School Visit: Blackburn English Language School

This is a Government primary and secondary coeducational school which pays attention to new arrival students. I observed two classes, one was teaching primary 1 students English and the other teaching Year 10 students Mathematics. There was a stark contrast between the classes in terms of the teaching methodologies adopted.

In the primary class, the teacher spoke slowly so that all students were able to follow the content. This is very important since students will be frustrated if they cannot catch up with the lesson. They will get confused by large amount of information and they will not be motivated to learn further. Therefore, teachers should ensure that they speak at an appropriate speed so that all students can follow them.

The teacher used a common way to teach target languages. She taught numbers and transport and asked the students to repeat after her. Although this is a drilling approach, it is still crucial for teaching target languages since students should be equipped with some prior knowledge first and be familiar with it before applying it into real-life situations. Teachers should strike a balance between drilling and communicative approach, that is, teachers should elicit more responses from students at a later stage. For instance, the teacher can ask the students to repeat after her at the beginning, and then encourage them to try to use the target languages themselves and provide them with assistance if necessary. This type of teaching allows teachers to identify and focus on teaching the errors made by their students, which help the students learn more effectively.

Actually, the target languages were covered in previous lessons. However, it is normal for the students not to recall all of them. Regarding this condition, the teacher consolidated their knowledge by organizing a variety of tasks related to it so that students could gain a deeper impression, which is beneficial to them.

Concerning the second class, there were numerous areas which were not handled well. First, the teacher read from the books only and neither she maintained eye contact with the students nor asked them questions, which means she did not have any interactions with them. Instead, the teacher should minimize her talking time and set some tasks which maximize students’ participation. For example, asking them to discuss challenging questions and try to complete them.

Another problem is that the teacher did not monitor the use of languages by the students in class. As most of the students are from mainland China, therefore it is common for them to use Putonghua to talk to each other. However, as they are using English to learn all subjects, they should be discouraged to use their native languages in class. What the teacher should do is to walk around the classroom to monitor the progress of the students and their use of languages. In addition, she can also set more activities which require them to communicate with each other in English.

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