Teach English in Hanzuo Zhen - Wuwei Shi

I am disturbed at the teacher's attitude toward the students and the lesson he 'taught'. Entering the classroom and right away asking questions made the students put up an invisible wall to shield their emotions from being shamed. He persisted in asking the same question, in the same way, and his demeanor was negative. The teacher appeared to look down on the students as he spoke; not referencing him physically standing but the pacing and intonation of his voice. That agitation led to more withdrawing from the students. When he finally wrote an example on the board, he completed the entire conjugation with his back to the students for a prolonged period of time. Here is where he could've written the first, and elicit the remaining ones from the students. This was clearly NOT a lesson meant to be teacher-centered but student-centered. I would've had the students write the remaining items on the board, or at least try. I would've smiled more. They need to know it's okay to not get everything correct. In my classroom, I used to make good use of the projector and transparencies. That way, I still face my students and keep the lesson flowing along. These students obviously weren't advanced nor beginners, but possibly level 2 or level 3. The teacher didn't even know their names. No rapport was established. No matter how good an idea or accompanying materials and assessments, if the presentation is awful, nothing good really comes out of it. The teacher in the first lesson doesn't model the drawing first. If I were his student, then I would feel very self-conscious to present my picture for fear of it being scoffed or frowned upon. However, in the second class, this same teacher and group of students begin the lesson a very different way. The teacher introduces himself and smiles. His voice is enthusiastic as well. This elicits smiles from the students as he takes the time to learn their names. Class begins with a game. Most people like games. It puts the students at ease right away. The teacher uses TPR often and speaks slower. The students are paired for the first activity. They compete in pairs to list as many animals as possible before the 2 minutes are up. They laugh and talk in this activity, and the teacher keeps them abreast of how much time they have. The teacher's voice is game like as he asked each pair how many animals they listed. He smiles and uses his body to show excitement and 'Awww' when one pair could only come up with ten, while the others ranged from 15 animals to 20 animals. Then the teacher has each pair name the animals they listed, and he writes them on the board, smiling as he writes them and making eye contact with the students. The students are eagerly participating, and appear relaxed and happy. The students provide even more animals too. Students are doing more of the talking. Everyone's name is visible for everyone else to see. The teacher's name is on the board, and he provided that first. Then the students have theirs hanging in the front of their desks. The animals on the board are those that mainly live in Thailand. Also in the second lesson, the teacher smiles, quickly corrects mistakes in pronunciation with \"Not quite...\" and then provides the correct pronunciation. The performs the action he wants the students to do or say. For example, A bird___fly. The teacher inserts can. Then he writes another sentence using a different animal the class discussed in this sentence format, and students provide 'can't'. He explains how people commonly use the contraction form and writes the student response 'cannot' underneath the contraction to show what 'can't' means. All the students are fully engaged, and this is clearly an atmosphere of learning. I noticed how after the teacher provided a sentence using the verb 'can' that the students participated in making sentences with him, and finally they were doing this on their own, and he would write those sentences on the board. The teacher praised for correct answers, maintained a positive and enthusiatic tone, and eye contact. The teacher modelled the sentence format for the students and the animals they provided as well as himself were written on the board. Then the students provided sentences that too were written on the board. The teacher holds up a worksheet, explains how it is to be completed, and students complete the worksheet in pairs. The same is done for the second worksheet. Following completion of each worksheet when the time limit is reached, they all go over the answers. His way of calling on each student becomes very predictable though because it's every other student in each pair. Random would have kept all of them completely on their toes.