This reflection was about my first time teaching foreigners Chinese. Through this reflection, I found many phases that I can do better. Thanks for all the people who gave me the advices and shared with me their thoughts. 

Concrete Experience (What happened)

The 9 students were from GMU’s Confucius summer camp. They were from middle or high school. Most of them studied Chinese at least one year. They could write Chinese characters and knew some basic sentences.

I began this class with the video of Kongfu Panda 2, and taught the students some basic postures of kongfu by the pictures we took by ourselves yesterday. At the end of this class, I made the students play the jigsaw puzzle of the characters that I just taught. But we still did not finish all the activities we designed because of the time.

Reflective Observation (What I think/feel about what happened)

This was my first time teaching foreign students in Chinese, so I was a little nervous though I had experiences  of teaching in Taiwan. Since this was not my first time of teaching, I think I could do better than I did. When I gave the positive feedback to the students, I used too little target language. Meanwhile, I could not call every student’s name because I could not see their name cards on the table. Sometimes, I was too nervous to think of the next step of thinking but just standing there. However, we all had a great time and had the opportunities to join their presentation next time.

Abstract Conceptualization (What I learned from thinking about what happened)

I found that I minded too much on my presentation so that I ignored  these students’ learning.  If I could catch the time and call the students’ names immediately, perhaps the reaction between students and me would be much better. Although Ms. Tian and all other classmates said I performed very well, I think I can do better and better. But I still have to learn more teaching strategies in GMU and to know how to do the real “student-centered” orientation.

Active Experimentation (What I will do based on what I learned)

I will consider the condition and encourage other students to speak more in class even if I don’t know the names. I can also ask the students to write their names on a sheet so that I can call the names immediately. I will also try to create some activities which is fitted in with student-centered orientation. The most important thing is, I have to focus on the students’ learning instead of just finishing the teaching.