Teaching in china: Lesson planning

Thinking that it would be easier if I did the lesson planning by myself then emailing it to my assistant I said to her that I would do it by myself and email it to her by Monday each week. Also I added that she could phone or email if she had any problems. She sees this as personal insult. Its not that I don’t appreciate her input but we don’t seem to able to agree a time because she doesn’t see why we need plan a time. She asked me why I wasn’t home all the time doing housework, so it would be easy for to show up at any time.

 I explained that I like to go sightseeing and that I had no one to talk to. I came up with a compromise that she could come anytime but if she call first to make sure that I am home. This is to avoid the unfortunate situation the week before where she just turned up and expected me to run back home when I was out eating at a restaurant with friends. Despite the fact no agreement to meet each other had been made. It’s not really a big deal. It was the first time we had a disagreement. I guess the honeymoon period is over.

 

Other aspects of teacher planning have being going ok. The company wants me to use PowerPoint but the computers broken in most of the classrooms. So I have been getting the slides printed.  Also I have done more than one class because students at different levels. The school seems to try to teach all the students at the same level.

 

The topics I have done this term so far are:

 

Introduction:  I just gave an outline of the class and said some class rules. Also I played a game with them, which was a memory game: I went to the shop and bought some.

 

Basketball: For the lower level students I went through some basketball vocabulary e.g. Hoop, Basketball, Jump shot etc. I mimed the basketball moves, which seemed to entertain the students.

 Then we did a class brain storm of words related to basketball. Then I finished off the class having them work in pairs on dialogue in their text books. The higher level students learnt some different vocabulary needed for a listening exercise in the class. Then they worked on dialogue in their exercise books.

 

 

Senior year: This class was a cultural learning topic about what it is like to go to high school in USA. This very ironic since I am from UK and all I have to go on really are movies. Moving on I showed pictures of a prom, yearbook, graduation, football team (American), and a prom king and queen 

 

Oliver twist: I introduced the characters from the novel. I got them to write a short summary of the story in their own words.

 

Music: I reviewed instruments and then explained a few different types of music e.g. rock, blues, Jazz. Then I had the students listen to the music and write about what type of music, what instruments were playing and how it made them feel. Afterwards we had a class discussion.

 

Ethnic minorities:

I taught them some vocabulary related to ethnic minorities. This was a really difficult lesson because the majority of the classes did not know about other countries.

 

 

Sight seeing in the UK:

I taught them about landmarks in London. Then I gave them some questions to answer while watching a short documentary about sightseeing in London.

Afterwards we had a class discussion.