“It is not about the technology; it’s about sharing knowledge and information, communicating efficiently, building learning communities and creating a culture of professionalism in schools. These are the key responsibilities of all educational leaders.” – Marion Ginapolis
Teaching Chinese students is quite challenging, especially to Grade 10 students. The Nova Scotia International Program in Nanchang No. 2 High School is catering Grade 10-12 courses to Chinese students who had never been in an English language learning environment. Most of them never had a foreign teacher, and many can't speak or communicate in English. It's a tough job for us how to teach Math in English to these students.
Being here for more than ten years, I have quite understand the issues and more or less, I devised some plans how to overcome the struggles of my students. One of the things that really helped me a lot is creating a group chat discussion in QQ wherein students can communicate in English after class and discuss what did they miss in class. It can also be a great tool where students can access or download files I use in class for them to review at home or read online whenever they feel like. It's definitely good for improving students' English and developing a camaraderie among the class.
Here's some of the screenshots that I took from the QQ Chat Group:
Even you want to give explicit instruction, you will find that there's some words lost in your discussion that would take time for other students to absorb or understand. You would like to know if they did understand or the students could clarify it after class when you're not around. Technology, for me is helping me bridge that language gap.
For teachers - how do you deal with the language gap in class?
Hi Lilian! Excellent site! I think as a teacher the biggest challenge for us is summed up in Eric's comment: "Almost, never ask why" (sic). As teachers the most important thing is to get students to understand why and constantly search for "why". This might be an interesting article to get the creative juices flowing! http://education.uci.edu/docs/JMTE-vanEs_Sherin.pdf
ReplyDeleteHi!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the reply. Pretty sure most of the students (especially Chinese students) would never ask why. They're trained in rote learning and they never had a voice in class. As what I have observed in China, students only sit in class, and listen to the teacher, never question the teachers or share their own ideas. So yeah, what if they don't get what you just said in class - "Almost, never ask why". That's pretty sad for the learner. Through using this chat discussion, they could attempt at least to ask why, if they can't ask in class. The teacher does not need to reply because some of the students may respond.
Anyways, thanks for the link that you gave. I read that article, it's quite interesting. I think it will work perfectly if the school has that technology to record those sessions. It's a good tool to help teachers reflect and identify the issues inside their own classroom and design a plan on how to innovate their teaching pedagogy. I could see the video club as a self or group reflection for the whole Math teachers and they could always learn from each other through practice. I appreciate the comment ; )