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Teaching the festivals with Mei was also the most memorable incident for Lisa.
She recalled that when they taught Halloween in the fourth grade, they went outside and played the relay race with the dialogue. Lisa described, “Two people have to leave their one side at the same time and gone to me and they have to say the sentence that I was holding, and they couldn't run back until they can say it properly. And that it was like a race.” (Lisa, 01/13/2014)
Lisa also said teaching students outside of the textbook with a pop song or rap is the most interesting part to her. She thought that reading or reciting the texts is beneficial for students to familiarize with the sentence patterns; Lisa said that,
[In team teaching] we really stick to the textbook, and so we try to make the textbook fun by breaking out it into weird songs and chants and dances, and then we make the students do it and everyone has fun and laughs, so those experiences really stick out and both fourth grade and six grade. Like um because we brought a lot of grooviness to the textbook, and made the students wanna come up and perform the dialogues, also in the groovy manner, and so that's fun, for all parties involved, and unforgettable. (Lisa, 01/13/2014)
In the end of the semester, Lisa even taught students to sing a pop song and videotaped them to send to Mei as a gift.
4.8 suggestions
Both Lisa and Mei offered their suggestions for the team teaching program in Kinmen. For Mei, she had three suggestions as follows. First, the NESTs who are recruited should have teacher’s certificates or related experience. Since the NESTs come to Taiwan either to team teach with local teachers or teach on their own, they should have some training or related experience beforehand. Secondly, given that the NESTs will team teach with NNESTs, in order to communicate with the local teachers better and get accustomed to the life in Taiwan, the NESTs should be able to
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speak some basic Mandarin Chinese. Mei mentioned that, “I don’t know what other NNESTs’ English proficiency levels… like me, I think if the NESTs can speak some Mandarin Chinese; we can avoid misunderstanding in communication.” (Mei, 01/15/2014) As Mei mentioned earlier in previous interviews, she thought her English was not good enough to communicate with native speakers. If the NESTs were able to speak Mandarin Chinese, it would not only benefit their interaction but also help the NESTs get accustomed to the life in Taiwan. Lisa also said that being able to speak Mandarin Chinese helped her manage the class and communicate with others.
these kids are pretty … , they have a lot of energy, so and they don't have a lot of English ability yet because they're so young, so if you have to explain something, or discipline them, or teach things even, we might want to know a little bit of Chinese, or feel comfortable, communicating to them, in some form. (Lisa, 01/13/2014)
Mei also suggested that the MOE should announce the team teaching partners as soon as possible. In this way, the NESTs can know who they are going to team teach with and have more interaction in the orientation. “Maybe we can know who our co-teacher is and join the workshop together. So we can have more interaction during the three-day workshop, instead of separating into two groups of NESTs and
NNESTs.” (Mei, 01/15/2014) Lisa felt the same, “but we could know who our LETs5 are beforehand and go through some of the training with them ideally, and then not have to guess, or be surprised when we finally find out stuff like that.” (Lisa, 08/30/2013)
In Lisa’s point of view, she indicated that the application process should be clearer about the team teaching situation in Kinmen. Before starting her teaching in
5 LETs stands for Local English Teachers.
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the school under research, she thought all of her classes were team teaching with NNESTs. “It’s very surprising, because the application said that I teach with an LET the entire time.” (Lisa, 01/13/2014) The confusion of the situation led to Lisa’s anxiety about teaching alone in the classroom. If the program can clarify this situation to the participants, it will help them get mentally prepared.
She also suggested that the MOE or school should let the NESTs know what curriculum they are supposed to follow. “I could have a curriculum or something I was supposed to follow, but the LET helped me to devise a curriculum, so that's good.
But I would probably feel a little lost if I didn't have the LET helping me, to decide what to teach.” (Lisa, 01/13/2014)
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CHAPTER FIVE
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
This chapter discusses the significant themes in depth and concludes the whole study. Section 5.1 concludes the major findings of the team teaching program in Kinmen. Section 5.1.1 discusses how the NEST and the NNEST cooperated in the team teaching program, and section 5.1.2 discusses the problems the NEST and the NNEST had and their solutions. Section 5.1.3 discusses how they got
accustomed to the team teaching program, and section 5.1.4 discusses the facilitating and the debilitating factors in the program. Section 5.1.5 provides what the NEST and the NNEST learned in the team teaching program. Section 5.2 covers the implications and section 5.3 covers the limitation of the study. Section 5.4 provides the recommendation for future studies and finally, section 5.5 concludes the whole study.