First Time Teaching Class

Our first class began the day after our arrival, and I still remember the slight nervousness I had towards how the students would react to us. This included thoughts of: would they be judging our subpar Chinese speaking skills, would they be unresponsive, or would they be too rowdy? But, Elizabeth and I knew that the best thing to do would be to enter the classroom with confidence and brightness. Elizabeth was the first person to teach between her and I’s partnership, and her first class went pretty well. We had arrived at the classroom about 8 minutes before the bell rang, and after setting up, we decided to begin our personal introductions to break the awkwardness of the students staring at us. After we introduced ourselves, we decided to let every student give a quick “自我介绍” (self-introduction), by stating their name, age, and favorite hobby. This seventh-grade class ranged from age 12-14, and many enjoyed hobbies of singing, dancing, soccer, basketball, and ping-pong. After the slightly monotonous 10 minutes of replying to them with “nice to meet you” or “wow that’s so cool”, Elizabeth began her teaching her topic of Ecology. We quickly learned that the students were used to repeating after the teacher (or responding) on command or when it seemed right to. This was a plus side, as it created definite participation and the learning of pronouncing words. On the other hand, they were also used to speaking out the answer when we asked a question instead of raising their hands. We found this problematic because our original plan had been to award candy when students answered various questions. But overall, our first 40-minute class had run quite smoothly. The students were engaged and responsive, and it seemed they’d taken some knowledge from the class upon review.

My first class was with an eighth-grade class (#4), which seemed slightly intimidating since I guessed that some would be my age or even older. Upon entering the classroom, I went through the same introductions as Elizabeth had done, and that went about the same. They all seemed quite responsive and excited, I’m guessing because their maturity and confidence allowed more curiosity (compared with the seventh-grade class). But, everyone really got interested and engaged when I introduced the “reaction game”. This required two people to stand across from one another at the front of the classroom, where I would hold a piece of candy between them. Then without saying when, I would release the candy, and whoever’s reaction was fastest would catch it first. After explaining these instructions, I was worried everyone would be too shy to volunteer, but luckily there were a few brave souls willing to try. After the first round, the class got super excited, and suddenly everyone wanted to try. This took around 10-15 minutes, of which were filled with tons of applause, laughter, and competitiveness. Once going through a few more rounds, I switched to my next activity, which was yet again a competition. This time, the students were split into 4 groups and were asked to pick one member from each group to represent them. Then, these 4 elected representatives would come up to the front and compete for their team, whichever one to win in the activity would receive candy for their whole team. These competition-based activities stimulated excitement and eager participation among the students, while still allowing them to retain some of the information. They were best to occur at the end of class, since it required the flexibility of time (whether it needed to take up more or less of the class time that day). Overall, my first class was super fun to teach, and I also gained experiences and knowledge which helped guide the rest of our classes.