Billy the Taiwaness

Visiting date: 4/25/2007
Interviewed teacher: Xiu-Rong Qiu.
Teaching School: Xian Xiao campus of Jheng De junior high school.
Teaching Subject: English
Teaching Experience: 10 years

1.The teacher’s learning and teaching background:
Department of Applied Foreign Languages, Shih Chien University → Center For Teacher Education, Shih Chien University → Taipei County Shu-Lin Senior High School (1 year) → Taipei County AnKang Junior School (3years) → Xian Xiao campus of Jheng De junior high school (3years )

According to Mrs. Qiu, her teaching experience starts from teaching English cram school while studying in university. Later, she applied for educational program and went through many official exams to be a full-time English teacher. When she recalls her teaching experience, her teaching in Shu-Lin senior high helps her a lot. Qiu says: “ I was a practice teacher at that time, so the school asked me to teach all grades. It means that I had to prepare all English text of high school instead of focusing on one grade.” And, the great interaction and feedback from the senior high school students also builds her teaching confidence, inspiring her to teach forward.

2. The teacher’s belief and philosophy.
Now, teaching in Xian Xiao campus of Jheng De junior high school, a disadvantaged campus, Mrs. Qiu says: “ Teaching anywhere means the same thing for me, because it all talks about teaching.” She believes that to teach the young kids, teachers have to feel their heart first. Every kid has his/her own character, and what teachers need to do is to guide them and to give them what they need and what they desire to learn. But, it does not mean to follow the kids where they want to go, and a standard of personal development is still needed. So, her teaching philosophy is to enhance students’ learning interest and promote them a place to learn happily. Mrs. Liu makes a additional remark that “every teacher’s philosophy may be influenced by his/her growing background.” Moreover, “Class Management” also means significant for her. She thinks a good class management helps the teachers and students to build a sincere relationship.

3. The barriers and supports the teacher faces in the teaching context.
Teaching at a disadvantaged campus, she is happy to see many supports from the local community and the volunteer students of Tamkang University. While talking about the barriers Mrs. Qiu faces in her teaching context, she mentions some examples such as, students would challenge the authority of teacher, parents question teachers’ teaching, and the relationship between problem students and others. From the examples she uses, she considers that “teaching the text” does not make a trouble for her, but how to get along with the students well and to be the bridge between students, student and parents, students and her colleagues really needs time to deal with.

4. The teacher’s career cycle and professional development.
Mrs. Liu feels satisfied with her situation right now. Her role not only plays a teacher now, but also a “mother” very soon. Therefore, she will delay her plan of applying graduate school program and pursues her further education through the courses provided by the government.

5. My reflection on the interview
In the end of the interview, Mrs. Qiu hopes that we will not feel depressed after realizing some problems we may face in the future. We can really understand Mrs. Qiu’s saying because of the similar educational background we shared with. And, I know there is a long journey for us to be a “teacher”. Besides fully prepared for the teaching subject, we also have to learn how to deal with “people.”

Listen the Interview:  http://s93.tku.edu.tw/~693010067/interview.wav

Two sections are arranged for us to visit Taipei Municipal Lishan Junior High School: firist, to inspect and learn from the teaching materials and students’ research projects of “English Gifted Resource Class.”(EGRC)  Secondly, to observe Class 912 taught by their English teacher, Miss Liu. While seeing  their fruitful results, it makes me wonder how great effort teachers and students have put in, and they must spend lots time in achieving this goal. Their teaching materials include listening, speaking, reading, and “writing.” They  encourage students to write a play, a short fiction, and a poem.  Besides that, the evaluation of student’s esaay consist of four parts, such as grammar, content…etc. So students would get more than one grade from his/her essay, and would know which part they perform well and what they should improve more.  Later, visiting the demo class, not the EGRC, we still learn a lot from the way that the teacher uses powerpoint and handout to review grammar lesson.  First, through the image/ picture to teach the students grammar, she successfully attracts their attention and inspires them to learn. Secondly, the interaction by using powerpoint in the dark classroom still works very well, and it may be contributed by the well-design ppt made by the teacher. Thridly, in the end of the class, she uses 10 minutes to evaluate students’ learning by asking the questions from ppt. In this way, she can give a quick review of the lesson, and immediately understand students’ acquirment.  Cheers~