The Way to Climb the Mountain of a Qualified Teacher
After the National College Entrance Examination, I choose English education as my major in the University. The reason why I choose this major is that I don’t want to learn math anymore. But when I begin to learn this major, I find it was not as easy as I imagined. The first difficulty I meet was to remember the general introduction of English-speaking countries. At the beginning of learning the course, I can’t even remember the names of so many countries. Then I found a map of English-speaking countries. It’s easy for me to remember names and locations according to a map. This also builds good basics for the preparation of the Graduate Entrance Examination.
When I begin to learn at the University of Delaware and Hunan Normal University as a graduate school, I find I have a more clear recognition of how to be a good English teacher. Especially when I watched some videos about how to teach beginners to learn English, I was amazed because I never thought that teaching could be like this. These teachers use a lot of tools in class such as flyswatter, cards, and magazines to design different types of tasks to help students to engage in the class. I was deeply impressed by a teacher who just teach students some new vocabulary but she designed many tasks to practice students' ability of speaking, reading, listening, and spelling. Later, I learn it is called communicative language teaching. Language skills are integrated as much as possible in the class(Liu, 2017).
References:
Gardner. H. (1983). Farmers of mind: The theory of Multiple Intelligences. N. Y. : Basic Books.
Zhang G. (2021). An Empirical Study of Role Playing in the Teaching of English Listening and Speaking in Junior Middle Schools. Guizhou Normal University. https://kns.cnki.net/KCMS/detail/detail.aspx?dbname= CMFD202102&filename=1021655412.nh
Liu N. (2017). A summary of the relationship between the use of drama teaching methods in English teaching and the cultivation of creativity. English Square (02), 118-120. doi:10.16723/j.cnki.yygc.2017.02.063.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your journey learning English. It is interesting to me that traditional styles of teaching are still very popular in China; in America, traditional styles are still prevalent, but more and more teachers have began to adapt more modern styles, such as the communicative teaching style. To me, it is important that grammar is taught, but instead of teaching it through traditional methods like memorization and repetition, it is crucial to teach grammar in its appropriate context. For example, when teaching how to express emotions, the subjunctive mood is a necessary grammatical structure to practice. However, instead of completing traditional grammar activities, it is important to produce meaningful language. This way, students will not only learn the grammar but be able to effectively communicate in the language. Like you mentioned, role-play is an effective way of encouraging communication while also targeting specific grammar structures.
Thank you again,
Paige Rubakh
Hi, Paige
DeleteThanks for your attention. I totally agree with your opinion about grammar teaching. My senior thesis is the application of situational teaching methods in grammar teaching. There are many researchers writing about situational teaching methods. And I find that a good way to practice grammar rules which is to combine mechanical practice and meaningful practice. Because some grammar rules such as subordinate clause are very complex for Chinese students. If we just do meaningful practice, they may feel a little confused at the end of the class. So we may need some mechanical practice to help them comb these rules.
Hi Yuxing, thank you for sharing your story.
ReplyDeleteI am also impressed by Gardners' multiple intelligence theory which proposed that there are at least eight intelligences in human. Since every student may have different strong intelligences, teachers are advised to design diverse activities to cater to the needs of different intelligence students. However, it would take a long time to find out each students' intelligence.
Role-play is a good way to improve students' communicative competence because each student has their own roles and has to interact with others. They can not only improve their listening and speaking skills but also grammatical competence, discourse competence, strategic competence as well as sociolinguistic competence.
Hi, Yuxin!
ReplyDeleteCommunicative language teaching is advocated in most classrooms today. It is a bridge between classroom teaching and real-life language use. In communicative English, communication is the aim and means of teaching. In traditional teaching, communication often reflects the communication between teachers and students, but the communication between students is very little. You also mention role-playing in your blog, which is also a great way or method to enhance or promote communication between students. Similarly, activities such as these involve cooperative learning strategies, in which the success of each student depends on the investment of the whole group in the class. This interaction is an effective way to get the whole class involved, because such exercises involve and communicate with all students, not just a few active students who attend regular classes. This is also a feature of communicative language teaching different from traditional teaching.
Thanks for sharing your story!
shuangqing Deng
Hi, Shuangqing,
DeleteThanks for your attention, I also think the interaction between students and teachers is very important. At the same time, communicative language teaching can improve the efficiency of this interaction, which can make students more concentrate on the class. In the communicative language teaching, it also emphasizes the importance of group work and pair work. The interaction between students is also important. It can create a relaxing atmosphere to make students communicate with others and change their ideas, which is beneficial for students to improve their spoken English. By the way, it may be a little difficult for teachers to control the quality of group work when there are too many students in a class.
Hi, Yuxin. I agree with you. First, you say that teachers need to design different types of tasks in class, so students can choose the task according to their intelligence. I think it can improve students' abilities according to their strengths. Second, you find related materials to motivate students. Motivation is a crucial factor in successful language learning (Ur, 2012). We should enhance students' extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Students need to know they learn English for a variety of instrumental purposes. Finally, I am also impressed by the diversified teaching method. I can see your efforts in this major. I believe you can become a good language teacher.
ReplyDeleteRuimeng
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