Nancy’s Growth
Areas Nancy wanted to improve on
As a new English teacher whose background is in the science field, Nancy felt that she had a lot to learn. In the background interview, she shared her feeling with me, “My background is not in English. I’m really lacking in theories.” She explained, “Like what I was telling you before the recording began, I feel very lost and confused. It’s like something is always wrong. You ask a lot of people.
They do tell me the answers, but I still feel something is missing” (interview, 2006/09/08). She thought that she needed to improve her knowledge on how to teach pronunciation and that she would try to collect more fun activities. In contrast to her perceived inadequacy in the professional knowledge about teaching English, she felt comfortable with classroom management because she thought she could apply her previous experience of working as a homeroom and science teacher.
In my classroom observation, I sometimes found that Nancy was struggling with English. In the first week of the school year, in one of the Grade 3 classes, Amy was teaching a few new words, and Nancy was helping Amy write those words on the blackboard. One of the words was “crayons.” Nancy tried to spell the word, but could not. She asked Amy about the spelling, and Amy spelt the word as if she was teaching the students (fieldnote, 2006/09/05). Another incident took place at the end of the first semester. The class was playing the hangman game.
Nancy asked a student to go to the stage and come up with a word for his peers to guess. It turned out that the word was “pat.” This word was not in the textbook, so it is possible that the word that this boy had in mind was “pet” (of course, it is
also possible that the boy really knew the word “pat”). No one could guess the target word. After the boy revealed the answer, Nancy turned to Amy and asked her, “What’s pat?” Amy demonstrated a little patting movement with her hand, and told Nancy, “You know, patting as in patting a dog?” (fieldnote, 2007/01/22).
Nancy’s learning from her foreign colleagues
With regard to learning from Amy, quite early on in their cooperative relationship, Nancy felt that she had learned from Amy that teaching is more effective when teachers can have some fun with students. She talked about foreign teachers in these words, “They can help me with games and interaction with students.
I feel that they are very open and relaxed with students. I think this is very important for teaching, and this is something I have learned from them” (interview, 2006/09/08). Later in the year, she also commented about foreign teachers’ body language, “The foreign teachers (pause) their body language is quite good, which can shorten the distance between you and students. I dance in my class now. I do it quite naturally and don’t feel embarrassed” (interview, 2007/06/15). Nancy also thought that having to work closely with foreign teachers provided her with opportunities to learn proper English usage. She told me, “For example, if there’s a picture, I can ask her ‘Is this a jacket or coat?’ I can know the most appropriate word for it. She can help me to come up with the most appropriate English for students”
(interview, 2006/09/08).
However, Nancy did not expect that foreign teachers had much else to offer her in terms of her professional development. She remarked, “I can learn from them their English usage, their games, and their body language. I can also practice my English with them. But I don’t know in a year, if there are other things I can learn from them.” She continued, “I feel that the foreigners’ stuff is very easy to understand. They only have so much.”
By the end of the first semester, Nancy felt that she had learned some activities from foreign teachers. She also found out that she did not have to worry about teaching pronunciation too much because she speaks English clearly and students could understand her (interview, 2006/12/22). She also said that her new focus is on making each student learn something—“You know that some students are really advanced, but some are just beginners. I want students to use what they have learned to answer my questions.” She continued, “I want them to be able to use the words and sentences they have learned. I don’t want them just to read aloud the conversation in the book.”
Throughout the school year, Nancy had many opportunities to observe how Amy taught in their co-teaching lessons. As Richards and Farrell (2005) contend, team teaching can be an effective means of teacher development because it provides ready-made classroom observation opportunities. One thing which Nancy observed from Amy was that the latter often shouted at students in class. She disliked the fact that Amy shouted at students all the time and described her partner as someone who “went by her feelings” (interview, 2006/12/22). Nancy felt that watching Amy teach is a learning opportunity for her. More importantly, she learned about what she should not do from observing her partner. In her words,
“When I see Amy teach, I think of myself. You know sometimes she shouts at students. I remind myself that I shouldn’t do that.” She continued, “If you have to shout, it means that your teaching techniques are not good enough. I can see some of my own blind spots from her. I rarely shout in my own class.” In the same interview, Nancy also said that Amy always taught by leading students to read and that if she found students could not read, she would get upset and shout at them.
Nancy disagreed with Amy’s approach—“You should try different ways. You should try to anticipate students’ learning problems and try to solve them.”
Nancy’s learning from her Chinese colleagues
Nancy felt that she could learn more from the Chinese teachers. When comparing foreign teachers with her Taiwanese colleagues, Nancy said, “Many foreign teachers just have some rough ideas about how to teach, and what they can offer me is very limited. However, I feel that Chinese teachers plan their teaching well, so I can learn more from them” (interview, 2006/09/08). Nancy also felt that watching her Chinese colleagues teach helped her modify her teaching style. In her visits to George’s classes, she noticed that George used a lot of Chinese with students. In her words, “When George teaches, he doesn’t have any body language and he doesn’t vary his tone. His lesson is just like the Chinese language arts class.
He uses lots of Chinese to teach.” After visiting George’s class, Nancy reflected on her own teaching, “I used to feel that I have to use a lot of English when I teach.
But I found that George used some friendly language with his students. It almost feels like the students are his friends.” Nancy began to use some Chinese in class.
Nancy’s experience illustrates Richards and Farrell’s (2005) point that observing another teacher teach may help to trigger reflections about one’s own teaching. In Nancy’s case, she did not just reflect on her own teaching—she took some actions to modify her teaching.
From George and Wendy, Nancy was also able to find comfort and support.
She talked about how these two colleagues helped her, serving as an illuminating example for the type of teacher learning which can occur in informal contexts:
Recently, I have a strong feeling. I feel both of them are very open- minded. They think that if I need anything, I should just ask. Even if I don’t make any request, they will ask me if I need anything.
George is a very helpful person. Wendy will think about those things that you have not thought about. I think because of them, I feel there is a team. If I have any question, I can throw it to them. Even if their
suggestions don’t really work, you feel that you have a channel to look for help and support (interview, 2006/12/22).
Nancy talked about the Christmas activities as an example. She said she asked Amy to make some word cards. To show her how to make them, Nancy gave Amy a sample card which she had made by herself. Nancy described Amy’s finishing products as of “very poor quality” (interview, 2006/12/22). She also mentioned that a homeroom teacher told her just before the performance day (on December 25) that Amy did not teach the song to her class. Another homeroom teacher complained to Nancy that Amy had taught the song just once in her class. Nancy said, “This afternoon, I asked Amy what was going on, and she told me that she has taught the song many times. I don’t really know what happened. I feel that they are not devoted at all.”
Nancy went on to explain how her Chinese colleagues, including Wendy, George, and homeroom teachers, helped her during the preparation for the Christmas activities—“I don’t want to give them any burden or extra work, but some of them will call me on weekends and tell me that we can do some activities and they can contact people for me” (interview, 2006/12/22). She continued, “This is partly why I don’t like foreign teachers. If you say everything clearly, things will get ugly.
But if you keep silent, you will feel, ‘How can this happen?’ I think there is a big gap between us.”
Nancy’s experiment with integrating KK phonetic symbols into phonics instruction As a first-year team teacher and English teacher, Nancy was willing to experiment with different ideas to help her students learn English. One idea she tried was introducing the KK phonetic symbols to the third graders in the second semester. Meanwhile, in addition to the regular textbook, Nancy also incorporated
the phonics textbook published by the Hsinchu City42 as the second major teaching material in her Grade 3 classes.
In the second semester, Nancy’s decision to emphasize phonics changed the ways she and Amy conducted the Grade 3 lessons. The first half of the class time was often spent on the instruction of the regular textbook while the second half, on phonics. Because School B only has three complete sets of the government phonics textbooks, students could not have their own copies. When they needed to use the books in class, Nancy and Amy would give each student a copy and took it back once the class was over. To remind students of the words they learned from this textbook, Nancy would write each word with its Chinese translation on the board and asked students to copy the word list to their regular textbook. She would also write the corresponding KK phonetic symbol on the top of the word list (e.g., [æ] for mat and cat).
In the first class I observed in the second semester, I was unaware of Nancy’s decision to start teaching KK phonetic symbols and incorporate the government textbook to the curriculum. After the class was over, I asked her about the changes.
She said that the regular textbook is too easy and teaching the government textbook at the same time would give her more ideas to test her students in midterm and final exams (fieldnote, 2007/02/26). She also felt that introducing the KK phonetic symbols should help students learn spelling.
In Amy’s classes in the second semester, students were often given a fill-in-blank quiz to test their knowledge of the words from the government textbook.
In the quiz, Amy would first write a list of words on the blackboard (e.g., c t, sh p) and read out each word for a few times. In Nancy’s solo lessons, she would
42 When the Hsinchu Program first started, the city government published a series of textbooks for the lower graders. Each school can decide whether to use them or not.
often test students again by using the same method. Although some homeroom teachers felt that these quizzes were too difficult for some students, both Nancy and Amy continued to administer them until the oral test began in early June. In the meeting with homeroom teachers on March 30, Amy explained to them that many of the words are from the Grade 2 textbook and students should have learned them already. However, as one homeroom teacher told me after the meeting, when these students were in Grade 2 last year, they did not have to memorize the spelling of the words. She felt that the quiz was just too demanding.
The midterm test soon came, and students’ learning of phonics was put to test.
In my visit to School B on April 23, Nancy and Amy told me that students did quite poorly on the phonics questions in the midterm test. They decided that they would recycle the materials more and slowed down their instruction. By the end of the second semester, they taught the five vowels (a, e, i, o, u), their corresponding KK phonetic symbols, and words from the government textbook which contain these vowels.
In the last two interviews of the year, I had a chance to formally ask Nancy about her decision to incorporate the government textbook and KK phonetic symbols into her teaching. She told me that she made this decision after finding out her students could not spell. She felt that if students learned how to sound out English words, they could spell better, and one way to help them sound out the words was to teach them phonics. She also thought that introducing the KK phonetic symbols could complement the teaching of phonics, and compared to the regular textbook they were already using, the government one had more materials related to phonics. Therefore, she incorporated both the KK phonetic symbols and the government textbook into her teaching.
One way she used to reinforce students’ learning was to give students regular
quizzes, a strategy which she learned from observing Wendy’s classes. I asked her about the effectiveness of these quizzes, and she replied:
Some Grade 3 teachers told me that some parents complained that the quizzes were too difficult. Some students already know how to spell. It’s difficult to say whether it’s good or not, but I feel it makes my teaching more solid. I can examine my own teaching and see where more teaching is needed. Honestly, those who cannot do it still cannot do it because they have given up. But there are always a couple of weaker students who eventually learn the easier words, like chair and ear. Later in the semester, I tested them by
scrambling sentences. I read them the correct sentences, and they had to put all the words in order. I think some students make a little bit of improvement. At least I try to use different ways to make students understand (interview, 2007/06/21).
Nancy also reflected in an earlier interview that she wondered whether her experiment with KK phonetic symbols was meaningful and if there were more
“natural” ways of teaching pronunciation without using the KK phonetic symbols (interview, 2007/06/15). She remarked, “I read some reports the other day, and it seems that there are other ways to teach pronunciation other than using KK phonetic symbols, although eventually they still need to learn them.” She continued, “I’m still thinking about the best way to teach them pronunciation. More interesting ways.”
Nancy’s experiment with introducing graded readers to third graders
Another teaching idea which Nancy tried in the second semester was introducing her third graders to the graded readers which School B purchased at the end of the first semester. I asked her to describe how she used those books in her solo lessons, and she replied:
After the midterm test was over, I brought those books to the class.
In my first try-out, I asked students to read a simple sentence from the book, like “This is a…”. I didn’t do this in every class because I need to consider the teaching schedule. This time, I brought the books to all the classes again after the oral test was over.
I first asked each student to read a book, and then I asked two students to share a book. Those who finished reading came to me and read the book. If they could do it, they could take a break and do their own things. I think this activity is quite effective. For the more difficult books, I asked five students to read them together.
Among the five students, there are some stronger students who can help the weaker ones (interview, 2007/06/15).
I further asked Nancy if she involved the foreign teachers with the reading activities.
She told me that she did not involve Amy because she did not have a clear plan on how she wanted to make use of the readers. She commented, “I want to give it a try and get familiar with these books first. I can think about what modifications I can do. This is safer.” Nancy also used the few reading sessions to show students how they can use an English dictionary to look up unfamiliar words. If students found they could not pronounce certain words after consulting the dictionary, they could come to Nancy for help.
At the end of the second semester, Nancy evaluated her experience of incorporating the readers into her teaching as successful. In the last interview, she reflected that these books served as good extra materials and asking students to read them gave her an opportunity to assess students—“I learned from those training sessions that it’s not OK just to teach the textbook materials. Maybe I didn’t utilize the textbook to its fullest potential. I think you can add in other materials.” She continued, “In our meeting on the ability indicators, it was mentioned that every child should be evaluated via multiple methods, not just by paper tests or oral tests.
You can evaluate them when they are acting or singing a song.” She liked the idea
of multiple assessment and went on to comment, “I think this makes sense. I can use reading to assess how students are learning. I just keep experimenting”
(interview, 2007/06/21). Indeed, Nancy’s willingness to try out different ideas and reflect on the experiences contributed more to her growth in her first year as an English teacher than working with foreign teachers.
Amy’s Growth
Areas Amy wanted to improve on
In Amy’s case, she stated at the beginning of the school year that she would like to learn different approaches of disciplining children. In her words, “My classroom management is not very good. I think sometimes I can be too strict. I think I need to find other ways of disciplining the children without being too strict.
Maybe a more fun way of disciplining children” (interview, 2006/09/04). With regard to the knowledge she would like to gain, she acknowledged that it is important for teachers to have different kinds of knowledge, especially knowledge about children’s background. She recalled her experience of teaching in South
Maybe a more fun way of disciplining children” (interview, 2006/09/04). With regard to the knowledge she would like to gain, she acknowledged that it is important for teachers to have different kinds of knowledge, especially knowledge about children’s background. She recalled her experience of teaching in South