Teach English in Shi'An Zhen - Chongqing

I. Gains: First of all, this course gave me an understanding on different teaching methodologies. It pointed out the disadvantages and advantages of all, thus I could see what methods are the most appropriate in certain situations. Personally, I greatly sympathize with the ESL methods. I like the idea of starting and finishing with activities that engage and activate the students. In addition, the theoretical part was greatly supported by practical ideas. I learned about many games and activities that can be used during the lessons, supported by books and websites where I can find even more activities and exercises. I also greatly appreciate all the sample lesson plans that I got to see and all the other teaching ideas. As I also had to make a lot of lesson plans on my own, I got some practice in creating them and I could possibly use them in the future. Learning about correction coding and ways of corrections will probably save me (and my students) a lot of time in the future. I think these ideas are not exclusive to english and can be used with other languages as well, therefore the program gave me some general understanding of how to teach. I also got a great picture of the structure of the english language. I learned english grammar before, so it wasn?t my first time to encounter the english grammar system, but now I have an excellent summary of it and I can see through it. In addition, I learned some good ideas on how to teach it and what activities I can use, so the students can practice the new language, and learn its usage and form through having fun. I also appreciate what I learned on dealing with discipline problems, managing the class and understanding the needs of special groups. The lack of this knowledge made it difficult for me to teach in the past. II. Implementation: Although I currently don?t have any students who study english (but another language), I have been already using some techniques that I learned from the program. I have been using the lesson plan structure, which I always fill out before every lesson. I used to just write notes on a piece of paper or in a notebook, which was quite hard to follow. It makes it much easier for me to have a clear understanding on what I am actually going to do in class. However, I am trying to be very flexible with changing the plan if that is more appropriate. I will keep using the lesson plan structure, which I really like. In addition, I have now materials and activity ideas to support the ?boring? and ?dry? grammar. I remember learning english grammar and I know I had difficulties with using it and understanding it before I moved to a multilingual environment where I was exposed to it all the time. I think it was the case because I had a class where we just learned the dry rules and try to practice it on paper instead of putting into a ?real? context. I am really happy that I have so many resources now with which I can support the rules and make a fun learning environment. I wish that my students want to come to class because they think it is fun. I will also put more emphasis on phonology and pronunciation teaching. Although I was familiar with the phonemic alphabet, I haven?t taught it, because I got the impression that it is an ?ancient? technique for learning pronunciation and it isn?t welcome by schools. I think it isn?t such a hard system to learn and it can greatly improve one?s pronunciation. I organized the units, separated lesson plans & teaching ideas, techniques, grammar, special issues and online sources/books, so I can always find them and use them in the future. Overall, I think it was a very good decision to take this program and I think I learned a lot, not only about teaching but some psychology about how to approach people and young learners.