Comments on: Guan Ai Teacher Wins Teaching Competition

By: ting

ting — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:23:14 +0000

well that’s crappy! it’s kind of ironic that a contest aimed to recognize “good” teaching methods fail to acknowledge methods that would benefit the students. nonetheless, being the local contest winner is no small feat! congratulations li na, keep up the excellent work!

By: Kiel Harell

Kiel Harell — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 06:27:24 +0000

***UPDATE***

The city-level competition was held on Tuesday morning. Yang Li Na explained a lesson on introducing helping verbs from the fourth grade textbook. She didn’t receive an award in the competition, but I think she did pretty well. The format of the contest was very limiting so she wasn’t able to completely show how the students would be working with the material in her lesson. If the competition had involved actual teaching, I think she would have definitely won an award because the judges would have seen how much more focus was placed on the students in her lesson. Some of the other contestants had better pronunciation than her, but I don’t think any of them developed a better, more student-centered lesson.

It was a good experience to see the township and city-level competitions. Hopefully, next year they will use a format that highlights actual teaching instead of recitation skills.

By: Kiel Harell

Kiel Harell — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 01:17:09 +0000

The city-level competition is an entirely different format. The teachers are assigned certain parts of the book to teach (they don’t get to choose) and the lesson is even further truncated. Instead of being a 25 minute lesson, the teachers have to present their materials in 12 minutes. It’s disappointing because it won’t showcase Yang Laoshi’s teaching style very well, but I think she will still do pretty well.

In addition to the short lesson, the teachers also have to recite something from the 9th grade English text book and explain the teaching methods they chose for the lesson (in English).

I’ll be sure to give an update after the next round.

By: BOB CHING

BOB CHING — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:14:14 +0000

Li Na,

Stay IN there! Hold On to your lead! Rise UNDER pressure! We are BESIDE you and BEHIND you!

Bob

By: Wei Ji Ma

Wei Ji Ma — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:00:44 +0000

That’s fantastic! Congratulations and way to go! I am really glad that all improvements you guys have worked on so hard is starting to receive recognition. Will the city-level competition feature the same lesson? Will you tell us how it goes?

By: Steven Liu

Steven Liu — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:11:47 +0000

恭喜恭喜！

By: David Pho

David Pho — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:30:29 +0000

Congratulations to both Kiel and Yang Lina for this great achievement! They both worked hard on introducing new teaching methods which allow the students to better understand what is taught in the standard textbooks. The hard work has paid off, so my compliments to you and I wish you good luck with the next rounds!
Jia you!
David