My observation of Ms. Rashid’s
class on Tuesday was fascinating, as for the first time I got to actually
observe a Chinese class from start to end. The students were learning about the
Chinese vowels and the four different ways to pronounce each one. Luckily, I
got to the classroom before the teacher got there and was able to see the
students stand up, and greet her in Mandarin. The class began with the Chinese
teacher writing down the vowels on the board and pronouncing them one by one.
The students knew that they needed to pronounce every vowel after her, in the
same exact way. This language class was a lot about students pronouncing words
or sounds either individually or as a whole class. Sometimes they would take
turns pronouncing the vowels they saw on the board and that the teacher instructed
them to, other times they would pronounce them together in groups of two, or as
a whole class. Ms. Rashid, who was also in the class during the Chinese lesson,
was also pronouncing the vowels as instructed by the Chinese teacher, and it
seemed as if some students who were initially either too lazy to pronounce
words, or embarrassed or afraid of making a mistake, once they saw their
teacher join in, suddenly got motivated. It was an interesting observation.
After the students became familiar with how to pronounce each vowel, and managed
to understand the difference in sound each vowel can make (four different
sounds in total), they began incorporating the vowels into actual words. So
from writing down simply vowels or letters, she started writing down words in Mandarin
that incorporated these vowels. Interestingly enough, it was now easier for the
students to pronounce the words than it was to learn to pronounce the
individual vowels. It is all about patience and order. Step by step, as long as
you make sure they learn the basics well it will be easier for them to learn
the more complicated things down the road. After pronunciation was over, the
Chinese teacher played the remainder of the documentary from last class (about
15 minutes). The documentary was about everyday life in rural China, and the
students said they wanted to see it since they hadn't finished it last time.
The teacher had to explain what was going on in some parts as the documentary
was in mandarin. After that was done, they stood up, thanked their teacher in Mandarin
very respectfully and she departed. They had their snack break shortly after.
The second part of
class was math again, but this time Ms. Rashid did it in a different way. What
she did was, and this was really interesting and the kids loved it, was take
small pieces of paper, each of them with a math problem written on it (from
what they did in last class), crumble them up, put them in a hat, and every student
got to choose one. When they opened the paper, they had to solve the problem in
5 minutes and then one by one, present the method they followed to the rest of
their classmates. If they didn't know the answer they used the “buddy system”,
where they could call a friend from class to stand up and help them. Most of
the kids were able to solve their problems and show how they did it to the rest
of the class. However, the kids that had trouble and had to call a buddy to
help them eventually succeeded as well. It was great to see two students
helping each other solve a math problem, and succeeding in doing so without the
teacher’s interference. This method not
only cultivates a relationship of support and trust among students in a
class, showing them how to work as team, but also giving them the opportunity
to be teachers and use their abilities to help their classmates learn
something.
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