JANE TANG

Teaching/Observing report |02 

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The class I taught was 'Business Chinese Drill', a third-year Chinese level equivalent. The drill class provides the opportunity for students to practice words/grammar they have learned once a week in lecture class.

The observation and communication with professor helped me a lot with teaching. First of all, I was aware of all the students’ backgrounds. There are 6 students in the class. All of them have had the experience of traveling to China, and most of them are undergraduates in the East-Asian Studies department. Professor Gao told me that most of the students are preparing their language skills for their upcoming internship programs in Beijing and Shanghai, which explained the strong motivation I found in the class. Secondly, I was familiarized with the drill class pattern used by Professor Gao. Out of 50 minutes of the drill class, students practice the grammar and vocabulary for about 40 minutes, then have a flexible 10 minutes for activity related to the lesson.

I spent about three days preparing for the class. I read the text book 《卓越汉语：公司实战篇》 first, then I wrote down all the vocabulary and grammar the students are going to learn in the class on a piece of paper, then try to make sentences to combine the material. Then I organize all of this to make it more coherent. There are 7 main grammars rules in this lesson that professor Gao told me to focus on, I combined each of them with some vocabulary. For example, when practice the grammar “通过～”,I combined with the vocabulary“建立、关系”. After preparing the 7 main grammar rules, I started to plan some activities related to the lesson. Professor Gao told me that, for these advance learners, more creative and brainstorming activities are preferred. Debate is always interesting, and makes students pay more attention to the class. I also made the flash cards, PowerPoint, and a rundown to help my teaching.

Professor Gao helped me by filming my teaching, which assisted me in reviewing the class over again. For the drill section, I think the experience went very well (even better than I expected). The students were highly involved in the practices (even though Professor Gao warned me that they were in the midterm week and they might be tired). The only surprise for me is when one of the student came up with the word “同屋”, which I have never heard of in Taiwan. But another student popped up and explained this to me. The other mistake I made was not defining clear enough the difference between “不知所措”and“尴尬”. Students seemed a little confused and hesitated with these two vocabularies.  And from the video, I found myself standing right in front of the projector some times, which made me look a little funny with the PowerPoint projecting onto my face.

About the activities, four of them went well and professor Gao told me that they were well designed! ( as seen in the chart bellowed) I would like to talk about activity#3 and #4. For #3, students found it very interesting to watch the YouTube video of the Facebook CEO speaking Chinese. Then we had a good debate on what his “目的（goal, purpose）”is by using phrases I wanted them to use. As for #4, that was actually the activity I designed for the last assignment, I reviewed the Chinese cultural difference with the class first, listing some private questions they might be asked by Chinese, for example: salary, relationship status, then discussed about how to respond to these questions. Then I gave students a situation via the projection screen. (The Coffee room in the office) Example: An American intern has just arrived at a new company in China. He/She meets a Chinese colleague in the office coffee room. After greetings and introductions, the Chinese colleague asks a question that the American considers embarrassing. How should the American politely react?

 I made some adjustment by demonstrating with one student first in front of the class before asking them to work in pairs. One student played the role of American intern, the other plays the “rude”Chinese colleague. The class ended with two groups came to the stage to perform their conversation in front of the class. It was very entertaining and educating.

Observing report

The class I observed was 'Second year Chinese' by Professor Hanyu Xiao. There are 12 students in the class. Almost all of them have had the experience of traveling to China, and most of them are undergraduates in the East-Asian Studies department. Professor Xiao told me that most of the students are preparing their language skills for their upcoming internship programs in Beijing and Shanghai, which explained the strong motivation I found in the class.

During 55 minutes of the drill class, the focus is to let students practice grammar or vocabulary relating to Travelling. The professor was using typical ‘PPP’ way. Starting with explaining meaning, semantics, or correcting pronunciation, then ask the student to make sentence with the phrase. In the last 15 minutes of the class, students worked in pairs and did a role play of Travel agent, trying to  use the word they just learned to convince their partner to choose the travel plan.

I was amazed by the high motivation of the students. Prof. Xiao did a very good job preparing the practice the fit their level. Besides, I noticed that "transitivity" was very important, it seems like one of the best way to keep the student on track for an 55min lecture. To make transitivity happen, Professor Xiao said she will write down all vocabulary and grammar the students are going to learn in the class on a piece of paper, then try to make sentences to combine this material, then organize the order to make it more coherent.

‘’The other way to make students concentrate is to be selective with your question"

 For these advanced Chinese learners, they've been asked questions like "Why do you learn Chinese?", "Why do you want to go to China", or "What's your favorite Chinese food?" hundreds of times."Try to be more creative, and leave them some time for brainstorming. It makes students pay more attention to the class" she said.