Reflection on School Visit: Fanghe Junior High School

The school we first visited is Fanghe Junior High School. It is the school that has 30 years of history, which can be discriminated from its ancient-looking building. However, the English education conducted in this school is not as old as its appearance. It seemed that the school principal makes a lot of efforts in English education such as the bilingual environment, the E-power center, and other school competitions related to English learning. Students, either the advanced ones or the non-advanced ones, can be taken care with different needs because their students are grouped based on their English proficiency. Also, the small-scale class (around 25 for each) is good for English teaching and learning, not only lowering the teachers’ burden, but increasing students’ opportunities in learning.

The class I observed was the one consisting of lower achievers in learning English. We did not ask their proficiency but distinguished from students’ attitude, teacher’s teaching style, and the teaching materials. Some students were talkative, but some were quiet. The teacher was not really restricted, but sometimes allowed students to express their opinions. When students talked too many things irrelevant to the lesson, the teacher stopped them vocally. The lesson continued 45 minutes and was aimed to review the lesson they had learned previously. The procedure of the lesson followed this order: (1) mini test, (2) grammatical practice, (3) pronunciation practice, (4) singing songs, and (5) pronunciation activity.

The mini test involved several English sentences, and one or two words (the newly learned vocabulary) in each sentence were underlined. Students were required to write down the Chinese translation of those underlined words. Before the mini test, the teacher gave a quick (really quick) review of the vocabulary, but I thought this rapid review was to leave more preparation time for students to settle down and clean their desks. According to the teacher, the purpose of this test is to ensure students are able to recognize the English words because in the Basic Competence Test they only need to know the meaning of the words. I think that is reasonable.

Next, the main activity was focused on and practiced the grammar “not only…but also.” The teacher reviewed the key concept and rules in Chinese and asked students to complete a worksheet, in which two separate sentences had to be combined with the “not only…but also” pattern. Students were divided into six groups based on their seats, namely one row formed one group, and these groups competed with each other. After students understood the rules about the activity, the teacher explained and demonstrated how to combine two sentences into one by using the first question in the worksheet. I think the purpose of this activity is not to challenge students, but ensure students’ comprehension and usage of the grammar. During the activity, every group had to write down their answers on the blackboard. If the answer was not correct, the teacher would ask students from the same or other group to correct the mistakes. She tried not to provide correct answers immediately but encouraged peer-correction among students by giving clues or hints. When this activity was finished, the teacher checked students’ worksheet one by one and left some time for those students who hadn’t finished yet to write down the correct answers.

In addition to grammar, listening skill was also emphasized in this lesson. Students listened to the tape and repeat the pronunciation of words which had been grouped on the basis of vowels such as /ju/ and /u/. However, I noticed that some students sitting in the back rows looked around and asked other students the answers because the voice of the recorder was too low to hear clearly. Another problem occurred in the pronunciation part was that students could find exact answers on the same page when they classified words by listening to the pronunciation. If it was the case, they even did not need to hear the pronunciation. Therefore, the design of the practice in their textbook was meaningless and did not reach its goal to distinguish varied pronunciation.

In the following activity, the teacher reviewed linking verbs by showing flashcards. Students read those verbs out as the teacher presented the flashcards. The process went pretty soon and ended with playing a song “Edelweiss” twice. While the song was playing, students paid most attention to the song and lyrics, reading it and singing the song. Actually, they were so shy that they just “murmured” the song individually. But they indeed enjoy singing songs very much. At the end of the second playing, the teacher asked students to identify where the linking verb in this song was. This step made a connection between extra activity (singing songs) and the curriculum content (grammatical points).

Students got fascinated with the last activity, namely pronunciation discrimination. All of the students were grouped in the same way as they did in the grammatical activity. In this competitive game, each group had two big cards which were written /ju/ and /u/ respectively. Students in each group took turns to play this game, and they had to work cooperatively as a team if they wanted to win. When the teacher read “duke,” those who raised the card written /ju/ got one point. They passed the cards to the next one as the teacher were ready to read the next word. Compared to the listening practice in the textbook, this game which facilitated cooperation, comprehension and discrimination of vowels, and learning motivation was more interesting and meaningful to students. They felt excited when playing games and their knowledge were also reinforced during the process of thinking and clarifying words.

After the observation, there is so many things that I can learn from the successful teaching. I call it “successful” because it applied some ESL theories and principles successfully in the real classroom. For example, there was a wonderful interaction between the instructor and learners as well as among students in most activities. Students were encouraged to take risks and correct others’ errors, which were valuable and necessary to be a good learner in the process of learning. I think most English teachers still teach in a conventional way, and this teacher broadened my horizons on teaching English. Moreover, the learning environment was motivated, interesting, positive, and low-pressure. Students felt free to talk to the teacher or ask her questions in the classroom, and the teacher still kept control of the lesson and students. Nevertheless, one imperfect part in the teaching process was the writing on the blackboard. The mess on the board usually confused students and made comprehension difficult. Thus, my suggestion is that the teacher organizes the writing in a clearer and cleaner way.