Movie and teaching listening

Last Friday my boyfriend and I saw a movie called “Inside Man.” Staring Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, and Jodie Foster, the movie portraits a plan of a bank robbery occurred in Manhattan Trust. It’s not an action movie but one that need the audience to figure out its meaning implied. At the end of the movie, I heard some audience kept asking “what did the title ’Inside Man’ relate to that movie?” and I was confused too @_@ Thank for my boyfriend’s explanation! (I won’t tell you because you need to figure it out yourself!)

After seeing this movie, I start to think the connection between movie and teaching listening. I found that watching movie is one of the numerous ways to increase students’ listening ability as long as the material is used properly. I remembered in my language drill class last semester I used Friends as one of my teaching materials. But, I just played the film and did “NOTHING!” How “nice” was I! At that time, I kept a notion in my mind that they were just freshman and didn’t put too much pressure on them. Now I realized I was wrong, and totally wrong. As an English teacher, I should, and can, do more than just seeing a movie. There are many activities after the file that I can provide for students. For example, group/ pair discussion about the file, learning some useful expressions from the film, fill in the blanks (for some words appeared in the film), and etc. Alice’s teaching makes me understand my potential to be a creative teacher through more and more exposure to the teaching activities, materials, and ideas.

Our Presentation of Teaching Grammar

I really appreciate the efforts and cooperation of our group members: Irene*2, Shirley, Iris, and me. ^_^ We met 3 times totally for discussing how we would like to present grammar instruction in the class. Our design of a grammar lesson involves the following consideration: an inductive way to present the grammar rules, integrating four skills of language, cooperation of learning environment, and meaningful practice of grammar rules. To be honest, our presentation is not bad in general. Both "presentors" are experienced teachers though they were quite nervous on the stage.

As Alice had mentioned in class, our presentation still had some parts needed to be improved. For example, the flow can be better if there's no grouping problem. Our design of sentence in the practice activity had better relate to the topic of our lesson, that is, frequency adverbs, and more meaningful to students as well. Students might become more interested in the lesson by asking some questions about their daily lives. As for summary part, Iris and me mentioned the key points of the reading because we thought it's not necessary to cover all of them. What surpriced me is that I didn't notice my hand, the one taking the handout, shaking seriously as I was talking in front of the class. I think I was too nervous to notice that! ^__________^

Teacher-centered vs. Learner-centered

Compared Alice's teaching with mine in Langauge Drills last semester, I realized what real learner-centered paradigm is. Instead of delivering knowledge to the students, Alice paid attention to the learning part, encouraging students to acquire knowledge by themselves through numerous activities. However, the application of learner-centered paradigm is not as easy as just saying it. Many teachers have difficulties to change from the focus of themselves to that of students. In other words, they have too much to consider if they want to carry out a typical learner-centered method. First, teachers must give up their authority in the classroom. It's the students, not the teacher(who becomes the facilitator), that play the most important role in the classroom. Second, teachers have to spend a lot of time preparing for the design of teaching activities. The more preparation the teacher does before the lesson, the less trouble students will make during the lesson. I believe there's no teachers who want their class to be out of control. Finally, students may not be ready for the role of "active learners" if they have got used to the traditional way of teaching.

In order to solve the problem which teachers may encounter as they change their way of teaching into learner-centered approch, some suggestions are provided in the following statement. Teachers can gradually release their power to students such as giving them limited choices in an activity first and then more responsibility are given when they are ready. Moreover, team work can save a lot of time for teachers on the preparation of teaching activities. By sharing ideas or materials with others, teachers will be more willing to undertake learner-centered paradigm. Another useful resource is from the Internet, on which teachers can find tons of free activities or materials to use.

For me, students' becoming active learners requires the help from both the teacher and the material. The teacher has to guide students to play their role, encouraging them to be responsible for their learning. Also, students get bored with the textbooks or the test-oriented materials, thus decreasing their motivation of learning. What teacher can do is to add variety to the lesson, making students feel interested in the exploration of new things.

Teaching is both a craft and science.

It's a process of crafting and refining a product with one's heart. Teaching takes a lot of time and efforts, but it may not lead to a satisfying outcome, which resembles the process of crafting. What teaching differs from crafting is that the object of teaching is a living one, whereas that of crafting is not. In addition to teaching, teachers also need to deal with students' responds. In this way, teaching is more difficult than making a drawing.

However, teaching is more than a craft. Being a good teacher requires professional knowledge about the subject. For example, one has to possess both linguistic and communicative competences which qualified as an English teacher. The precise knowledge about langauge makes teaching as a science.

Welcome to Jennifer's blog!

This is my learning blog for English Methodoogy in Teacher's program. Any of your opinions or suggestions are welcome and appreciated. ^_^