Reflection on School Visit: ZSGHS

Zhong Shan Girls High School (ZSGHS), one of the best senior high schools in Taipei city, features the extensive application of technology and the cooperation of teachers as a team. It is the first school in Taiwan that distributed a projector to each classroom and a notebook to each teacher, displaying its emphasis on technological use. The frequency of using technology consequently brings changes on the methods, models, and techniques of teaching in ZSGHS.

The conventional way of instruction used by individual teachers was replaced by team work among teachers by means of sharing teaching materials and cooperating with each other. Therefore, in this school they have so called “the strongest instructional team” which produced innovative and creative teaching materials and methods to increase students’ motivation as well as to meet students’ various needs. This background knowledge mentioned above helps me to understand the rationale of teaching when observing lessons in ZSGHS.

It is my fortune and pleasure to observe the math and science class in this school, which consists of 24 smart students and a nice and humorous teacher, Stephanie. All students were highly motivated on what they were learning and hardly afraid of making mistakes when speaking English. They have great rapport or relationship with their teacher and enjoy the task-based instruction a lot. In the fifty-minute lesson, group presentation occupied most of the class time. Each group presented their materials by using PowerPoint, showing the frequent utilization of technology on learning English in the classroom.

In the task-oriented lesson, the main activity was to present what students had done in their task of selling things. All students were divided into six groups previously. Each group had to sell one thing online on ebay. On the day we observed, each group presented any information related to their product such as the picture of the product, starting bid, end time, shipping costs, item location, and description of the product. After each group finished their presentation, other groups had to evaluate the design of auction done by that group through an evaluation sheet. The criteria of the evaluation included the photograph, the price, the service, first impression of the product, and etc. Each criterion was scored from one to five points. Each group had 1.5 minutes to discuss these details and finally handed in the evaluation sheet to the teacher. As all groups completed their presentation, the teacher continued to start the next lesson whose topic is migration of food. At the same time, two teaching assistance helped count the scores of all groups. The teacher did not jump directly to the topic of the next lesson; rather, she encouraged class discussion by asking lots of questions about food and finally led to the main topic. At the end of the class, the teacher announced the result of the competition. The group which got the highest scores meant most students regarded their online auction as the best one.

After observing the Stephanie’s lesson, I was so surprised about the concentration, motivation, and reaction of those students. They are obviously the so called “good students,” namely those with high motive to learn and great autonomy on learning. They hardly distracted their attention to other things from the activity in the class, not even when other groups were presenting on the stage. All students were engaged in what they were doing and tried their best to express their idea in English. Although some of them did not express very well, they did not look embarrassed at all. It seems that for them learning English is an enjoyable and interesting thing, rather than a horrible and boring work.

Students’ positive reaction and attitude on learning possibly result from the pressure-free environment and the great rapport with their teacher. During the process of learning in the classroom, I hardly notice any error correction on students’ speaking. In stead of grammar, they put great emphasis on the content, namely the information of their selling product. Errors are considered one part of learning; therefore, most students with low anxiety are bold to take risks in the learning process. The teacher builds harmonious relationship with her students, as friendly as their friends but also with professions.

The task-centered lesson is the key of the successful teaching. Most teachers who use task as one part of their lesson may encounter a lot of problems such as the control of time, the design of tasks, the selection of the authentic materials, and the integration of tasks with the lesson. Stephanie’s effective application of the task to her class contributed to her great efforts or the aid of the teaching team. It is undoubted that the use of task encourages students’ learning motivation and the variation of classroom activity, but the prerequisite is to have thorough design of using tasks.

In addition to the application of tasks, I also learned something from Stephanie’s class. When introducing new lesson, she did not directly point out the topic (migration of food), but encourage students to think the changing process of food and its factors by asking questions. This inductive learning process facilitated critical thinking ability of students. In this way, students are not the information receivers, but knowledge acquirers. Moreover, time was controlled excellently in this lesson. When students presented too many materials, namely the PowerPoint slides, she asked them to skip some of them in order to save time for the next few groups. If she did not do so, the task would cost too much class time and might not be as successful as it was.