4/11 School Visit 芳和國中

General Impression
Sitting in a school district, 芳和國中is surround by an elementary school, a high school, and lots of green and tall trees. Though the principal told us that the location of this school is actually at the frontier of Da-An district, I loved the environment here when I got off the bus and walked around. After the principal’s brief introduction of herself and this school, I understood that there are about 500 students in this school, so there are only 25 to 30 students per class, and this also make it possible for a teacher to take care of each student in a class. And then, I found myself like this school very much.

First, the principal’s philosophy of education was admirable and impressive. She understood that the school is old and small, but in other words, that means every child’s development could be well taken care of. She is not only aware of this, but takes actual action to put it into practice.

Second, she knew the history and environment of the school very well, as well as the general background of the students’ parents. She knew what are the disadvantages generated by an old school and parents from low social status, but she also realized what could be the advantages. Thought the parents don’t have enough time to deal with children’s learning, they are trying their best to cooperate with teachers. Thus, teacher’s profession could be brought into full play.

The communication among the principal, teachers, and administrators seems very good, too. Perhaps each member has different ways of teaching or practicing, but I can see that to facilitate students’ learning is their common goal.

Classroom Observation
There are about 30 students in the class I observed. The students are polite and vigorous. I could tell that the relationship between the teacher and the students are kind of friendship. The advantage of this is that the interaction and atmosphere are quiet good, but the disadvantage is that the students are a little bit out of control.

At the beginning of the class, the teacher led students to review some vocabularies they have learned in last class, and then started a quiz. The time for the review only lasted 3 minutes. The teacher read each vocabulary and asked students to repeat after her. However, only small number of students repeated. Most of them just talked or were restless with themselves. But the teacher seems to choose to ignore it.

Then the teacher started to review the sentence pattern (not only~ but also) they have learned in last class. They played 2 games to practice the sentence pattern. I think the design of the game is good because every individual had to participate. Even if only several students had to come up to the stage and write down the answer, but the rest of the members had to finish the sheet so their group could get the points. Most of the students could be concentrated on the whole-class tasks. Competition made them excited. Students were a little bit noisy but behaved.

The final teaching activity is pronunciation practice. Students have to distinguish /ju/ and /u/ in words such as duke and true. The game here is also very interesting, but I think it will be better if the teacher could explain why they (-u-e and -ue) pronounce differently in words and let students practice the pronunciation a little more.

All in all, I think the interaction between the teacher and students is harmonious, and thus can create a happy learning environment for students. And in fact, it is. I saw that most of the students were happily involved in the learning process, and none of them fell into sleep (which often happened in my times). However, I would like to suggest that the teacher could ask students read the text with her certainly but not ignore the situation that most of the students are not willing to open their mouth to read out loud. After all, speaking up is very important for any English learner.

After The Observation
Frankly speaking, 芳和國中made a very good impression on me, and I hope we also made a good impression on them. Though they only have 5-6 English teachers in charge of all the 500 students’ leaning, they are trying their best. Each teacher has their own teaching philosophy and belief, and they put their belief into practice as possible as they can. Some of them are experienced, and some of them not. But the same thing is that all of them care so much about their students, and never give up anyone in their class. They have shown me that dreams are not only dreams. They can come true if we put some efforts!