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Teaching the Teachers
An SAT analogy:
Criticism : Condemnation
Patience : Tolerance
Sharing : Generosity
A) Results : Goals
B) Favoritism : Fairness
C) Friendliness : Love
Initially when I came out here I had no idea what I would be doing, was I supposed to be teaching? Would the people even understand me?
Since it's a national holiday this week, they have invited English teachers from the rural high schools to interact with us. Although they teach English to their students, and they have "learned" English in school, for many of them their skills are lacking, as there are few people out here who are fluent, and even fewer who are native speakers.
Nonetheless, once I started interacting with the teachers, all my worries about just what I'd be doing out here were alleviated. Teaching them English is easy, the teachers are highly intelligent and eager to learn. The curriculum we are teaching from is well structured, flexible, and well thought through. I am glad to have it, even if it does have an overtly Judeo-Christian slant. For example, in the session where the topic is family, they use story of "The Prodigal Son".
I have to keep remembering that even though these teachers I am dealing with may not be fluent in English, they are all highly educated, and some are incredibly bright people. And the complexities of the curriculum are not lost on these teachers.
They understand that the curriculum is designed to teach them a lot more than English, that it presents values. What seems to surprise me is how many of the values are shared between me and them. Just as nobody walks uphill both ways, it's a myth that Chinese teachers hit their students with rulers, and humiliate them for their mistakes.
We had to decide just how much of our time here would be spent simply teaching them English, versus showing them teaching methodologies, which may not be present in Chinese schools.
I have to go through and analyze all the various American teaching methods. Stuff which in English, I can barely understand. For goodness sake we had a seminar on Bloom's Taxonomy. Through the use of a translator, we explained to these teachers, how to convince the students to move away from the rote factual memorization, and start to ask higher level questions. Yet even in the United States, a lot of education by necessity needs to be based on repetition and regurgitation. It's the foundation at which complex higher level questions are built.
We're teaching them in groups, and breaking them up in small groups. The curriculum has them role play different scenarios. They're reading English poems, and commenting on meter rhyme and structure. They understanding analogies, the difference between criticism and condemnation, patience and tolerance, sharing and generosity. In this case, the firsts (criticism, patience, and sharing) are based on actions, the second (condemnation, tolerance, and generosity) are based on values.
I see the point of mixing students of varying abilities, since the English skills of my class vary so greatly, I am blessed that I can have those more fluent explain the material to those who are less fluent. That if the lesson is thought through, it can teach students at multiple levels and across multiple disciplines. I am a fan of bilingual education, or at least teaching older students in their native tongues.
Oh and IMHO, the answer is C)
Friday, October 03, 2003