The shining points lighten by mates

My fellow classmates' experiences had inspired me a lot during my teaching practice, I was amazed by their brilliant strategies in teaching and caring moments with their students.  We may not facing the same problems and challenges, but I could understand how it feels. Sharing opinion can always impact different sparkles just like one plus one sometimes are greater than two. 

After I have read all the posts, I could tell that the most attractive method from fellow classmates to me is they put to use ' drawing' activity in teaching ( like pei pei, Alia and Yasmin did) . They asked students to analyze different characters' characteristic  and solve different problems by drawing mind-map. Alia asked students choose one superhero and analyze the characteristic of the superhero by drawing a mind-map on a mahjong paper. Combine with her pre activity I could feel her lesson plan must be very systematic so the flow of her class was very smooth. Yasmin guided students to design a perfume in a chemist position for the characters in story. I must say how interesting the activity is and how creative the outcomes are from  those talented students. Drawing mind-map stimulates the students' interests and during the process, students were encouraged to interact with each other. Group presentation helps to improve students speaking skill and from their presentation teacher could estimates how much they have understand from the text. These creative outcomes make students feel more satisfied about their hard-working, so it for sure increase students' interests on English learning and students will be more focus on class. Another strategy which leave a deep impression on me is outdoor activity( like Nisa and Bunmi did) . They conduct an activity outside the classroom, the place could be on the playground, under the tree or any place which has enough space for students to complete the task. I think most of the students rarely go out of the class to have English lesson. So outdoor activity attracts students attention and it makes them feel more relax to enjoy the class. So I believe the teachers must be good on time management and class management. I didn't choose to use these methods because I found these activities were not really suit for my class based on the different situation and having different students. Knowing what is students need and interests is very necessary, it not only helps teacher to deliver the knowledge easily it also makes students understand that teacher was trying to stand in their position to guide them to learn with pleasure.

When I read the experiences from Sophie ( Zhao Xunyu),actually I didn't feel that surprise because as a classmate and friend of her for almost 4 years, I know her style is ' small size with strong power'. She did not feel hesitating to get to know students' feeling towards her and when students gave feedback to her, she really cares and did put effort to change the negative part. I can clearly feel she got along with her students with sincereness and passion. Sometimes when students made mistakes and did not perform well in discipline, Sophie would just point it out with effective and persuasive words to try to made students understand. Students are all sensitive about their performance in teachers' eyes and they do care how the attitude is from teacher to them. When some emergency happened, her calmness and quick-witted reaction helped her did a good job. Sometimes when we share experience in chatting, I would ask myself if I was facing that situation, will I be able to say something and do something like she did?  Sophie use her passion and sincere heart to break the wall between her and her students. From her experience I learned that ' How do you treat students, the students will do the same to you.' 

I strongly agree games would  be the most popular part for students in English learning. Like 'Tongue twister', ' crossword', ' puzzles' and ' idioms' which some peers have used in teaching are really effective. I made my English name into a 'whisper game' at the beginning of my teaching period to light their interest on my class , at the same time I aimed to remind them focus on pronunciation and tense. I didn't expect I could get a strong response afterwards. Sometimes they call me ' Miss Panda' instead of ' Miss Amanda'. lol  Interesting and meaningful games could always be the trump cards for teacher in teaching. 

Fellow classmates brilliant methods and interesting lessons enlarge my views. Inspiration always comes from learning process. Thank you all. :) 

An end means a new start

Greeting to all, 


I have to say two months of teaching are just too short for me to teach and learn more, but just because of those two months, I have rethink the meaning of "teacher". Until now, the moments I got along with students still clearly emerge in my mind. 

After two weeks of teaching, I used to ask the monitors of two classes after class what do they think about my teaching and how do they feel the way when I get along with them. The monitor of 4S1 is a smart funny boy, he told me that he likes the way I teach and he has no problem with my class, but he gave me a little suggestion " Teacher you know you and us are all young people and you only be a few years older than us( omg, he still thinks me as their age group, feel so touching lol) ,  we don't expect the teacher who is too fierce and serious,so don't worry and hope you can be more relax with us, we could be more understandable."  Well, from his suggestion I realized I may look a bit serious and tense just because I was too serious about teaching in order to perform well. It reminds me the words which my senior used to tell me when we communicate " It is not a good plan to be too serious just in order to make them listen to you, students like friendly teacher who wins their hearts."  Standing in their position helps to see wider and clearer. In order to get more voice, I asked some other students do they really can learn something from my class. Their detailed responses like what they have learn from me and which activity they like the most definitely were the biggest positive encourages for me.  

Never forget to open up ourselves before expecting students to open up to us. Flash back to my teaching period, what I have been always keep in mind is what can I give to students. At the same time I felt satisfied and cheerful when I teach them something useful and get their positive response from their enjoyable cooperation. I felt delighted when I saw students were taking notes so carefully while I was doing revision for them. 

I still remember how I deal with those naughty students with " threatening" and punishment; How I made a first step to approach those silent students to make them speak up. How I was "tortured" by their thousands of questions towards me everyday. 

On the last day of teaching as well as their last day of school, I got permission from teacher that I did not need to teach just spend time and say bye with my students. At the last day of teaching, I received the most meaningful gift ever. 

From 4S1, the naughty, smart, funny class.  everyone wrote their appreciation on an mahjong paper  

From 4S4, the talented , united and friendly class, a girl who told other teacher that she may bully me later at the beginning of my teaching period made a bracelet for me. and thankfully that until the last she didn't bully me lol because I made the first step to turn her defensiveness into a favorable impression on me, that is the first mover's advantage, haha. and also everyone wrote a lot on different color paper to tell their true feelings to me. 
                                        
                                         

                     

                     

Here are some of the students' voice to me: 

" I have always had fun and enjoyed your lessons. You have made our class cheerful and you always have activities and games for us to make the class more interesting. I really hoped that you can teach us for a much longer time. Lastly, I would like to say thank you and good luck to you!" 

" Thank you for teaching us. Hope you had a great time in teaching. We know that you put a lot effort to teach us. Owhhh, I like your accent too! All the best in China. " 

"Thank you for teaching us, your lesson were very interesting and helpful. I have gained a lot of knowledge from you. English lesson was my favorite lesson these two months because of you. Wish you all the best. Miss Amanda." 

" I like your teaching style, hope you could show more smile! " ( not enough? well, will smile more! lol) 

" Thank you for everything! I like your innovative class and you are creative and kind. Hope you could be the principal in the future!" ( haha, let me be the qualified teacher first! ) 


After reading all these words and wishes, I felt two month efforts were not in vain. Uncountable nights with pulling hair to plan the lessons were worth for me. In those two months of teaching, two of the most strongest feeling for me about teacher are: 

As a teacher, if you want to teach "a glass of" knowledge, you must have "a pail of" knowledge or even more knowledge first. Teacher is a profession which carry more responsibility as it is a big influence to others life and future.  

A popular teacher may not a good teacher in professional teaching, but a good teacher must get the acceptance from students first. 

Two months teaching experience helped us stand at the very beginning of teaching road. Profession, devotion and responsibility are the three things we need to keep chasing on the way. I appreciate what I have been through in those two months. We learn from mistakes, we improve from experience. A long way to go, good luck to everyone. Cheer up. :)