My Teaching Reflections
In order to provide an effective Chinese learning environment, I have pursued the following approaches:
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Connecting prior knowledge and experiences
Language learning is about cross cultural competency learning and problem solving, rather than language knowledge learning itself. It is important for a language teacher to guide and mentor the language learners in their motivation, personal goals and self-recognition on language ego (Guiora, et al. 1972)
For example, in one of my Advanced Chinese Reading courses, I used 中国文化中的典型人物与事件 as one of the learning materials. I believe language learning is also about building the skills to explore different subject area experiences. For example, in one class I taught an advanced reading from the textbook. The following class I taught 4 news articles with concepts and language terms from the first class. We learned 方鸿渐 from the famous contemporary novel 围城 , then I let students read several news articles related with this topic :
筛出海归里的“方鸿渐” from 《北京晚报》 , Beijing story
“海归”入沪工作面临三道坎：住房配偶子女教育from 《文汇报》, Shanghai story
年轻化趋势明显 深圳成为“海归”的乐土from 《人民日报海外版》, Shenzhen story
莫让孩子成21世纪的方鸿渐 from 《新华日报》, general story
With the thorough understanding of the classical historical character方鸿渐 and the novel 围城, my students always showed great passion to read the four authentic articles representing three large cities' current social issues in China. In this way, students are able to connect traditional classical Chinese characters and stories with Modern Chinese news reading.
I have conducted this course for many years, and the outcome is always excellent. Students enjoy the "time-travel" between ancient Chinese quotations/culture and the modern Chinese society.
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Meeting individual and collective needs
Although an individual's language aptitude plays an important role in the achievement of his or her second language learning, I believe anyone can obtain a language. Teachers need to apply different methods to meet individual students’ needs. I have a perceptive ability to identify students' diverse learning styles and accommodate my teaching styles accordingly. I always make sure the individual and collective needs of my students are met. This is evident in my students' evaluation and comments.
Motivation (integrative motivation and instrumental motivation), attitude and personality are the three elements that impact a second language learner's outcome. Motivating teaching is an important part of the language classroom, especially in the spring semester (Gardner, et al.2004), or on the students who achieved low in the exams. I have put emphasis on this motivating teaching in my classes every year and the outcome was tremendous compared to other classes without motivating teaching.
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Identifying cognitive styles
I am always interested in the concept of Constructivism and ZPD (zone of the proximal development). I try to develop my students' critical thinking skills, cognitive skills (such as metalinguistic knowledge/awareness) and metacognitive skills (Bialystok 1994). Chinese language learning is a creative expression of thoughts and emotions, sharing information and ideas through spoken and written text forms using the structures of Chinese language, and representing ideas through various media. Showing respect for students' cognitive styles and thoughts has many positive impacts. It provokes students to recognize that they bear some responsibility for both the success of the course and their personal success. It also helps convince students that their individual interests and skills matter in the course. I also believe in the power of intellectual curiosity and personal engagement with new ideas and information. It is crucial that learners investigate what intrigues them. My job is to help them discover what that is, if they do not already know, and to teach them how to explore academically.
In addition to teaching linguistic skills and linguistic knowledge, I also put specific emphasis on strategies and cultural competence. I want to make sure students grasp social/affective strategies, learning strategies (interactive, interpretive, productive), communicative strategies, resource strategies and interdisciplinary strategies during their experience of Chinese learning. My Chinese classes incorporate language learning and language use strategies to enhance communication in Chinese language and culture. This promotes being active, and encourages continued language learning.
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Assessment for Learning vs. Assessment of Learning
Assessment should have a balance among formative and summative assessments, rather than primarily focusing on summative assessment. I like the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) because I believe it has the best description of language proficiency. I have experienced reforms in the HSK (Chinese Proficiency Test) over the past two decades from 12 levels, to 8 levels, and to 6 levels. I can see it has changed from deficiency to proficiency and can serve as a formative assessment tool now. I have accumulated many experiences and skills on how to do dictations, formative assessments, oral exams, written exams, and even placement tests.
In conclusion, I believe that education is a two-way process. 教学相长,teaching others teaches yourself. - Confucius.