Teaching Philosophy

I finally met my direct supervisor, the future Chair of Lang. Dept., at school this morning.

During our meeting, my supervisor firstly introduced me her teaching philosophy by drawing a heart. And then she gave me her 5 C's for learning a foreign language (as opposed to the 5-Cs established by the National Standards for Foreign Language Learning):

Cultivate the
Competence of learning a foreign lang., and have the
Confidence to
Communicate
Creatively

Then I suddenly realized that I DO have my own teaching philosophy; I just don't know THAT is a philosophy rather a belief.

Here's the analogy I like to use in learning Chinese language:

If achieving the Chinese fluency is like climbing the Monte Everest...

Here are things you want to equip before you start from the Base Camp:

1.A good tour guide: a.k.a. your Chinese teacher
2.A nice backpack: Textbook & workbook and recommended reading
3.A Map or GPS: Dictionaries
4.Food: Phonics, spelling rules, word formations, grammars…
5.Appropriate clothes: Cultural understanding
6.Good physical conditions: Hang in there, you’ll get to the top someday!!

(I don't know how to copy that great "mountain" graphs from the powerpoint... So, you got the idea)

p.s.:
The“5-Cs” from the National Standards for Foreign language Learning:
Communication
Cultures
Connections
Comparisons
Communities

Finally A Job Offer

The upper school dean of a private school called yesterday morning to inform me that the school wanted to off me a job as a full-time Mandarin Chinese teacher starting August, 2008.

I was overwhelmed by the following facts of this great offer:

1. This school is only 2 miles from my place, which literally means a 10-min. bus ride every morning (yeah... consider the super high gas price these days， and the 1st class begins at 7:40 AM, it's a great benefit for me!)
2. It's the subject I want to teach and be good at teaching (though they're asking me to teach maybe one Chinese history class if the enrollment for Chinese classes isn't going too well...)
3. The salary is pretty good. Since I only have one-year teaching experience in the U.S. , I won't even think about negotiating the salary at this point.
4. The students are ages 12~18 (6th~12th grades), all pretty behaved and motivated to learn (at least that's what I feel from the previous 2 teaching demos ).
5. The school environment is nice, the school offers free lunch (and it's hot!) and provide pretty good benefits.
6. The vibes I received from the teachers and staff are friendly and supportive. It feels like I can fit in well in the community.

Needlessly to say, I guess I'll just accept the offer next week after I receive and read the contract.

I'm so happy that the very long job hunting process is going to end pretty soon. Thank God, no matter there is a God or not, I'm thankful for the almighty power above us.

Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language

One of my tutoring students e-mailed me this new book info that will be published by Cheng & Tsui this June. I guess there will be more and more books like this for teachers to be published in the future.

I like what the editor said in the introduction (as in purple text)of the book regarding "Who" may become a Chinese Language Teacher in the U.S.:

Needless to say, the task of finding and training qualified teachers is not an easy one.

First. many of the native Chinese-speaking candidates may not have the needed subject matter expertise, or an understanding of the common themes and trends that join all foreign lang. teachers... In short, they are not participants in the specialized conversation that goes on regularly between teachers of Chinese.

I totally agree with the editor. Even as a native Chinese speaker, and had always got good grades in Chinese classes, I sometimes "forget" about a lot of things in the language itself. Not to mention some Chinese native speakers who use the language only in a daily conversational setting.

2ndly, (which, to me, is the most important factor for a Chinese program in U.S. mainstream school to survive and thrive) many of these native speakers are coming from Chinese-speaking countries that have educational systems which differ greatly from that of America, thus creating a wide disparity as to how education is viewed, valued and carried out.

Without an understanding of one's teaching context, environment, and particular school culture, Chinese language programs run the risk of failing because they not matched to the goals, needs, and desires of a particular setting, or because they have not taken into account the makeup of the various students whom they are trying to serve.

I guess this is the biggest challenge (or fear) for me after I accepted the job offer, and going to serve a private school community this school year. Knowing the students body and the students' family backgrounds will be a good starting point.

As I mentioned to my supervisor during the interviews, I have to remind myself all the time when it comes to curriculum design or lesson plan plotting that Chinese is only a subject that belongs to a foreign language genre. It's not English, Math or Science. Therefore, the teachers of CFL can not expect their students to dedicate all their time and energy on this least important subject.

Teaching Demos + Interviews

--My "hand-made" poker cards. Now you know why I'm not an art teacher (of course I color photo-copied J,Q & Queen, there's no way I can paint that complicated patterns...). The reason why I used poker cards to do number games instead of just plain Arabic numbers on pieces of paper is to add the fun factor to the game.

Did 2 teaching demos today. The main topics today is reviewing numbers. I used different activities for Grade 6 and 12.

Grade 6:

Ss #: 18 students
Level: Beginners, only learn Chinese for 20 hrs/1 month

1. First showed the students the A4 size flash cards (or we can call them "poker" here) of Number 1~10 (plus Jack, Queen, and King, which represent 11,12 and 13). Ask the students to review these numbers by repeating after me.
2. While saying the numbers, asked the students to fix their eyes on the right hand corner of the cards, which the Chinese characters for number 1~13 were printed there.
3. Play "Heart Attack" after you make sure almost all the students remember the numbers. The winner won a prize ( I gave the winner a small bag of chocolate as the prize today).

Rules for playing "Heart Attack":

• The dealer showed the card one by one by saying the numbers 1~13 in sequence out loud.
• When the dealer showed the card whose number matches what he/she said, the players should do an action as the proof of catching it (in this class, I asked the student to stand up once they saw the card number is matching the number the dealer said).
• The last player to do the action is out.
• The last player who stays in the game wins the game.
• The whole process is very exciting, so your heart beat races, and probably will give you a "heart attack", hence the game's title--Heart Attack.

* You can substitue any action in this game. Since this is an early morning class (7:40 am), I asked the students to stand up every time they heard the matching numbers. You can do clapping hands, thumping the desks, stomping... etc. But, by doing standing up or sitting down, it's easier for the teacher to catch who's winning.

12 Grade:

Ss #: 4 students

Level: Learned Chinese for one year (about 150 hrs)

Bingo

1. Write 25 grids on a piece of paper,
2. Fill in numbers 1~25 randomly
3. Spin the marker, the person who is pointed by the cap of the marker will be the lucky person to start the game (there are many other ways to decide who starts the game...).
4. Each student calls out one number
5. Mark the number you or other students call.
6. The 1st student who connects 5 numbers in a line wins the game.

The winner who won the game today won a bag of "rice crackers" from me as the prize.

By playing above games, students get to review the numbers in Chinese in a much more fun way. Here are a few numbers many English speakers will get confused with:

6 六 liu (4)

9 九 jiu (3)

16 十六 shi(2)liu(4)

60 六十 liu(4) shi(2)

19 十九 shi(2) jiu(3)

90 九十 jiu(3)shi(2)

69 六十九 liu(4)shi(2)jiu(3)

Chinese Bilingual Teacher Education Program at LMU

M was just asking me if there is any graduate program that provides not only a master degree, but also a CA teaching credential. That reminded me there IS a program like that promoted by a professor from that university when I attended the IC workshop last month.

This is a private university in Marina Del Rey-- Loyola Marymount University. According to the program coordinator, Terry Qian (who I briefly talked to after the workshop that day), after some school board members visited China earlier this year, they decided to launch their new Chinese Bilingual Teacher Education Program this summer.

The tuition is super expensive, $830 per unit. You need to finish at least 36 units (9 classes) to graduate. So the total expense for attending this program will be approximately $30,000 (not including textbooks, living or commuting expense).

Even though LMU (Loyola Marymount U) claimed to offer "StarTalk" scholarship to all accepted applicants, which ONLY covers half of the tuition for 2 summer prerequisite courses and full amount of test fees... which are valued at about $1,300. So... not really helpful.

That's the reason why I didn't even consider applying for the program. Private school is untouchable...

Chinese Hot Pot

I accidentally watched one episode of "The Essence of Emeril" on Food Channel yesterday (he's generally not my favorite cooking show host though), and surprising found out this re-run show (originally broadcasted in 2003) was introducing 2 types of Chinese hot pots.

He showed the audience how to build a Mongolion Lamb hot pot, then a Chinese seafood hot pot. The process he used and the result he presented looked somehow awkward for a Chinese like me who loves to eat hot pot a lot, and sometimes even have it for 3-4 meals in a row.

Anyway, it also reminded me how many "Americans" perceive the Chinese culture/food/ideology in a very biased (or "different" from we Chinese) way. For example, you can use so many different ways to build a hot pot. And not all the hot pots are made of hot and spicy, heavily seasoned with ginger, garlic and chilly pepper broth. There are ways to use only boiled water (that's the usual "broth" I use for my hot-pot), chicken broth, veggie broth, seaweed based broth... etc. to create a healthier hot-pot.

While I was watching the cooking show, I was so worried about the audience who watched it and copied the exact same recipes would suffer from the aftermath later. Without further understanding of nutrition concepts (e.g. the super high cholesterol content in that rich seafood hot pot will sent someone who has high blood pressure or chronic kidney problem directly to emergency room), and how to eat according to your own constitution and current physical conditions (e.g. if you have cold or flu, you should NEVER have that lamb hot pot...), and how to consume them in a mild or colder weather (hot pot, especially the hot and spicy one is definitely not an ideal meal in hot, warm weather), these 2 Chinese hot pots might make you sick, have constipation or diarrhea, heart burn... and then you will say "Chinese Hot Pot sucks!" and move on forever...

Just some observation from the cooking show.

On the top is a typical hot pot I will prepare for my family.

CBEST Workshop @ Cal State LA

Got an email from Confucius College today. They are going to host a free CBEST workshop at Cal State L.A. this Saturday afternoon. (2:30 ~ 5:00 pm).

I am generally not crazy about public school systems either in Taiwan or in California. Even though I went to public schools from preschool all the way to college, I was never in "challenged"classes. On the contrary, I was always placed in the "gifted" classes, which means the teachers and parents have higher expectations for the enrolled students.

Anyways, I'm feeling very much like a loser these days, since I haven't heard back from any of the 3 schools I'd interviewed with in the past 2 months. I might just give CA public school system a try.

Teaching Styles

Maybe some schools are still in Spring Break, I didn't have much happening in my job searching the past 2 weeks. However, I did find a summer camp opening for Mandarin teacher, I will give it a try anyway.

Sure you always have to fill out the application form before you submit it to the website or to its physical address. And this one is Summer Institute for Gifted Students that request a 11-page application, along with some essay questions. I usually hate answering essay questions. But, it's a good way for the employer to find out the more suitable candidates.

One of the essay questions is to describe my teaching style. Gee... I have never thought about that after teaching for almost 7 years. However I found this website, did the test and found out my teaching style is: Facilitator. Which I think it's pretty close to my own personality and belief.

Facilitator:

• A student centered approach where the instructor facilitates and focuses on activities.
• Responsibility is placed on the students to take initiative to achieve results for the various tasks.
• Students who are independent, active, collaborative learners learners thrive in this environment ( I think it's important for my students to have these qualities to thrive in the global world).
• Instructors typically design group activities which necessitate active learning, student-to-student collaboration and problem solving.
  

Check this website at http://www.longleaf.net/teachingstyle.html

or go to http://members.shaw.ca/mdde615/tchstylsquiz7.htm

and find out what your teaching style is.

Master Chinese in 3 months?

LA18 news reported that a 24-year-old Chinese American man tried to create a record of mastering Chinese in 3 months. This young man's name is Jason Gong; his father is Chinese. But he claims that his father had never taught him any Chinese when he was little, and his parents got divorced when he was 9. He also showed the reporters some proofs at the press conference yesterday that he has no level of Chinese at all-- a total beginner. His goal is to be able to read Chinese newspapers 3 months later.

He refused to reveal what his methodology would be in achieving this seemingly impossible mission. He said, he's afraid that people might copy his methods, and break his record before he can make it. But, he would be willing to tell the world 3 months later when he makes it.

Jason Gong also applied for Guinness world records. Let's wait and see...