This is a Christian school which teachers are required to take the same group of students for 8 years. Hence, teachers shoulder great responsibilities in teaching their students.
It is appreciated that outdoor education is stressed in this school as this type of learning allows students to gain hands-on experience by working on their own and explore on the subjects. Their horizons will be broadened and the impression on the knowledge acquired will be strengthened and they are able to embody some abstract concepts and ideas, which facilitates their learning.
Moreover, teaching stories is popular in this school. The teachers are required to learn and study the designated stories by heart, and then they need to present them to the students in a variety of ways, for instance, by doing role-play or drawings. This teaching approach is much appreciated since story-telling is more interesting compared to plain teaching, the students will therefore be motivated to learn. In addition, as the teachers learn the stories in-depth, they have a clear understanding of the content and hence they are able to present the content fluently with genuine emotions, which draws students’ attention with ease. This way, students will participate more in the lesson and their effective learning time will be enhanced.
Concerning the teaching of vocabulary and phrases, the teachers use pictures to do so. This is recommended since pictures, especially colorful pictures, are attractive. This serves to appeal to students. Besides, the objects in the photos are helpful in identifying the words. Imagine if the meanings of the words are provided, students will find very confused and frustrated since the concepts behind the large chunks of words are abstract, they will have no idea about them and hence they will not be motivated to learn and they will find the lesson boring.
Regarding the completion of tasks, the teachers adopted a correct approach in handling this situation. As students are different in a class, some of them are cleverer than others and they complete tasks faster as a result. To avoid those cleverer students from idling their time after completing the given tasks, the teachers have prepared extended tasks for them so that they will be kept busy working on a variety of lesson materials. For those weaker students, the teachers will provide them with more time to complete their work so that they will not be forced to stop and listen to the teachers’ explanations only.
On the other hand, the notion of this school is getting students to write and then read. The corresponding personnel perceive that students should not read at an early age. However, I have reservations on this point as I consider that learning languages is most effective when people are young since their brains are still developing. Therefore, it is best for them to acquire the macro skills as early as possible. Moreover, learning in different ways enhances the acquisition of the languages as different students are accustomed to particular learning methods.
(Number of Words: 497)
