Today, I did a
teaching demonstration with my homeroom class for a group of professors and
students from Beijing Normal University and South China Normal University. With
the textbook article, A Letter to Grandma, I intended to help my students
develop active reading skills with a series of tasks because they will have to
cope with challenging reading comprehension questions next year.
Students will be
facing a variety of relatively long and complicated articles when taking the
Comprehensive Assessment Program exam next May. As a teacher, the main idea is
helping students process and retrieve relevant information in order to answer
multiple-choice questions regarding reading comprehension. Without traditional
lecturing, my students worked in groups to complete the tasks targeting active
reading, complete with a simple information gap activity to practice asking and
answering questions regarding the text.
Of course, it was
not a perfect class. I did not expect one group got stuck with the phrase match
task. Some slow learners frequently did not know what to do, and their group
leaders failed to provide help, either. Though I thought I included enough
scaffolding for the students, the lesson plan did not pan out as I had
expected. If I want to do it again, I would lower the difficulty of the task
and differentiate the learning materials as well.
During the Q&A
session, I was invited to reflect on the class. Professor Song gave me some
positive feedback based on student behavior, scaffolding, and the
well-structured arrangements of tasks. On top of that, the principal gave me a
chance to show off my English speaking skills, so I gave a brief introduction
in English to myself and the international collaborative projects I've been
holding dear. Though it will always be an uphill struggle, I still would keep
my faith and passion for creating an authentic environment for my students to
experience what it's like to USE English.
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