Today, it was our group 's turn to Mirco Teach.
It's always enriching to learn from your mistakes.
Here are some tips for better teaching:
It's suggested that teaching be taught in all English.
If necessary, Mandarin explanation can be added but the portion should be very very small, and avoid sentences that co-mix English and Mandarin lest the students get used the co-mixing of languages.
When introducing vocabulary, it is a good idea to ask students to make their own sentences, because this way they can connect the vocabulary with their daily experience. However, be sure to alter the sentence a bit when you ask the whole class to repeat so that the sentence will be suitable for all who repeats it. For example, when a particular student make the sentence of "My favourite singer is Jay", the teacher can change it to "My favourite singer is him" so that all students will not feel awkward when repeating it... for some may not like the singer that another has proposed.
When playing hammer games with the new vocabulary, the teacher should remind students to call out the vocabulary they hit in order to win... this way not only the meaning of the word but also the pronunciation of the word can be re-emphasized through this game.
When teaching English grammar to junior high school students, the teacher need not teach them the English name of the term but simply use the Chinese... or else it'll become a new vocabulary the students need to spend time to digest. The more time they waste on adjusting the name, the slower they'll get to actually understanding the grammar content. It is also a good idea to use Chinese to write instructions of the worksheets, this way students won't get stuck on understanding the instruction... and will get to the core of practice without wasting time figuring out something they will eventually know in the long run of education.
Teachers should be careful when making grammar charts, make sure the arrangements of sections and the content will not confuse the students.
One of my favourites is the tip about not using "correcting" exercises. I added some exercises about correcting grammar mistakes in my worksheet, it turned out that this would not be a good idea. TOEFL used to have such types of questions, but now they have eliminated that. This is because it is better to tell the students "what to do" instead of "what not to do", because students will get mixed up if you tell them what not to do. And I think this is a concept that is very reasonable and true. I remember when I was in high school, my geography teacher would teach us some common sayings about the geographic nature of different local places, and then sometimes they would tell us the mistakes some people make about the sayings. They told us the mistakes to remind us not to make the mistakes, but it just got me confused all the time and I kept forgetting which saying was true. I guess that's probably why it's better to just tell the students what to do.
Furthermore, I took a baseball class this semester, and the coach who is a professor teaching PE psychology graduate programs, taught us the best way to coach is to never tell the players "what not to do". Always tell them "what to do", because the brain reacts and tends to shift to the things it hears. "For example," he said, "if I tell you to not think about elephants right now. It's impossible for you to not think about it. If I didn't say it, you never would have thought about elephants. Now that I've warned you, you think about it even more." Another reason is, when playing baseball, the reactions are often done instantly, the brain will respond with the most emphasized information it received recently. For example, if you tell a player to not bat on high balls, you make the player's mind filled with the message of "high ball". When a high ball flies near he will automatically hit it because it was on his mind... by the time he realized he shouldn't have hit it, he would've been half way finished his swing of hitting. So, I guess the mental reason for just telling people what they ought to do is... it takes time for the mind to switch from the negative mode. The mind is a brilliant masterpiece that has a sharp focus on the things it is told, and when one speaks of negative things it is natural for the brain to automatically obey it... it takes extra effort and time for the brain to switch from the negative mode to the positive, not to mention how much time it takes for it to turn that switched mode into action. So, after some personal experience and lessons about PE psychology, it really makes sense to just tell students "what to do" and correct them only when they do wrong.
