To be honest, that night when i walked back to my dorm after the first class three weeks ago, i felt a lot pressure in my steps. I didn't expect that my first class at a new school in a completely new place thousands of miles away from home are comprised mostly of graduate students who have had a lot of experience in language teaching. I looked at myself and a feeling of fear suddenly filled my heart: I'm almost the only undergraduate in the class, I hardly have any teaching experience, and I am an international student who has been abroad for the first time and who knows almost nothing about the new environment I am living in.
Week 3
I still had that feeling of pressure with me when i went to class the second week. However, as class proceeded, i started to feel much more secure and less worried. I really like the presentation about different teaching approaches and methods presented by Chris and Veronika. I like the short clip of movie that they used to introduce the topic, which is a very good and vivid example of two different teaching methods, one that is motonous and classical in which the teacher is like a preacher giving a speech in the church, and the other in which the teacher is very engaging and humourous. Also, i especially found the following part in which our professor had us work in group and match each teaching method with its corresponding definition very effective. Not only did that ativity help me sort out specific information from the reading but it also made my brain work hard to differentiate various confusing methods. From that activity i learn from my teacher the method of getting students to organize the knowledge they have acquired by giving them a chance to really work with it both by themselves and with the help of other fellow students. To put in another way, "learning is by doing". If the teacher just tests students' understanding of the lesson in the usual questions-answers way, he can never be sure that every student in the class understands the study material. Instead, having students to go out of their seats, go around, talk with their friends to figure out the answers is a way of making learning an effective and fruitful process.
I still had that feeling of pressure with me when i went to class the second week. However, as class proceeded, i started to feel much more secure and less worried. I really like the presentation about different teaching approaches and methods presented by Chris and Veronika. I like the short clip of movie that they used to introduce the topic, which is a very good and vivid example of two different teaching methods, one that is motonous and classical in which the teacher is like a preacher giving a speech in the church, and the other in which the teacher is very engaging and humourous. Also, i especially found the following part in which our professor had us work in group and match each teaching method with its corresponding definition very effective. Not only did that ativity help me sort out specific information from the reading but it also made my brain work hard to differentiate various confusing methods. From that activity i learn from my teacher the method of getting students to organize the knowledge they have acquired by giving them a chance to really work with it both by themselves and with the help of other fellow students. To put in another way, "learning is by doing". If the teacher just tests students' understanding of the lesson in the usual questions-answers way, he can never be sure that every student in the class understands the study material. Instead, having students to go out of their seats, go around, talk with their friends to figure out the answers is a way of making learning an effective and fruitful process.
Week 4
This week we learned about first and second language acquisition, with more emphasis being put on the latter since our goal is to teach English as a second language. Like last week we had a lot of reading before class and i somehow felt overwhelmed by different theories put forth by linguists and psychologists. Luckily, in class Dr Smidt directed our attention to 8 specific theories that are most important in second language acquisition process and thanks to that i was able to have a closer look at each theory and know what i should focus on. Again i learn from my teacher the importance of knowing "when to do what" when teaching. Even thought the main role of teachers in the modern language classroom is to guide students toward solving a problem by themselves, there are cases in which teachers should take part in the learning process earlier and give students the help they need at the right time, instead of waiting until they get lost in the forest of professional knowledge to give them a hand.
Also, I really like the activity in which we worked in pairs to figure out a good way to present a theory to other students in the class. Apart from the knowledge being shared and discussed, to me working in groups is a good way to get to know my classmates and feel a friendly atmosphere pervading the classroom. I would therefore definitely encourage the use of this technique in my future English class.
Until now after three meetings, i am starting to feel a lot more secured in class and am very much expecting a fruitful time learning about English teaching methods here. I know the road ahead is not going to be easy, but i have this philosophy which i have always kept in mind and which, i believe, will work for me at this point of my life: "Try your best and God will do the rest."
(To this end you may realize this entry has wandered off the point. I didnot intend to put that many emotional thoughts into a class-time reflection but somehow my thinking has carried me away. Thank you very much for reading and sharing with me).
2 comments:
It's kind of scary when you're just thrown in to a situation like the one you're in. That's how I felt when I was in Madrid: I was thousands of miles away from home, I was relatively comfortable with the language but very self conscious, and had no experience speaking the language with natives. However, because of that pressure and unfamiliarity, I forced myself to learn more and to do things I didn't know I could do.
You may not have much teaching experience, Mai, but your being here proves that your language learning experience has been an unpredecented success, and that's worth a lot when trying to teach a language. Also, the fact that you're an international student here also adds a lot of richness to our class discussions.
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