Teach English in Dahonggou Zhen - Wuwei Shi

Class Demonstration 1: The good thing about this teacher?s classroom was the seating arrangement ? it allows his students to have eye-contact with him and the other students. The teacher in the first video was extremely ineffective it was appalling. The first thing I noticed was, this teacher kept repeating despite having no response from students (indicating they probably do not understand or just do not know the answer). This repetition from him simply wastes time. What he did was deemed discouraging. His tone and the words he chose were very discouraging. He needs to bear in mind that the students are not native speakers of English. Even if it was easy, what was easy to one person may not necessarily be easy to the other person. We all experience things differently. Instead of the repetition, he can just give an example to illustrate (which he should have really done first and not elicit answers from the students). I noticed he kept asking questions, I really think he can use other methods e.g. he could have shown a picture of a parakeet/walrus while asking the students what these animals can do. What I also disagree with was him saying, ?You don?t know?? to the class. Of course, they don?t! That is why they are taking lessons aren?t they? He does not even know the student?s name and had to ask them it all the time. Totally disengaged. This teacher probably does not care about the class and probably has failed to build rapport with the class. He sat down again. For the second time, looking around/blankly instead of checking if his students were doing fine or struggling with the worksheet or going around to reinforce what was taught one by one with his students. A very good example of an ineffective teacher. He just asks questions and keeps giving out worksheets without getting the class to reinforce their learning prior either through pronunciation drilling/choral repetition or giving proper context or illustrations through pictures. He is reading in class while he gets them to draw a picture! Oh my goodness He still does not remember their names, well even if it is hard to because of the pronunciation and that they are from a different culture with no Western names, at the very least, he can request for them to have a name place card on their desks. I will ask for a refund if I was a student of this teacher. When there was no more time, he thanked them and did not even do a summary/closure for the class. This goes to show that he did not plan his time properly and possibly did not even do a lesson plan to help him keep track of what should be achieved at the different time periods of the class time. All in all, what made this lesson an ineffective one was the way he conducted his class. He wasted time, his choice of words was very discouraging, he is not flexible and cannot think on his feet (really if the students are not responding, think of something else), the content was not illustrated and broken down properly, he kept asking students questions without reinforcing content properly and giving the students a chance to participate but handed out worksheets instead. He skipped several phases of the ?Study? component in the ESA approach and proceeded with the worksheets. Class Demonstration 2: His attitude was so different, a positive one. He is engaging and is engaged. Helpful, going around to get to know them one by one. He used gestures with words like, ?think?. He got the students to engage in pair work to ensure maximum student-teacher participation. In pair work, there is visibility as it forces both students to interact and the students get a chance to engage and speak to one another. He smiled a lot and he did not waste time. If there were no response to the prompts, he proceeded and give them the answer to the example to illustrate what he meant. He made the effort to form links to where the animals came from when he prompted the students to guess the example he was trying to get from them. Instead of just saying Ostrich, he talked about where it came from, the size of it and how it looked like. This information, though can be deemed direct by others, helps improve the students? vocabulary. He acted out/mime what he wants to elicit from the students ? walk, swim, crawl. He reinforces content by eliciting the examples from the students through illustration of actions done by him. After which, he goes through the content with the grammar and language structure in it and he engages in choral repetition as a class and individually, checking that every student comprehends and have a chance to participate. This way, he did not skip through the various ?Study? stages in the ESA approach. After which, he went on to proceed with the worksheets, only after covering the materials comprehensively. He does not sit, stood up and looked around to ensure the students are fine. He actively gets everyone to participate in class by calling them to share their answers with the class individually. After which, he gets the students to turn their answer sheets and test them on the spot, reinforcing what they have learnt and getting them to remember the content. He gave example by showing what he wanted the students to do with the students and ensuring that they understood what he said before handing out the worksheets to them. The closure was much better and he thanked them sincerely.