-21T20:04:00.000+08:00

My third school visit took place in Taipei Fuhsing Private School. Actually, I am both nervous and excited by knowing that I could have the opportunity to visit this school because I’ve chosen Fuhsing Private School for my internship. The reason why I felt nervous is that I’ve heard that Fuhsing is a great school with lots of efforts on English teaching and I think that I am not good enough to fit their high standard. (But one thing that I’m sure is that I am willing to learn and improve my ablity in English teaching there.)
This time, I want to skip the introduction of Fuhsing and focus on the teaching part because most people know their efforts on English education and can get more information on Fuhsing’s website. Below, it’s the teaching part that I observed in the class.
The class today mainly focused on reading. The teacher is Ms. Lin and the class is in sixth grade. Before the class starting, Ms. Lin wrote the teaching activities that in this class she will go over on the side of the blackboard. (But I don’t know whether she does this in every class for the students or just does it for us visitors.) Though I still think that Ms. Lin is very kind and considerate because she also gave us the textbook copy and another piece of paper which contains the teaching objectives, activities and teaching activities.
Here is the teaching activities that I’ve seen on the blackboard.
Lesson 3- Reading
1. Warm up
2. Read the Reading
3. Make Questions
4. Q & A
5. Game Time
6. Closure
7. Homework
And before the class, Ms. Lin also wrote down numbers of group members on the blackboard which clearly represents what should each group member do in this class.
Reader-2
Questioner-3
Answerer-1
At the beginning of the class, Ms. Lin reviewed what she has taught last class quickly and in order to make connections with the theme of the lesson, sports, and arise students’ interest and learning motivations, Ms. Lin asked several students to see if they have their own favorite sports, such as baseball. On thing that I think it is very good is that Ms. Lin didn’t only ask for the names of favorite sports, but also went further discussion with these students, such as talking about professional teams of baseball which can also let the relationships between students and the teacher be closer and closer.
The second stage is read the reading. In this part Ms. Lin asked the students read the article in the textbook and do this activity in groups of three in case of any discussion occur. Though, these students still read the article all together. (maybe that’s because the misunderstanding of teacher’s instruction) After reading, Ms. Lin called “readers” of each group randomly to check if they all understand the meaning of the article.
After the article reading, the third stage is Making Questions on the same teaching material which skill I think is quite the same to teacher Alice because she also design the activities over the same teaching materials and after going over these activities, students also memorize the teaching material already. Ms. Lin asked the questioners in each group write down at least 2 questions about the article on the paper besides the pre-reading questions.
After this, on the fourth stage of Q & A, Ms. Lin called the questioners of each group randomly and let them ask other answerers of other groups. In the process of Q & A, Ms. Lin also wrote down good questions on the blackboard for students to take notes.
The last activity is the Game Time which game idea is derived from basketball game. In this game, students were divided into two big groups for competition. At the beginning, each row of students were asked to design one kind of question by themselves, including translation, vocabulary and mutiple choice and they also have the right to decide how much the score that while the answerer gets the right answer will get. To my surprise, in the last activity, students got very excited in the game, though there were no prize for the winner.
About the whole teaching, I especially like the way Ms. Lin divide the students in to small groups and name them No 1, 2 and 3 because it is quite time saving and also by this students can clearly what they should do in this class and are all involved in these activities. And another thing that I quite like is that in the class Ms. Lin give students lots of chances to design questions and answer the questions on their own. I think that it is very students-centered and they are also getting more interested in the questions that they designed by themselves rather than questions by the teacher. ^^

Photos of Teacher Interview

2006-05-06T19:00:00.000+08:00

Ms. Chang, My best friend Rosa Chou, and I

(Though my best friend told me that do not post

her picture on my blogs, I still did that. Ha! Let's

keep it in secret. he he~)

Ms. Chang and I

Teacher Interview Report

2006-05-06T18:57:00.000+08:00

I. Introduction
Actually, this is my second time to do teacher interview. Last time, I went to Shi Pai Junior High School to interview a teacher and asked something about the class management. From the interview, I’ve learned a lot from the teacher and her belief of teaching Chinese. Though to certain degree, this time the report is quite similar to the last report that I’ve done. However, this time, by the demand of teacher Alice and the class objective, my target interviewee must be an “English” teacher. At first, I was very nervous about how to find an English teacher in junior or senior high school because I’ve got in touch with all my English teachers for several years. (it may be very embarrassing to go back and the teacher doesn’t recognize that I used to be her student) Fortunately, one of my best friends in my night school class, knowing my worriment, introduced me an English teacher in Shilin High School of Commerce whom she loves and admires very much. Here, I want to say thanks to my dear friend. Without her, I really cannot finish writing this assignment.
Below, there are some basic info of the teacher and the questions that I’ve prepared for the teacher interview,
Teacher’s name: Ms. Chris Chang
School: Shilin High School of Commerce
Time Lasting: about 1 and half and hour
Date: May 28, 2006

My List of the Interview Questions,
1. The teacher’s learning and teaching background,
(1) educational background
(2) experiences of teaching
(3) the reason of being an English teacher
2. The teacher’s belief and philosophy
(1) the teacher’s belief and philosophy of language teaching
(2) methods of efficient language teaching
3. The barriers and supports that he/ she faces in teaching context
(1) what barriers did you face at the beginning of teaching English
(2) how to deal with the students of different English competences
(3) how to deal with the students who have difficulties in learning English
4. The teacher’s career cycle and professional development
(1) do other English teachers in the school share teaching experiences with each other
(2) what do you do to improve your professional teaching
5. Other
(1) do you have any recommendation to the English teacher to be

II Teacher Interview
1. The teacher’s learning and teaching background,
First, about the teacher’s learning and teaching background, Ms. Chang go bachelor degree in Fu Jen Catholic University and master’s degree in National Taiwan Normal University and National Taipei University of Education. Now she is a doctor candidate in Tam Kang University. And she also has been to Ohio in American to go further study.
Second, about Ms. Chang’s teaching experiences, she has been teaching for 16 years. (10 years in Shilin High School of Commerce) Now, she’s about 40 years old. So she began teaching English when she was 24 years old which age is the same to me now. ^^
Third, about the reason of being an English teacher, Ms. Chang told me that it’s because she loves English very much, especially about the theories, such as linguistics and language teaching. She likes almost all things about English except literature, because she thinks that sometimes the articles are too over and full of emotions.
2. The teacher’s belief and philosophy,
Ms. Chang told me that as an English teacher what she can bring to students is to let students love English as she does. In order to make students to be interested in English, Ms. Chang will offer some teaching materials or activities which are related to the textbooks and daily lives of students, such as recent news, songs, or novels. Furthermore, she will bring students to the computer classroom to key in the articles that they’ve wrote at home and compare the articles with each other in order to let students devote themselves to the activities of practicing English.
3. The barriers and supports that he/ she faces in teaching context,
Ms. Chang said that at the beginning of teaching English, she was very upset because her expectations were far away from most students’ competence in English learning. And students nowadays have many things to do at the school, such as joining the students associations or taking part in various competitions which situation is quite different from the students before who just know to work hard. As a result, in order to fit the students’ competence, textbooks nowadays become much simple and easy.
Although Ms. Chang worries that students’ English competence may not be as good as the students before, she still has hope. Especially in the world full of knowledge now, Ms. Chang thinks that all that she can do is to teach the students to apply the knowledge instead of offering them as much vocabulary as she can do. And also in order to let the students learn English well, she thinks that holding a debate is a good way to train the students to get more vocabulary by themselves.
And about the students who have difficulties in English learning, not like the other teachers that I know, Ms. Chang doesn’t give them some other “privilege” to let them get bonus through additional and secret activities. Ms. Chang chooses to treat these students equally, just like the others, because she thinks that they are not different at all, and believes that through diligence, they also can get good grades. In addition, to the way that Ms. Chang uses to make these students to be interested in English learning is to build up good relationships with these students and encourage them to learn English actively through teaching methods and interactions.
4. The teacher’s career cycle and professional development,
Ms. Chang told me that there are a few interactions with other English teachers in this school. By my observation, I found that teachers whose seats are next to Ms. Chang are supervisors of other classes, not teachers of the same subjects. And also Ms. Chang is an experienced English teacher with her own teaching style. As a result, I think that it may be hard for experienced teacher here to share teaching experiences or have conversations with each other.
And about the professional development, Ms. Chang said that she often attends many conferences and joins several workshops of English in order to improve her English competence and know more.
5. Other,
Ms. Chang considers that English learning nowadays could be a kind of fever all over the world. Many schools overemphasize the English learning and neglect the other subjects. However, all the subjects are as important as English, such as Chinese which represents our own unique culture. So she wants to remind all the English teachers that English isn’t everything and is not that important.
And being an English teacher, Ms. Chang thinks that constantly adding new knowledge is very important to language learning and teaching. Because English is not a dead language, it grows and changes as time goes on. As a result, in order to be a successful English teacher, constantly keeping up with new things is substantial to improve teachers’ world outlook and profession.
III My Reflection on Teacher Interview
To my surprise, when I interviewed Ms. Chang, Ms. Chang told me that she knows teacher Alice long time ago. Suddenly, I began to feel under lots of pressure because I’m afraid that I did a bad job on this teacher interview. Though, I still learned a lot from Ms. Chang. I especially admire the attitude that she treats all the students equally. I think that it is quite important for a teacher to be fair enough, otherwise, the students won’t believe you any more or hate you and the subject that you teach. I also agree with what Ms. Chang does to students with difficulties in English learning. She chooses to build up good relationships with these students first and let students like her and also the subject that she teaches. To my concern, I think that except the excellent teaching methods and interesting activities, good relationships between teacher and the students are also very important factors for teacher to do good job on teaching.
And concept about teaching the student the ways of how to learn English by themselves instead of offering them as much vocabulary as one teacher can I think that it is quite right and similar to mine. Especially nowadays, there are huge amount of English learning ways or conference books for people to learn English by themselves. As a result, I think that the goal of being an English teacher is to teach students to have the ability to apply what they learn in class and in the future they can learn more about English by themselves.

Recent Photo of Gillian

2006-05-06T00:08:00.000+08:00

Ha~finally I took a pic that I love very much! And by that my face isn't that big.^^"
The purpose that I post my pic here is just that I want to change another photo of my ID here.
Cause' there's lots of problems when making connections with other website. ~.~
As a result, this is the only way that I could come up with. So don't be surprised to see my "beautiful" photo here. Ha Ha~

Gillian’s Reflection and Feedback of Second School Visit on April, 25th, 2006

2006-05-01T23:24:00.000+08:00

My second school visit took place in Zhongshan Girls High school which location is quite familiar to me because it is near my house and I’ve been here twice for several important examinations, such as the GEPT test. Seeing the old building structure (I don’t know why, maybe that is because the color of brick red and the school’s long lasting history), this school makes me feel under lots of pressure. ^^” Though, after the principal and teacher Alice’s introductions of Zhongshan Girls’ High School, I surprisingly found that although Zhongshan is the oldest school in Taipei city, its education and facilities are very innovative and creative which environments can help teachers here come up with variety of teaching activities for students to learn English actively.
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, Zhongshan is a very old school. As a result, this school is a big school, too. Originally, I think that it might be difficult for teachers in big public schools to get together and for a team to exchange teaching experiences with each other. But at last, I think I was wrong by seeing teacher Alice presenting the “Excellent Teacher Awards” that the teachers of different subjects got in recent years. Again, it proves that there are still lots of teachers working hard in order to give students variety of learning resources to encourage them to learn actively.
Okay, let’s come to the class observation part. The teacher of the class is Ms. Chang. At the beginning of the class, Ms. Chang gave the students a test. Though tests is the most efficient way for teachers to check if all students study or review what they’ve learned last class, I still think that may bring lots of pressure for students in English learning. I think that there are some other ways to make sure whether students comprehend what teacher taught, such as by some warming activities (through games) which can also raise students’ interests in learning English.
After the test, Ms. Chang let three students take turns to go on the stage to write down some English vocabulary with Chinese translations and to read out the English news articles. After finish reading the article, each student gave one question to ask the ca\lass in order to check if every student understands what they just said. About this activity, I think that it is very good for senior school students to know more vocabulary about English news which can also develop their senses of global village and train their listening comprehension. And to my surprise, these students are very smart because some of them can answer the questions immediately after listening to the article for the first time. However, I don’t know whether each student comprehends the whole article or not because there are just a few students answered the questions. In addition, I think that it is a pity that in the end of the activity students under the stage only got the main vocabulary on the blackboard and didn’t get the original copy.
And the last part is the dictation part about foreign food. First, Ms. Chang passed the handouts of several dialogues with some blanks to fill in to each student and asked the students to listen to the dialogues carefully and identify which food of country is mentioned in it. Though, this activity didn’t run smoothly due to the bad quality of the amplifier. But here I really admire these students’ listening ability because after listening to these dialogues just for twice, these excellent students still can give the correct answers under this kind of circumstances.
About the whole teaching, I think that the students are learning actively and diligently; as a result, all that the teacher has to do is offer the students lots of English learning materials and neglect whether students have fun in these activities. That is quite different to the teaching last time we observed in which teacher did her best to organize the activities well and arise students’ interests in English learning.
After the class observation, it comes to the last period of our school visit. In this period, I heard three student teachers sharing their internship experiences with us. I especially agree with what they say about the working attitude-don’t be too calculating on trifles, especially when you’re a freshman in the society because there are still lots of things for you to learn. I think that it is quite important for us as a freshman no matter which working environment we choose to stay in.

My Pussy in Boots

2006-04-15T20:53:00.000+08:00

Here is the picture of my cat, MoMo, again. And the background picture is pussy in boots in the movie Shrek. (I don't know whether my spelling is correct or not ha!)
Don't you guys think that the faces are quite similar? ha ha
That is why I took this picture. My Pussy in Boots. Maybe one day, I will put on small shoes for him and get him a sword. ^^

Gillian’s Reflection and Feedback of First School Visit on April, 11th, 2006

2006-04-14T23:24:00.000+08:00

For me, it is really a very special experience to visit a junior high school since I have already got out of this kind of environment for several years and methinks the chance of it is very hard to obtain. At first, after we met outside the school at 2:30, we came in Fanghe junior high school and listen to the principal’s introductions of this school. Actually, I haven’t heard of this school before though I have lived in Taipei more than 10 years. HA! According to the principal’s introduction, I realized that Fanghe junior high school isn’t a very big school and due to the economic condition of the neighborhood, such as carrers of funeral and interment are very popular there, their students mostly come from lower social status family which may not afford their children to go to cram schools or teach them after the classes. However, to my surprise, this difficult situation doesn’t become a barrier of their education because half of the parents are for the teaching philosophy and beliefs that the teachers of the school hold. As a result, teachers in Fanghe junior high school get plenty of room to carry out their own ideal teaching methods. And I think that this situation is what we teachers expect in nowadays’ education. (cause a good teacher cannot do what he or she want within the limitation of the parents or the school’s administrative personnel).
And about the English-learning environment of this school, as every one can see, poster which teach daily-used English conversations are everywhere, even on the walls of the toilets. Other English competitions are also held frequently in order to raise students’ interests in English learning, such as English article reading, English song singing contests, and drama contests. Furthermore, for advanced English learners, the hardware facilities, like books, e-power center and computer classroom in which holds the cross-cultural program (students can write e-mails to other foreign students in different countries), are offered to provide a variety of English learning materials. All of these, I think that it is quite great and helpful for junior students in English learning and it also really astonish me because I don’t have such good resources of English learning before except during the period of college.
Okay, after the fantastic introduction of the school’s background and language learning environment, let’s come to the excellent English teaching part. First, I wanna say that the teacher, Ms. Lu, is very, very great and the interactions between she and her excellent students are too good to be true. (just like the groups’ presentations in our class. HA!) Here I would like to introduce the process of the class that we audited and raise some points of the one-hour teaching that I perceived:
1. The Warm-up Activity
At the beginning of the class, Ms. Lu asks the students to take out the textbooks and take a look at the colorful and vivid pictures in it. Ms. Lu asks lots of questions in order to train the students’ ability of describing the pictures by using adjectives which activity can connect to this lesson’s object- the comparative forms of the adjectives.
I think that it’s a good idea to have more interactions with the students rather than the teacher just opens the textbook and reads out every line in it. And also by this, students can get more chances to practice their speaking and the teacher also gets the opportunity to check whether the students obtain the basic knowledge which is required in this lesson.
And also, if the students don’t know how to describe the objects of the pictures in English, Ms. Lu would allow them to answer in Chinese first and then ask if any other students know how to speak this in English or give more hints to let students to guess instead of just giving them the correct answer immediately or translate into English directly for them. I think that it is very good to do so because by this way, it can encourage students to do peer correction and learn English by themselves. (especially nowadays, students are very lazy to learn new things)
2. Activity I
In this activity, students who sit near to each other are divided into pairs. In the group, student A gets a piece of paper which has 8 sentences on it and his or her job is to read out the sentences to student B. And student B takes out a piece of white paper, listens to what student A say and writes the down.
We also did similar activities in our class, too. And I can see that every student is involved in this activity happily. During the process of the activity, Ms. Lu told the student that if they encounter vocabulary that they don’t know how to pronounce, they can spell the word instead, By this action, I think that Ms. Lu is very considerate and I know why she does so. (same as the reason I mentioned because she doesn’t want give students every thing, she wants to train students to get what they want by themselves, and also by this way. Students actually learn how to learn by themselves which is beneficial for their future lives. )
Later, Ms. Lu wants all students take a look at these 8 sentences, asks the students to read them out all together and then asks for the Chinese translation in order to make sure that whether all students understand the meaning of the sentences. Again, if it comes to that the word that most students aren’t familiar with, Ms. Lu would choose to assign it as homework and let students to look it up in the dictionary by themselves.
3. Activity II
After the discussion of the meaning of the 8 sentences, Ms. Lu asks the students to see if there are some similarities or differences in these sentences and then categorize these into six rules which serve as an introduction to the grammar rules of this lesson-comparatives. I think that Ms. Lu’s way to introduce the grammar is quite great because students can learn by discovering the rules by themselves and would have more impression of this rule. (just like learning mathematics)
Right after the introduction of the grammar rules, Ms. Lu lets students practice transforming the adjectives listing on the worksheet in to comparatives immediately, then checks the answers with the students and also repeats the six rules again in order to impress the students.
4. Assignment
At the end of the class, Ms. Lu writes the homework and the pages that the test will cover next time on the blackboard. I think that it’s very good and clear for students to understand what is going to do in case of the students will forget them all right after the class.
This time, I really appreciate Ms. Lu’s systematic teaching. From the warm-up activity, introduction of the grammar rules ,and to the practice, Ms. Lu teach the concept of comparatives step by step. What really impress me not only the excellence of the students but also the enthusiasm of the teacher. And by seeing this real sample in Fanghe junior high school, I start to know that there is nothing that we cannot achieve except we don’t put our teaching beliefs and philosophy into practice.

Comments on the Fifth Group’s Presentation- Reading Teaching

2006-04-06T18:45:00.000+08:00

First, I want to say that I really appreciate Group 5’s fantastic presentation. And through their presentation, I can see their devotion and much time spent in the activities. ^^ Also I think that it is not easy to only teach reading because it is students’ self individual work. Furthermore, it is also difficult to concern whether each students understand the whole article resulted in every one’s reading pace comprehension is different. All these problems, I think that Group 5 really did a great job and overcome this difficulty by the match games, true or false and discussion activities.
At the beginning, it is great for the teacher to arise students’ interests by demonstrating colorful pictures of different dishes as a warm-up activity. Then it comes to the min body, the article reading, which introduce lots of Chinese food located in each part of China. The article is great, but I think that it might be difficult for students to recognize the names of Chinese provinces and Chinese food which is translated from Chinese words’ pronunciation, such as dim sum and chow mein. So about this kind of problem, I think that it might be better to choose other topics like American food or British food or give these Chinese-translated words Chinese definition in order to avoid this confusion. Finally let’s come to the match games, first Group 5 pass the various recipes without dish’s titles and let students to find out the correct dish names. I think that the game is quite funny, but again it may not be suitable for teenage students’ level because there are too many vocabulary that they may not be familiar with. ^^

Comments on the Fourth Group’s Presentation-Speaking Teaching

2006-04-06T15:31:00.000+08:00

About the fourth group’s presentation, I wanna say that it is really fantastic. Their topic, wedding, is very interesting and their way to introduce the topic is very logic, too. (from reviewing the vocabulary, information gap and finally come to personal survey) Step by step, students gradually have a big picture of the various wedding ceremonies all over the world and have the concepts of cross-cultural differences.
Though I think that this topic might not be quite suitable for “teenage” students to discuss about, such as in the second activity-survey, because they are quite young and might not think of their ideal wedding ceremony so far. And during the process of checking the answers with the students, I think that it is very good for teacher to invite students to talk and express their own thoughts in English. And the teacher is quite humorous, too. This kind of interactions and atmosphere between the teacher and students are very wonderful. And also in activity of information gap, teacher explained every interesting tradition of different countries accompanying with some colorful pictures which impressed us a lot. However, it is a pity that when practicing speaking, teacher didn’t ask students to answer the questions in complete sentences, especially in the activity of information gap which group 3 also didn’t pay attention to it. I think by that students can learn more from practicing speaking complete sentences. ^^ Any way, we have a great time and appreciate the fourth group’s presentation a lot. Thank you.

My Lovely Cat, MoMo and I ^^

2006-03-24T00:08:00.000+08:00

Here is a photo of My cat and I. ^^ He is so cute and naughty too. But in this picture, it seems that he doesn't like to take pictures with me. Ha Ha~

Comments on the Third Group's Presentation

2006-03-23T22:56:00.000+08:00

First, I wanna to give the third group a big applause, because they really did a good job on "how to teach listening". They provide a variety of interesting activities about English listening teaching and we also have a great time in this class. As teacher mentioned in the class, it's very difficult to only teach listening at one time, it must accompany with other language teaching methods, such as speaking, writing, or reading. So that's why I think they really did a great job because they not only teach listening but also teach speaking as well.
About their presentation, I think that it is good to focus on a single topic, and teach it from general to specific. Here I have three comments about the presentation, hope everyone can think about these.^^First, about activity 1 "listening to the tape," I think that the atmosphere is like taking examination which is so quiet that seems to be full of pressure. If they can change it into watching motion pictures or short vedios (providing other interesting material), such as the website that teacher Alice demonstrate in class, I think students will be more interested in this activity.
Second is about the role play part. It is also a good way for students to involve themselves in the activity and the colorful pictures which they presented in order to introduce the vocabulary about American mixed-style and Italian dishes and some even accompany with descriptions of how to cook these dishes and also the ingredients. However, I think it's very time consuming to list all these different dishes at one time and students might get confused and forget all these words right after the class. As a result, I suggest that they can divide these interesting activities into two or thress classes or give students some take-home assignments in order to let the students have more time to memorize the vocabulary and by that the teacher can also receive better results in English teaching.
Third, I suggest that teacher can ask the students to use complete sentences when the students answer teacher's questions. Because by this, students can also learn how to compose right sentences and speak them out instead of doing the paper works.
At the end, I still want to thank the third group to give us such a great time and hope that we can exchange our learning and teaching experiences with each other.

Is it better to teach vocabulary in separated, spaced session than teach it all at once?

2006-03-20T17:06:00.000+08:00

I think that it is better to teach vocabulary in separated, spaced session because by that learners can have more time to memorize the new vocabulary and have more impressions of these new words. According to my language learning experience in junior and high school level, I admit that I am a very lazy student about memorizing new vocabulary or grammar rules, because there are so many other subjects and assignments for me to study and finish after class. As a result, I prefer to memorize the new words in English classes in order to save more time for me to do other subjects' homework. So I think that it is better for teacher to teach new words in separated, spaced session in order to reduce students' pressure of schoolwork.^^

Lesson Plan (Activity Procedures) by Gabriel, Gillian, Grace and Helen

2006-03-19T16:56:00.000+08:00

Topic: A Story of a Farm
1. Presenting New Vocabulary-cow, tiger, sheep, monkey, cat, rat, yellow, red, white, and green
Teacher tells an interesting story accompanying vivid pictures in order to present new vocabulary.
Story:
Long time ago, there was a farmer living with four lovely animals.
The first animal said, “I’m a tiger. I love meat, especially red meat.”
Then, the second animal came and said, “I’m sheep. My favorite food is green grass.”
Suddenly, here comes a monkey. The monkey sat in the tree and said, “I enjoy my banana. Do you know the color of it?”
Then, the cat stole the show and said, “Yellow, of course!” “Okay, guys! I gotta go to chase my rat…”
However, the farmer was still not happy. He knew everybody needed milk to live. So he prayed for a cow and went to bed.
The next morning, the farmer opened the door and cried out, “Wow Cow! It’s a white cow.”
From that day on, everybody lived happily ever after.

2. Help Students Remember the New Words
Teacher helps students review the vocabulary in the article that is just being taught. Then teacher focuses on the new words taken from the story, repeats them, and leaves time for students to memorize the new words.
3. Practice Teacher asks students to create a new story with the new vocabulary that is just being taught.

Reflection on Reading and Presentation

2006-03-09T20:20:00.000+08:00

About our presentation, I think that it is not bad. I especially appreciate Helen’s efforts on the colorful pictures which post on the blackboard and they also impress everyone and indeed attract most students’ attention. Though, as everyone in class, including teacher Alice, concerned, our presentation still has much space to improve. But I think that good teaching must need lots of experiences, no one can do well at first time. Before this presentation, we group members only come out with several elements for this one hour teaching, such as choosing interesting dialogues on the textbook, arranging the process of teaching, and designing activities that can help students memorize the vocabulary. However, all that we’ve done is still not enough for a good teaching performance, we should also pay attention to more detailed aspects, such as how to create more opportunities for students to talk in class, examine students’ comprehension and make sure that most of the students memorize the vocabulary that teacher offer.
And about the reading on “teaching vocabulary,” most contents in the handout seem quite familiar because we all have learned these before in our linguistics classes. In this handout, I think that it is very important for us to know that there are many efficient ways for language learners to memorize more vocabulary instead of taking exams constantly, such as “teaching words with clear, easily and comprehensible meanings,” “items linking with each other, or with ones already known, through meaning- or sound-association,” “teaching vocabulary in separated, spaced sessions.” I believe that if one can effectively learn English well, he or she would be more interested in English learning and continue good learning habits later on.

Exploring personal teaching philosophy and belief

2006-03-06T13:53:00.000+08:00

A. Is teaching a craft or a science?
I think that teaching is much alike a science rather than a craft, because not everyone who knows how to teach could do a great job. I also think that good teaching must depend upon a teacher’s experiences, consideration, and patience. As a result, teaching is not a craft but like a science which need time to sharpen and advance.

B. What areas of “scientific knowledge” do you think teachers of a foreign language ought to be familiar with?
I think that a good teacher of a foreign language should not only be familiar with the grammar and vocabulary of the language but also the culture and the history of the foreign language. Because language develops with the culture, they just cannot be separated. Only with the variety of the cultural and the history can the language be charming enough for people to study and master. And that is also the reason why people want to learn a foreign language.

C. What broad topics should they be familiar with?
Because my target level of the students is middle high school students, in order to attract their interests to learn English, I think topics related to pop culture which happens around students’ life is better for teachers to be familiar with.

D. Which of these topics are essential and which are desirable?
I think topics which are already suggested in the textbook, such as holidays, and foods are essential for students to study because these can develop students’ basic competence of conversation to communicate with others in English. Other topics, as mentioned in question C, pop culture, such as the movie Harry Porter or skateboards, are desirable topics which can arise young students’ interest to study English.

E. What kind of teacher you want to be? And why?
I want to be a teacher who can influence the students and teach them to have the ability to think independently. Because I think good teachers cannot be very wise and knowledgeable in order to give students lots of information from books, but good teachers must be able to teach the methods of thinking and studying to the students for their good because knowledge is infinitive for people to learn.

Hello Everyone

2006-02-21T22:19:00.000+08:00

Welcome to Gillian's Blogs!
Thanks for Ur Visiting!
Please don't be shy, leave me a message.
I would be very glad to see that and reply soon! ^^