By Ella May Ho
By Ella May Ho
Learning How to Teach
Ella with her fellow student-teachers along with their students from a children ’ s literature course . The children are holding up masks based off of Dr . Seuss ’ The Cat in the Hat .
I used to think that being a teacher meant just standing in front of the classroom , passing on whatever you know to your students , grading all their homework and then repeating the cycle all over again . Well , guess what ? Teaching is more than just passing on knowledge ! Being a teacher extends far beyond the classroom and involves making a difference in your students ’ lives . You should truly get to know your students well enough to know how to help each of them . As a prospective teacher , I ’ m expected to be mentoring a large group of students for eight hours every day , excluding the weekends . My students are not going to be at home most of the time because they are going to be in the classroom with me instead . This means that I can potentially have a big influence on them .
I am currently specialising in English primary education . In Year 3 , I took course about developing the oral and literacy skills of children learning English . It involved learning about methods that help students achieve and improve all the four skills of language , namely reading , writing , speaking and listening . For me , that was the first time I learned about effective pedagogies specifically at the primary level , because the other education courses I had taken were either about the Hong Kong primary curriculum and assessment , or critical thinking on education and teaching in general . The course allowed me to be more practical and productive in my own teaching .
I have to admit that during my first few lessons at my part-time job , I tended to rely on the English textbook that I was given and have students complete by the end of the term . All I did was have students finish the exercises on a page in the textbook one by one , then stand in front of the blackboard and check the answers with them . Having students answer all the black spaces in the textbook was the task and having their textbooks fully completed at the end of the course was the goal . And that was it . Now , I am more eager to teach English in creative ways . As we all may know , in Hong Kong , English has not always been the most exciting subject for local students . Seeing how English is taught in local schools nowadays and considering the large emphasis on tackling exams , students may see the language as just a chore to get over with .
One of the most important things that I ’ ve learnt
FEBRUARY 2018 12