Final Field Notes
Observation: A Little Dynasty Chinese School, Miss. V’s advanced-level classroom.
This is the advanced Zhuyin class so the teacher teaches students different combination of Zhuyin and some simple Chinese characters. Miss V’s classroom is spacious and heavily decorated student artwork, graphics on Chinese literature, learning charts on different aspects (grammar, spelling, punctuation and numerals) and a number of books in shelves. The classroom is brightly lit and the warm inviting colors create ambience and serenity for the classroom. The back of the classroom contains a kitchen sink that is filled with a number of toys and utensils. There is also a huge desk and a number of posters on the walls. There is a huge window that allows the maximum entry of natural light to the classroom. There are no desks but a u-shaped table set and a rectangular shaped table set that are surrounded with little red chairs. The u-shaped table set is smaller in size and is located right in front of the rectangular shaped one. A huge white writing board is located in front of the u-shaped table set. Miss. V is of Taiwanese descent (known through asking) and around 30 years old. There are nine students (5 of them were Chinese, I African-American and 3 Caucasian) approximately 5-7 years old.
The students had just come back from their lunch breaks and took their seats. In the first 5-10 minutes, they sung a Chinese song (kind like a welcome song). Miss. V instructs them to come out of their seats so that they have more space to dance. The song is accompanied with a dance movement (the purpose of the song and dance was to wake up the students and make them move and psyched up ready for the beginning of the class). After the routine song and dance, the students go back to their seats getting ready for class. I notice that the students discuss the song and dance as they take their seats. Miss. V blows her whistle to get the attention of the students and the students respond by being attentive and alert.
Miss. V began by first taking a roll call by writing the names of the students on the white writing board using Chinese characters and asking the students to write their names too against their names; which she had written earlier (I quickly notice that this was a method she employed to assess student progress in writing and as a means of building their confidence in front of others) (The roll call was also a way of accounting for each member of the class and knows which ones were absent). Miss. V gives compliments to the students who accurately wrote their names against what she had written. “Good job” she said to those particular students (these compliments boosted the confidence of the students as they took their seats with smiles and happy faces; they seemed proud of themselves). To one Caucasian-looking student who had written a wrong letter, Miss. V guided her into the correct format of writing until she perfectly did it. “You can do it B,” she told her (this showed Miss. V’s focus on weaker individuals; use of individual attention as a motivational strategy).
I notice that Miss. V had a scheme of work and a classroom schedule on the wall right next to the white writing board (I can tell that she is quite organized and had a plan for the students on the lesson). She begins teaching by reviewing the Zhuyin combination they had learned in the previous class. During the review, Miss. V. employs the question and answer (Q&A) methodology (to test the student’s knowledge). The students raise their hands to answer the questions that she posed. Miss. V chooses the first student who raised his/her hands to answer the question. If the students got the answer right, she would reward her with praise such as “well done” and instructing the students to clap for the student (these rewards boosted the confidence of the students who got the questions right as they could be seen smiling and ‘boasting’ to the others; they seemed ecstatic and enjoying every bit). After the review, Miss. V started teaching new things.
The lesson was about an advanced section of Zhuyin combination class that they had covered in the past lessons. She started by teaching a number of concepts by drawing and writing on the chalk board. She then called the students to draw some of the images she had put on the board. Every student was given a chance to draw on the writing board and then she evaluated their work. She also engaged the students in evaluating the works of their fellow students and determine which one was their best. Although there were some of the students who drew better than others, Miss. V told them that each image was the best and everyone had done their best (This was a way to calm the students who saw their works as being better off than those of their fellow students) (Miss. V was employing this strategy to ensure that each student enjoyed the class). To the students who had difficulties in drawing, she slowly guided them step-by-step until they got it right (I noticed that Miss. V was patient with her students and made sure that each one of them had mastered what she was teaching before she progressed to another concept). After teaching the basic concepts in the lesson, she asked them questions regarding the same to evaluate their knowledge (She employed positive motivation by rewarding them with praises when they got the answers correct). To those who got the answers incorrectly, she encouraged them to try again and also elaborated the concept.
Miss. V then instructed the students to read and take a small written quiz on what she had taught them. The students took turns in reading from the writing board the sentences that Miss. V had written. At some point, Miss. V allowed role playing in that the students moved to the front of the classroom and led the other students in reading the given sentences. The students played the role of the teacher and they were happy doing so given the wide smiles they wore on their faces (role playing boosted further the confidence levels of the students). One of the students was rather shy in leading the other students in reading but Miss. V encouraged her not to fear anyone. She went on and tapped his back encouraging him to be like her. When the student was through, Miss. V acclaimed “excellent” much to the enjoyment of the student who walked back to his seat with a smile and head held high.
The small written quiz demanded writing down of the new words that had been taught in that lesson. Miss. V wrote the words on the writing board and encouraged the students to write them on their books. As the students took the quiz, Miss. V moved around the class checking the progress of each student. At some point she stood and corrected students who were getting it wrong. When the quiz was over, she instructed the students to turn their quizzes in for marking. She encouraged them to change their answers if they felt they were not right. The students began comparing their answers leading to noise in the class. Miss. V quickly rang the bell to ensure that silence was restored. She quickly marked them and went through with the students on the correct answers. She invited random students to the writing board to write the correct answers (I notice that this was a method to ensure that the students mastered those words together with their spellings).
After the one and a half hours class time, it was time for snacks. Before the students could take their snacks, Miss. V issued each one of them with hand sanitizers and led them in singing two Chinese songs. One of the songs was about washing hands and the other was the “I want snack song” (I discovered that this was a daily routine before the students could engage in eating snacks). This was an ingenious way of ensuring that the students washed their hands before eating (the songs motivated the students to maintain hygiene before eating any foods). The students were all smiles and played as they ate their snacks. One of the students kept on singing the song they had been taught earlier on, which indicated the effectiveness of employing songs as a motivational technique. Meanwhile, Miss V. checked her notes preparing for the second lesson. After 15 minutes, Miss. V rang her bell indicating the end of the snack break. She instructed the students to settle down quickly and get ready for their second lesson. Some of the students engaged in story-telling with each other but Miss. V told them they would have time to share the stories with the classroom. She reminded the students to calm down and be attentive.
The second half of the lesson was mainly activity based (I noticed that the advanced-level class did not have time allocated for art and craft like the beginner-level classes). Miss. V began the lesson by teaching the students about the Chinese Zodiac. Miss. V narrated an interesting story on how the different animals became part of the Chinese Zodiac (I quickly noticed that she was a good story teller and employed mimicry to portray the different animals). The students were quiet and attentive as they listened to the beautiful story. At the end of the story, she asked the students questions as a way of testing their understanding of the story. Questions ranged from which was the first animal to arrive to which was the last animal to arrive. The students participated fully in the discussions later on about the story (the story was so effective in capturing the attention of the students as all of them understood it).
Since 2014 was the year of the horse, the activities centered on doing a horse puppet with a brown bag. Miss. V instructed the students to assemble at the back of the class where the presentation was going to take place. She divided the students into three groups and handed them with materials for making a horse puppet. Miss. V was careful enough to promote ethnic diversity of the groups. Slowly, she guided the students in making a horse puppet. She moved from one group to another ensuring that they did the right thing. Miss. V could be heard uttering the word “Good,” “Correct,” “Wonderful” as she moved from group to group (these compliments motivated further the students). On one instance, one member of the group wanted to dominate but Miss. V moved swiftly to tell him that it was a group activity and not an individual project. Miss. V promised to reward the group with the best horse puppet presentation with a move high up the behavior chart. Coming to the presentations, Miss. V remarked that all groups had done an excellent job and all of them would be rewarded. All the students became happy and celebrated playfully their achievements.
In the last 5-10 minutes of the class, the students engaged in the singing of the goodbye song. Just like in the welcome song sang when the class started, the students took to the center of the classroom and danced along to the song (the students were happy with what they learnt) and thanked Miss. V for teaching them. Miss. V, on her part, thanked the students for being attentive and active participants in class, and also thanked them for being good students. She could be heard saying “Thank you for being good students today.” Miss. V dismissed the class and the students packed up their belongings, and left for the welcome lounge where their parents had been waiting for them.
