AIEP School and Teaching Review November 2015

Yushan
 
Eleanor had some good interaction, but she needs to pick more students from around the class rather than just at the front, and to move around the classroom, to hold the class’ attention more. Students should practise speaking in pairs for exercises rather than writing, then some pairs should stand and demonstrate. Eleanor uses a microphone; I suggested getting students to use it too when giving answers. She hadn’t considered doing any PPT so far; she said she would do so. Overall, quite a nice teaching style.
 
She has missed a lot of classroom days, which is worrying. An upset stomach and injured knee had apparently kept her out of class on different occasions. On one morning, neither she nor her TA were in class; I had to point out that this made the Company look very bad, quiet apart from letting the students down. Eleanor feels that her TA is not particularly interested in her job, and would rather talk about ‘make-up and men’. We will need to keep an eye on this relationship, as there is a potential problem with the efficient provision of classes.
 
Kenneth spoke a little fast for Beginners; also, when getting class to do a ‘How Do You Spell’ exercise he went round the entire class in order, which lost the attention of the other students. I told him it was better to pick some randomly, to keep the class on its toes. But he has a very nice rapport with his class, lots of fun activities (‘Simple Simon’ Game) and plenty of warmth. Kenneth’s class attendance is excellent. He has used PPT in class occasionally. He asked if a Bulletin Board could be set up for all our teachers to swop ideas for teaching (n.b. – a lot of them use WeChat, which is like a Bulletin Board). He feels that there is a lack of communication about Company developments. I told him I hope to improve this in future.
 
Ross was not observed. He has so far found the whole experience of teaching and being in China, away from home, frightening. He seemed in a highly nervous state. I sat down with him and I told him our first concern was with his well-being. It will take time to get some experience, but I urged him not to be afraid, and that his TA will support him. He showed me a lot of notes from his students, full of positive feeling about his teaching. He has missed several classes, and I told him he now needs to go to class. I hope I persuaded him not to quit his job, something he was threatening to do. I have heard from Eleanor that he is slowly gaining confidence about his classes.
 
Nick was also not observed, as he was suffering from food poisoning. He looked pretty ill.
 
Overall, this is the worst school as far as teacher attendance is concerned, which needs to be monitored. Only Kenneth seems to do his job each day without complaint.
 
Shangrao
 
Alex had a very noisy young class, but managed to control them very well. He has to shout them down to keep order - very hard work. He has a lively, fun teaching style. He kept them engaged with a clock game. Students had to come up and be the hands on clocks drawn on the board, and Alex gave them a tine to portray. The first in each pair to get the right time got a point. This was a great way to keep an unruly class engaged. He told me the local teachers did not engage with our teachers, and that he felt our program wasn’t taken seriously by them. We agreed that using PPT in a class such as the one I saw would be a waste of time, as it would not hold their attention, but he has used it occasionally.
 
Mo spoke a little fast, but had good interaction with his class, playing a Synonym/ Antonym game. Good pacing, warm delivery. Like Alex, he told me there was little interaction with the local teachers, but was otherwise happy. Hasn’t tired PPT yet, but would consider doing so.
 
Nathan’s teaching style was far too passive and uninvolved. He set a writing exercise with unclear instructions, writing an example in writing that wasn’t very clear on the board, and just sat waiting for them to finish it. I suggested making it a pairs speaking exercise instead, then getting students to stand and demonstrate. He needs to interact much more with his class, monitoring/correcting/encouraging them. He hadn’t tried PPT before and looked surprised when I asked about it, but said he would consider doing so, even though he didn’t see the benefit of it. Brian stood in to cover for a missing TA.
 
Guixi
 
Alan gave an excellent Beginner’s class, full of warmth, with through drilling and checking. Using a mixture of PPT, New Headway and games, he gave a really solid lesson. There was plenty of speaking and listening practise. His experience clearly shines through. He is a very pleasant guy, obviously well liked – his students were hugging him as they left class!
 
Elise gave a very solid, clear lesson with games to illustrate the grammar she was teaching (changing verbs to adjectives). She had a warm, friendly interaction, and was well received by the students. I pointed out the danger of saying “you know what this means, right?” without checking, but overall a very competent performance with clear explanation and good monitoring of activities.
 
Sheri had prepared a PPT, which taught the student about Thanksgiving. Again, her experience shone through, and although she was very thorough with drilling prior to the presentation, she should have drilled the new vocabulary in her interesting PPT, which didn’t require the students to do anything. As a result, during the presentation there was a gradual loss of control over the students. I told her she shouldn’t be afraid to shut them up, as they were missing all the hard work she had put into the presentation. I asked if she had ever used a microphone in class to assist herself; she had, but found the kids got louder and still drowned her out. A nice class nonetheless, with a friendly but focused style.
 
Ethan maintained a fast pace with his various word games, which certainly kept the students focused, learning and practising many words, He also used PPT to play a music video, and then asked the students which words they had heard, dividing the class into 2 groups to make it a competition. He spoke fast, but the students followed what he was saying. A lot of fun, and a lot of learning achieved. Very good.
 
Yugan
 
Nikita’s theatrical training is clearly of great benefit to her as a teacher. She presented a PPT on British Schools, which was very well received, She spoke a little too fast, and said she had a lot to get through. It would have been better to slow the pace a little and omitted a few of features, and be sure the students were understanding everything. However, there was a lot of checking of new vocabulary, and asking the students what they thought of the things they were seeing. There could have been some speaking tasks related to the PPT, in pairs, to give further speaking practice. However, most of the students were clearly very interested in what they were seeing. It would have been good to stop some of the unwanted chat that was going on; otherwise it was a most enjoyable session.
 
Jonny has had a similar background to Nikita in the world of Drama Training, and it was put to excellent use in his PPT and audio presentation on Measurement (the largest, the longest etc.) Some of his spoken language was a little too fast, but the students clearly like him very much. His style was amusing, engaging and full of new vocabulary and speaking practice, with the words on the screen and listening exercise featuring the words they had just learnt. As with Nikita, an excellent session.
 
Wannien
 
It was with a heavy heart that I went to Wannien. Not only would there be only 1 class to observe because of a delayed Sports Meeting, but I had recently discovered there had been an ongoing problem among the staff for the past couple of months.
 
Bobby’s class seemed to have learnt a lot. He was using his own, attractive picture cards to check vocabulary, to prepare them for a test. On the basis of this, everything seemed OK.
 
However, upon talking to both the TAs and the other two teachers, Doug and Christine, it seems they all felt that Bobby was scary to both our staff and to the students. In class he had been standing on the furniture, waving a large stick at the students. As far as dealing with the school authorities was concerned, he had made a lot of demands regarding his accommodation in an important way, Which complaining about the school, the Company and the student, which was having a bad effect upon everybody, Doug described him as harsh and rude. He had not joined in with many social activities, yet when he had done so it had created a tense atmosphere.
 
I sat down with Bobby to ask how he reacted to these comments, without specifying who had said what. He said he felt unsupported by his TA as far as discipline was concerned. The students at Wannien are wilder than in many of our schools. He felt that it was left to the teachers to act as parents. As far as discipline was concerned, the Head Teachers had told him, “It’s your problem, deal with it”. Bobby felt there was no real support  from them for our Program. I told him that he needed to find a less scary way of controlling these difficult kids without scaring the entire class.
 
It had taken 8 days to get his leaking sink fixed; his toilet was still leaking when I was at his apartment. He had endured a noisy class above his apartment that began at 7.45 am and had asked for it to be moved elsewhere.
 
I asked if had ever tried doing a PPT presentation. He told me the existing connections in the classroom would not allow this. There were however laptops elsewhere in the school that would enable this, but they had no access to them.