2007年6月26日火曜日

What I learned through Mr,Maruhashi lecture

In last class Mr,Maruhashi from Ueda junior high school came and gave us a lecture. So I write about "How do be a successful English teacher at junior high school" based on the lecture and my experience.

1, what is the teacher's work?
Mr,Maruhashi said "It is that "changing students" by a teacher. If we compare students with "a", we make students change A through guidance. But there are two key ponits then. "Unchange" and "Trend". Teachers must use accordingly the two points. When we teach, we must have regular thinking, because if teacher's thinking change any time students are confused. So "Unchange" is important. But as time pass, anything changes. We always must not be prepossessed with only ourselves complex. There are often some teachers who have old thinking in the school. Of course, it is important and should be respected. But time makes "trend". It has wrong things and good things. So we need to bring "trend" with flexible thinking and care. And teachers should change students with using these "Unchange" and "Trend".

2, In doing practice teaching
Mr,Maruhashi said that some practice teachers who come to junior high school has difficult to speak words in the textbook in English. They are not used to speak English loudly. And surprisingly there are many simple English words that I can't pronounce correctly. So we need to practice English pronunciation by listening textbook CD many times before we teach as practice teachers. And there is other important point when we teach English. It is "order" to teach. When we think class structure, we should think the order well. First, Second,,,Last. Whether it is easy for students to understand depends on the order. And of course it is important what we teach students in the class. We need to make the class with thinking these points well.

There are other important things in doing practice teacher. Points that we learned through last class is a parts of many important things. We should learn about it more and more. And Mr,Maruhashi lecture was useful and it will help us someday. We want to keep these points in mind that we learned in last class. Thank You!!

2007年6月12日火曜日

Refrection of last class

First, I learned
①Demonstrate the meaning and use of structure
②Use a situation to demonstrate the meaning and use of structure.

For example Mr,Hall talked about his gym activities. And he wrote "It's too heavy to lift" on the blackboard. As another example, he talked about going Morioka gym by bus. It's too near. So he wrote "There's no point in taking a bus". I did'nt know "no point in ~ing" meaning, but I could understand by giving a situation to demonstrate the meaning and use of structure. I found it is useful in the class.


Next, I discussed "ways of showing meaning" with a partner. There were four examples in the handout.
how to show meaning "~er than~"
Teacher A : I talked about two buildings in the town. (The post office is bigger than the bank.)
Teacher B : I drew lines on the board. (Lines A is longer than Line B.)
Teacher C : I called a tall and a short student to the front and compared them.
( Anna is taller than Maria.)
Teacher D : I drew pictures of two men on the board and compared them.
(Hani is taller than Abdou.)
My opinion about A ; It is hard to understand right away. Students can't watch two buildings in the class. And to explain about meaning of "~er than~" by two buildings example in English is difficult. So the way of A is bad, I think.
My opinion about B ; This way is so simple. It is easy to understand. But because of easy example, students will be bored. This way's strength is to not to take much time. So the most easy presentation is B, I think.
My opinion about C ; I think it is the most interesting way and useful way. Students can enjoy this activity,because some students participate in this activity. And the students are selected from the class members. All the class members knows the selected student, so this way is better than D way. This way is not only interesting but also attract students. But I think teachers must take care to select student carefully. Because the selected students have to go to the front of the class and they are compared their height by teacher. There is the moment that children mind their height. If the shortest boy of the class who wants to tall is compared his height with a tall girl, he will have bad feeling. So this way is very good, but we must take care about it.
My opinion about D ; This way is easy to understand and to show examples. So it is the good balance. This way is more easy to understand and specific than B way. But C way is more interesting than this way, I think.

Lastly, we learned "Presenting a structure". We learned "has been ~ing for ~" by pictures. This structure is difficult. But students can understand it by using pictures.

I learned the way of demonstration through last class. Good demonstration is to use some examples and to make simple rules. It is practical, so I can learned many things and information from the class. I am looking forward to taking MMCE member's micro teaching next week. Thank You!!