The final report
This semester I take the ESL course: Language Skills, from this course I have
learned many useful skills and some strategies for future teaching, also for
my future study, and also I have learn some US culture and history.
1. We practice the pronunciation every week, from daily used words to the
specific research fields. And I have taken notes on these fallible words. This
helps me a lot, because I mispronounce many words, which may mislead
the students to understand what I am talking about in the class.
And also we have learned some useful idioms every week, and do some
practice to enhance what we have learned.
2. We practice teaching, giving mini lessons to class, during the semester.
This gives us an opportunity to plan and practice short lessons fragments,
and considers our own performance. Also, it gives us an opportunity to
learn from our classmates. During the presentation, all the classmates are
encouraged to take active roles as undergraduate students through asking
questions, like in the real class, I should answer all the kinds of questions.
Because you have no idea what kinds of questions the students will ask, so
you should make full preparation for the lecture.
Constructive feedback is essential in becoming an effective ITA. The
feedback immediately follows the presentation. After our presentation, the
instructor will give us some comments, the mispronounced words, some
bad habits during the lecture. And she tells us how to interact with the
students, not to give the back to the class all the time during the lecture.
You should write the keywords on the blackboard, not all the stuff you are
talking about. After you write some words on the blackboard, you should
face your audiences, you students, it is bad to speak to the blackboard and
give the back to the students. If you voice is low, that makes your student
hard to hear you. Also it is not good to interact with the students.
And my classmates also give us some useful comments, point out that we
use less transitions, visual aids, body language and so on.
Also all our microteaching are videotaped. We can watch the video next
class, to see how we as an ITA look and sound to our students, how our
behavior affects others. During watching the videotape, the instructor will
comment it. This time, it is mainly on the style how we give the lecture.
Usually, I speak too fast, and not clearly, and write too much on the
blackboard. I try my best to control the speed, to slow down when I give
lecture. When I slow down, the pronunciation is much better, and more
clearly. Sometimes, when I am giving lecture, students are keeping asking
question, that’s what we have encountered during the microteaching, I am
busy answering the question, and cannot continue. That is another problem.
If we have not much time, we cannot answer all the questions, just answer
a few, and tell the students that they can come to ask question after class,
we have to finish the content.
3. During the semester, we give a presentation on specific topic and give a
discussion. For the presentation, we should prepare all the stuff, because
we are not familiar with the topic, it is new to us, we have to search all the
information about it, and think about how to present it to the class that the
students can understand well. This also gives us a chance to learn more
about American culture and history. Because every student has different
background, may ask some questions that you never think about, so it is a
challenging job. And I have learned another strategy, if you do not know
the answer; just say you do not know, I will check the answer and tell you
next class, it is nothing to be shamed.
For the discussion, we have to design some questions to ask the students,
and learn how to control a discussion. The most difficult part of the
discussion is how to introduce the topic, how to bring the students to your
designed way. And during the discussion, you should take notes on the
opinions of the students, which maybe you never come up with. From the
discussion we learned how to organize a discussion, how to communicate
with the students, and know some discussion strategies.
4. And at last we have practice the impromptu speeches and debate.
Impromptu speech gives us an opportunity to give an unprepared
presentation, and it is an exercise for us, to drive us think quicker, and
speak clearly, logically. Usually, you should give specific example to make
your speech splendid. For debate, we know what are debate, how to
debate, and the rules for debate. Debate is to give a good argument that is
to argue the counter point.
As an ITA, I have learned some skills how to give a good lecture and know
what I am good at, for example, how to communicate with the students,
how to interact with students, how to invoke the interests and enthusiasms
hidden in students' mind. And also I have correct many mispronounced
words, learned some American class culture. In the class you should try
your best to be the friend with your students, use some body languages to
interact with the students, not look stiff, and often ask the students
questions to encourage them to think, for example, you have taught the
students how to add a hyperlink to some words, then you can ask them
how to put a hyperlink on some picture. And you should encourage them to
ask questions, to solve the problems independently. Also during the class,
you can give some pop quiz for some extra points that will invoke the
interests of the students. And in the class, you should generate a great
atmosphere which induced a profound involvement and interactions of
students in the class, rather than to make the students nervous.
For the goals for further development of my teaching, first, I will still
practice my pronunciation, to pronounce clearly. And I will try to
implement the strategies I learned from the classroom observation and
some courses I took, also I will discuss the strategies with other TAs,
communicate with the experience of each other. And another thing is that,
when I am presenting, I usually write too much on the board, and give the
back to the student, it is not good. I will change my style, and try to speak
more to the students, to interact with the students. I want students would
like to take my course, they can learn knowledge while they are happy, and
you cannot make your course as a burden for your students, if the students
feel it is no interesting in these class, they will get bored, and will not active
in the class, so you can imagine the atmosphere of such a class.
I have been a TA for course CS170: Computer Applications for Business for a
year. what the US undergraduate classroom impresses me most is that the
atmosphere here is more active, and the students ask all kinds of questions,
sometimes you do not know how to answer their questions. And in the
classroom, the students have their own characters; they are freer than
other countries’ classroom. For example, in the class, the students may put
their feet on the desk, or sit cross-legs on the chair. And the students would
like to raise their hands to ask you to repeat or do something again. When
you present new information in the class, you can ask the students
questions to attract their attention. They would like to respond to your
questions. And they would like to ask you some question about the coming
assignment.
In my opinion, US students like to learn something interesting, if the class is
boring, they may begin to digress, and would not concentrate on what you
are talking about. Sometimes, you want the students to do something new
or a little challenging, few of them will do that, most of them would like to
wait you to give the answer, but they would like you to come to help them
to solve the problem, if you come to ask why you do not want a try, they
just pretend to do that, but not in the right way. If you tell them how to do
it, you are happy to do that, and begin to ask you why. And another
observation is that they like to ask you question in person, not like email, or
just make an appointment via email.
For my class, I do think the students prepare for the class. Because each
class there is always some students ask me some questions about the new
material before my presentation. I am happy to see this, because they
already know what they should pay attention to. During the class, when I
write something on the board, the students always take notes. That’s a
good habit. Before exams, the students would like to ask questions about
their assignments or if some contents will be tested in the exam. And I think
my students always prepare for the exams because they always do what
you want they to do, always are obedient. And my sections always get the
best grade among all the sections. That is quite similar to the students in
our country.
The students in our country are quite different from the US students. US
students like to ask questions, all kinds of questions, but Chinese students
seldom ask questions during the class, they are good listener. Chinese
student like to take notes, almost all the students. But not too many US
students take notes, at least in my class. All the student of both country are
all obedient, they do what the instructor want them do. You can see US
student can study everywhere, even just sit on the ground, they seem
diligent. In china, students always stay in the library or classroom, you
never see a student sit on the ground to study.
Suggestions:
This course, in my opinion, it is useful for ITA. It gives an opportunity for all
ITAs to learn English, to learn some skills for future teaching. But I think
maybe something new should be added to this course.
1. This course should give more opportunities to the students to speak, the
mini lessons and one presentation are not enough. Maybe some
discussions should be added. Then students can have more chances to
speak.
2. The students in this course can be divided into several groups, and each
week, they can be assigned some topics to talk, and in the class, they can
present their discussion results.
3. I like the part talking the current news for each week, so I want to
reserve this tradition.
4. Maybe this course needs some interns, some undergraduate students to
help the students in this class to improve their pronunciation and lecture
skills, because they know how the lecture present they can understand well.
At last, I would like to thank Prof. Irene, thank you for your help through
this semester.
Fengpeng Yuan