4.1 The Teaching Practice
4.1.1 Background Information
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CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND FINDINGS
This chapter presents the results of the study on English team teaching program in Kinmen. First, the lesson planning process and the teaching practice of the NEST and the NNEST are described. Second, the problems and the difficulties they met in the process of team teaching are revealed. Third, how they solved the problems and how the NEST adjusted herself to the team teaching program are also described.
Fourth, both the facilitating and debilitating factors for the NEST in becoming accustomed to the team teaching program in Kinmen are also presented. Lastly, the NEST and the NNEST shared what they learned from the team teaching program and gave their opinions and suggestions.
4.1 The Teaching Practice
In this section, the researcher discusses how the participants conducted their team teaching class, including how they prepared for the class, how they shared the teaching load, and how they perceived their counterpart’s teaching. Lisa and Mei were interviewed regarding how they co-taught in the classroom. Additionally, the researcher observed their co-teaching class to obtain a holistic sense of their team teaching situation.
4.1.1 Background Information
Both teachers had limited experience teaching English prior to this semester. It was Mei’s first year as a qualified full-time English teacher in Kinmen. She had had former experience as a substitute teacher for four years in Kinmen and New Taipei city, mostly as a homeroom teacher who didn’t teach English. It was Lisa’s first semester as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. It was also her first time teaching English and team teaching with other teachers in Taiwan. Both of them had no experience in team teaching in Kinmen prior to this semester. Lisa and Mei
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expressed that they felt excited about the cooperation in the coming semester in the interviews before they team taught in class. “I think it will be fun though we haven’t tried any teaching activity yet.” (09/04/2013, Mei) Lisa also revealed that “I think it's gonna be good because I’m from the United States, I'm a native speaker, I'm bringing the culture with me, but they can learn that much more.” (08/30/2013, Lisa) 4.1.2 The lesson planning process and teaching practices
To run the team teaching class smoothly, planning and preparation before class play important roles in successful team teaching. Since both of the participants had no team teaching experience before, they should have taken more time to prepare for the classes. In the beginning, the NEST and the NNEST discussed what they would do for the whole week in advance. They designed activities based on the sentence structures and talked through every step for each class. However, both of them quickly became saturated by their individual teaching schedules, as Mei was a homeroom teacher and stayed in her classroom most of the time. Lisa was also occupied with her class schedule because Fulbright required her to teach twenty classes per week. As time passed, they spent less and less time discussing, unlike in the beginning of the semester. By mid-semester, they often just met a few minutes before class to quickly discuss what they would do for that period.
Most of the time, they just met during the recess, and hurried to decide what they were going to do. “We often just plan like, we pass and ‘hey, let's plan really quick.’
Sometimes that's ok, but it's not 100% effective.” (Lisa, 10/08/2013)
Lisa realized that once they got to know students better, they could not only plan better, but also control the students better. In the beginning of the semester, both Mei and Lisa were unfamiliar with the students, as were the students unfamiliar with them. As time went by, they were able to find ways to plan the lesson and design suitable activities for their students. Even though they didn’t plan the activities
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thoroughly, they found that they were able to modify their teaching on the spot based on students’ reactions. Lisa said that in the lesson planning process, she didn’t like to formally type out the lesson plan; rather she preferred to keep the plans in her notebook and bring them to the classroom as a reminder. Lisa described that,
Well, there's a spectrum of informal and formal, I think we're probably one third, like I don't wanna type our lesson plan and spend thirty minutes typing it in an hour. I just like to write it down and bring the note to class in case I forget or need to modify, so I can look. So maybe we can do that but we're not too bad right now. (Lisa, 10/08/2013)
As Lisa developed a good rapport with Mei and had more teaching experience, she felt even though they didn’t spend much time planning, they were still able to conduct the class well. Mei felt the same. Sometimes after she finished her teaching, she would just signal to Lisa, and Lisa would take over the teaching. The following excerpt illustrates how the teaching goes.
Mei: OK. How to say twenty? (in Mandarin Chinese) Students: Twenty, t-w-e-n-t-y.
Mei: One more time.
Students: T-w-e-n-t-y.
(Mei gave the flashcards to Lisa.) Lisa: What’s this? (Hold the flashcards)
Students: January, j-a-n-u-a-r-y. (10/25/2013, Class 601)
In the excerpt, Mei helped students to review the numbers before teaching the months. Mei asked the students to repeat the vocabulary and then gave the flashcards to Lisa. She did not tell to Lisa to continue the teaching, but Lisa knew what she needed to do after Mei gave her the flashcards. This depicts the NEST and the NNEST’s good rapport and how they cooperated in class.
When Mei and Lisa co-taught, they used textbook as their base. Often, Mei would choose a point to focus on, and from this point they both came up with
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instructions and activities. Lisa indicated that “The textbook is our base, when we're teaching together. So we look at where they are at the textbook, and we come up with good lessons and activities from that portion of textbook.” (Lisa, 10/08/2013) Since they had not thoroughly planned the details for the co-teaching class, sometimes they had to communicate during the class and also observe students’ responses about how well the class was going. As they both became familiar with their students, they felt they gradually learned how to manage the classroom and design the activities.
In order to supplement the textbook, Mei also mentioned that she thought that they could adopt some extracurricular materials in team teaching lessons or they would spend too much time on the textbook. “I hope she (Lisa) can teach some vocabulary related to the textbook and extend it, or students can watch some video clips to train their listening.” (Mei, 10/02/2013) In the classes the researcher observed, she found that Mei and Lisa used extracurricular video clips to teach a Christmas carol. Lisa employed the youtube clip to help students fill in the blanks of the lyrics and sing along with students.
(After reviewing the vocabularies related to Christmas, Lisa gave the worksheets to the students.)
Mei: Let’s learn the song.
Lisa: We’ll learn Jingle bells jingle bells.
(Lisa gave students the worksheets, and Mei played the video clip.)
Lisa: So first you listen and then you write what you hear in the blank, OK?
We’ll go line by line.
Mei: OK, first LISTEN. And then you can fill in the words.
Student 1: Why not just print the lyrics? (In Mandarin Chinese) Mei: You can try to listen. (In Mandarin Chinese)
(Class 601, 12/20/2013)
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Lisa and Mei used the song to teach students vocabulary related to Christmas.
Though some students complained that the teachers did not directly give them the lyrics, they still finished the worksheets. Both the NEST and the NNEST encouraged the students to try their best to fill in the blanks and enjoy singing the song along with the video clip.
4.1.3 The teaching methods
Both of the participants were asked questions about their teaching methods. For Mei, she indicated that they used a lot of listening and speaking activities and TPR (Total Physical Response) method in team teaching. “Sometimes it’s easier to get their attention through gestures and body language. It makes the class more alive, less boring, I think.” (Mei, 01/15/2014)
However, the researcher discovered that the teachers’ theory and practice were at odds. When the researcher observed the class, she found very limited TPR used in the observed class. Most of the time, the two teachers introduced or reviewed the vocabulary and sentence pattern in the beginning, and then moved through various activities to review, such as role plays or guessing games. The following is an excerpt of the classroom observation.
Mei: …we’re going to see what we can find. Don’t forget you can clap your hands. It can help you read the tongue twister (in Mandarin Chinese). OK?
Ready, go!
(Mei and Lisa read along with the students): Treasure hunt, treasure hunt, we’re going on a treasure hunt. We’re going on a treasure hunt. We’re going to see what we can find. [clap hands]
Mei: Ok, now please turn to page thiry…thirty-seven.
(Lisa showed the students which page and circulated the classroom) Lisa: Page thirty seven, yeah. Thirty-seven.
Mei: Thirty seven. [waited for Lisa to come back to the front] Teacher Lisa and I will tell you a story. (11/08/2013, Class 601)
Mei and Lisa usually had the students listen carefully and repeat what they just
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heard. And then the students wrote down some notes on the textbook. Limited physical responses were observed in the class 601. However, Lisa and Mei also team taught in the fourth grade, where they also claimed to use TPR strategy in teaching.
The researcher, however, was unable to observe that class.
4.1.4 The teaching load and the responsibilities
Mei and Lisa were asked about their workload and responsibility in team teaching class. In the beginning, Mei wanted to share the teaching load equally with Lisa but she discovered that Lisa’s lack of experience held Lisa back from teaching in front of the class. So Mei decided to teach first to help Lisa learn some teaching skills, she said
When we first met, she (Lisa) said she wanted to observe my teaching. Because she had no experience before, and she was afraid of running class on her own. I also found out that she felt more confident after she used some of the techniques I used in class. (Mei, 10/02/2013)
After Mei and Lisa cooperated more, the teaching time became equally shared by both teachers. When one was teaching, the other walked around the classroom to see whether the students need help. Mei would introduce the vocabulary and the sentence patterns and Lisa would use activities to help students to practice later. Lisa indicated that,
Like we often [do] role play, while one person does one part of the dialogue, and then we switch, so they can hear both of us from both parts. When we play with flashcards we switch off, so that students can hear different accents, and um just have a variety of teaching. And when we play games or activities, one person is, say keeping score, and one person is doing (another job,) we try to make sure that, or if that someone is teaching, the other one can walk around, and make sure students are participating rather than standing there and doing nothing. So I try to make sure to do that if I'm teaching, and Mei doing the same thing (Lisa, 10/08/2013).
In practice, the team teaching class often started with a greeting, so the students
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knew the class began and they needed to concentrate. Next, Lisa led the students to read along a tongue twister as a warm-up and helped them review phonics. Then, Mei would hold the flashcards to review the vocabulary or sentence structures taught in the previous sessions. If they taught the reading passages, Mei and Lisa would read line by line with the students and Mei would ask students whether they understand the passages. After students understood the passages, they read by themselves or role played in front of the class. Then, Lisa would use games or activities to review the words they learned and Mei would walk around the classroom to see whether anyone needed help.
Though both of them teach the textbook together, Mei was responsible for giving students assignments and correcting them. Lisa offered to help Mei to correct
homework, but Mei refused the help in order to be consistent. Mei was also responsible for assessing students’ reading and writing performance during the school’s examination periods. Lisa helped to test students’ speaking ability in the mid-term and final exams. Sometimes, Lisa gave students worksheets to finish in class for practices, but they were never take-home and deemed as homework.
In addition to her three periods of team teaching class with Mei, Lisa co-taught three periods with another NNEST and fourteen on her own with a school soldier3. Lisa indicated that it was different from her expectation, because her program indicated that all twenty classes would be team teaching. “It's very surprising because the application said that I teach with an LET the entire time. So then, like, everywhere else, that's not Jinmen has that situation, Yilan and Kaohsiung, all 20 classes are with LETs.” (Lisa, 01/13/2014) This confusion of the program also caused Lisa and Mei’s different perceptions of their roles in the classroom. Lisa
3 The school soldier is having his military service in school to assist the English teaching and help some basic administrative duties.
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applied for this program because she viewed herself as an English assistant to help the local English teacher’s teaching instead of teaching alone in the classroom. But in practice, Lisa has to teach other classes on her own besides co-teaching class.
4.1.5 Teachers’ roles in the classroom NEST Role
Both Mei and Lisa were asked questions concerning their individual role in the classroom, along with their perception of each other. Lisa indicated that she
expected herself to be a teaching assistant before she started her teaching in Kinmen.
To her surprise, she needed to teach fourteen periods on her own, with a school soldier’s help. Without any teaching experience, she was very nervous to run a class by herself in the beginning. So she asked Mei if it was appropriate to observe Mei’s teaching first. In the beginning of the semester, Lisa team taught with Mei as an observer and assistant. On one hand, she was learning how to teach a class. On the other hand, she also helped Mei’s teaching. As Mei gained more team teaching experience, she came to regard Lisa as a language model and had her present the new words to the students. Lisa taught the new vocabulary with very simple English, so that some students could understand and then explain to others in Chinese. If no one could understand what Lisa said, Lisa would try to explain again in a slower manner and with gestures. Mei would not immediately translate Lisa’s messages into Chinese for students, because she thought students should have more time to process what they heard.
When Lisa and Mei team taught together, Lisa provided students with accurate pronunciation and authentic input. She believed her role in the team teaching was to help the students have the opportunities to interact with the native speakers and gain more cultural understanding.
I think it's to bring a new, a different perspective, and voice and energy.
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Because like every teacher has their own personalities and so when there are two personalities, that much more interesting for students. I just like to … just be myself, and do that with the other teacher so … with that, I bring pronunciation, different culture, and different ideas, the teacher might not think of on their own, we share ideas. (Lisa, 10/08/2013)
For Mei, the NEST role is to help the NNEST’s teaching and make the teaching more diverse and interesting. She indicated that the NEST takes the supporting role to make the classroom more interesting. (Mei, 10/02/2013)
NNEST Role
Both Mei and Lisa were interviewed on the NNEST role in team teaching. Mei initially mentioned that the NEST and the NNEST should share the teaching load equally in team teaching lessons, but was comfortable with playing a slightly
dominant role. “After all, I think it’s a good opportunity to co-teach with a foreigner;
students must be more interested in foreigners.” (Mei, 10/02/2013) She thought the NNEST could help the NEST’s teaching through translating her instructions, though not immediately word for word. Some students of higher levels can understand Lisa and translate to other classmates in an easy way. “Sometimes students were not able to understand what the NEST said and they would turn to ask for translation. I will ask them to guess and then Lisa will try to use simple English to explain again.
Anyway, I will not translate Lisa’s words immediately, except for playing games.”
(Mei, 10/02/2013)
Besides translating and clarifying what Lisa said in class, Mei also helped to manage the classroom. Since Lisa cannot use Chinese to discipline the students, she relied on Mei’s translation for classroom management. In addition, Mei was also the homeroom teacher of the observed class, so she had better control of the students.
Lisa also incorporated Mei’s reward system in team teaching class. If students answer the questions correctly or behaved well, they could earn points for themselves.
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For Lisa, the role of the NNEST is “to help us stay on track, and to keep students in line, like help them run smoothly.” (Lisa, 10/08/2013)
4.1.6 Language use in the classroom
The team teaching classes the researcher observed were mostly conducted in English. Sometimes Mei would ask questions in Mandarin Chinese to help students clarify what Lisa said. Though Lisa was able to speak fluent Chinese, she rarely used Chinese to interact with students. Only when students asked her questions privately would she use limited Chinese. Some slow learners would also like to ask Lisa for help, though they cannot speak English very well. Lisa would use simple English and gestures to help students understand.
When Mei was interviewed questions concerning the language use in classroom, she said that she was used to speaking Mandarin Chinese when team teaching with Lisa. “I used to speak Chinese in the beginning because Lisa has already used English, I wanted to use some Mandarin Chinese to help students.” (Mei, 1/15/2014) But as Mei soon realized that students should have more exposure to English, she tried to use more English in the team teaching class. If Mei found some slow learners did not
When Mei was interviewed questions concerning the language use in classroom, she said that she was used to speaking Mandarin Chinese when team teaching with Lisa. “I used to speak Chinese in the beginning because Lisa has already used English, I wanted to use some Mandarin Chinese to help students.” (Mei, 1/15/2014) But as Mei soon realized that students should have more exposure to English, she tried to use more English in the team teaching class. If Mei found some slow learners did not