Teaching Demos

Went to a private school for teaching demo/interview this morning.

I prepared for this event for about 3 hours last night (sure I'd had a rough lesson plan in my mind earlier on).

• I pulled out a few authentic materials I think I can use on teaching numbers and asking for directions;
• Some chopsticks, as the counting sticks in ancient time which I got for free from supermarket;
• A map of Beijing for asking directions;
• A name tag with my name on it for asking names... etc..

Created a handout for each class. Then some props I've been using for the past 10 years. When I showed my husband the hour glass and a pair of click boards (castanets,响板), he was confused at first why on earth they have something to do with language teaching.

Anyway, after I thought I was well-prepared for the teaching demos, I still couldn't sleep well last night. I laid down in bed around 10 pm, and then I kept having all kinds teaching ideas/stories/activities popping in my poor little brain... And of course, those old scary "school nightmares" were once again coming back, haunting me...

Luckily I got up at 6:10 am. Only 10 mins behind my schedule. Since I've been training myself to get up at 7 am sharp for the past week (just for this super early interview this morning), I didn't suffer too much for getting ready in the morning. I took a hot shower, had bagels and a small cup of coffee, made tea into my to-go thermo mug... It feels like living a student life, or I'm working full-time again.

I taught 2 classes from 7:40 to 9:15 am, and then I had the interview (or sort of walking around the campus and talked) with the chair of Foreign Language Dept. for the next 40 minutes. The director gave me some very "fair and insightful" feedback to my teaching demos.

After living a comfortable married life for the past 2 years, some of my teaching skills are rusty now. Even though I know I should have

• jumped into the topics right away,
• listed all the key words/sentence patterns on the board before I started to teach the dialogue or activities,
• or even though I should have changed my strategy (or lesson plan A to B) right away when I found out the air in the class was kinda dead at one point....

I didn't manage to perform 100% this morning. For that, I loathed myself a lot while I was waiting for the bus to get home around 10 am (just an upset feeling that I could have done better than this... but not purely just sad, or almost-want-to-cry upset, so that's OK).

Here are things I have to work on before I have the chance to do a 2nd interview at the same school (if they contact me again for a 2nd interview) or doing another demo at other schools:

1. Work on my simplified characters: As a native speaker, a wanna-be Chinese teacher, and with the sense of competition, if that English-born director could manage to master both characters, there's no reason why I can't do it. And as he criticised on my teaching skills and claimed that "...You native speakers don't understand the pain we have to go through in learning Chinese..." (ha, it sounds so familiar... But now the role is reversed...)Oh, I do. As a native speaker of Chinese, I still have to learn different spelling and written systems on my own because of the stupid political scheme. And being a less privileged Taiwanese Chinese, we also have to learn the Northern Chinese linguistic usage. And don't mention that the equally painful process we had been through when we were learning English.
2. Polish my teaching skills by reading the lesson plans, reference books, and articles I've collected over the years. It always helps to generate some new ideas when you read something old or new. The key is to stimulate your stale-as-old-bread brain.
3. Research Chinese History materials: The director asked me to think about teaching a Chinese History class. Even though I have no idea what my audience will be, it will be fun to refresh my memory in Chinese history. And history is always something I'd like to teach, if I'm not teaching a language subject.
4. Practice my Chinese calligraphy: That's one extracurricular class my mom has always regretted for NOT letting me take when I was little (except for swimming, English and piano). "At least, you'll have a more beautiful penmanship...", she always said. Yeah... I don't know how I managed to survive as a teacher with a ugly handwriting for the past few years, how it would affect my future career or how much I could improve my penmanship at this old age. But, it's always good to upgrade things in your life, isn't it.