from the Kappan

The March issue of PDK's journal, the Kappan, has an interesting article by Gary Squire, a retired teacher/administrator in North Vancouver. Gary describes his one month English-immersion teaching job in Fangshan where he worked with a group of Chinese teachers responsible for teaching English in their own schools. The Chinese teachers were looking for two things from the four week course, improved English language skills and new teaching methodology. He recounts his suprise at how little they understood of his speaking and how reluctant they seemed to his group work projects. He admits to 'struggling to find the appropriate curriculum and effective means of teaching it' and soon learned to 'slow down and simplify'. The solution to the challenge of teaching English to the Chinese teachers begins with understanding how much they actually do know already and realizing that 'knowing' English words, vocabulary words, isn't the same as understanding meaning, or what the words say. Words by themselves are the form of the language and alone have no content. It is only by putting them together in systematic ways that they then begin to carry meaning in a larger sense than their individual dictionary meaning. Putting words together in sentences is best approached at a simplified level to begin with. Over time and with lots of intentional practice the sentences can become more and more interesting. Gary found this out through the regular use of learning journals which he read nightly. By having a written conversation with each of his students through the journals he was able to enter into their understanding of their use of the language. Back on the didactic front he shifted to some good old methodology borrowed I suppose from his experience with teaching French as a Second Language (FSL), explicit vocabulary, choral repetition, backwards buildup, short text passages, lots of practice, personalizing the text, and always moving toward some form of presenting such as role-plays. Incidentally, I learned much of my own FSL methodology from North Vancouver's language guru, M. Pappillon (Don Fraser). Gary's article also touches the topic of passive versus active learning and the more challenging notion of teaching for thinking which he addressed with well structured activities using Bloom's taxonimy. His description of the discussion about putting student art work on display in the classroom revealed something of the bind his Chinese teachers find themselves in as they learn about our ways of doing things. They could see the value in encouraging students to take pride in their work but they couldn't just start putting up student work without first getting the approval of the Principal and that kind of conversation isn't so easy to approach it seems.