After interviewing with Professor Jessie, I think that she applies some important theories and teaching methods discussed in the following paragraphs.
First of all, when talking about motivation which is the force that energies and directs a behavior towards a goal, Pro. Jessie provides students with many selected model speakers, panelists, programs, movies to view so students may learn how to present, how to raise questions, know what debate in English is like. Then, after the films and videos, she would ask questions and want students to answer them so as to encourage impromptu speeches in interaction. That is, you respond by your own quick response, which can be seen in the idea of anxiety. Since either too much anxious atmosphere in the classroom or too less may have a bad influence on students’ learning effects, Pro. Jessie balanced it very well by encouraging students to do their best rather than threatening them. Besides, instead of being extrinsic motivated, she intends to let students choose topics so that students are intrinsic motivated since they can choose topics they like and they would find it easier to manage. And, when she raises questions or gives some reflections after groups’ presentations, her behaviors have met the value and expectance that is also a theory of motivation which emphasizes the need for both, making student believe that their reports will lead to goal attainment and they have values.
Second of all, in Maslow’s Hierarchy theory, I would like to point out the most significant three needs she applied in the class. For one thing, in esteem needs level, because many students are not equipped with good English abilities and are lack of confidence, she especially cares about students’ self-esteem by not pointing out students’ errors until the presentations are finished. For another, in need to know and understand level, she has her webpage which looks like a big journal taking down a lot of Internet resources related to students’ learning. In addition, she puts what the students do no matter to combine the global issues, cultural issues, life style decisions, creative literature, arts and debate issues and put them in the forms of speech, presentation and debate. For the other one, in self-actualization need level, since it is the highest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy theory, it is really difficult for students in our ages to achieve that level; nevertheless, Pro. Jessie tires her best to push and support students to achieve this goal so as to fulfill students’ potentialities. By doing this, not only students’ self-actualization but also students’ self-efficacy does she arise from students for she creates harmony class atmosphere and always does a lot of encouragements to students, believing that they can perform the needed action instead of having other impeding factors to the desired outcomes.Thirdly, I also learned that she intends to apply cooperative learning, which is that students work together to achieve a goal, having faith in that goal is achievable as the replacement of competitive-goal learning. In the class, students are asked to do four presentations within a group, which can be seen as group-oriented goals. And, each student has to be responsible for each other as a group, perfectly fitting the characteristic of individually accountability. Moreover, everyone has the opportunity to speak in front of the class, meaning that every student all gets chances to showing the best of themselves and will be with more favorable attitudes toward their classmates, which can not be found, without doubt, in a competitive learning environment.
Finally, I believe that Pro. Jessie has applied the Communicative Language Teaching method in her classroom all the time. In the first place, she encourages students to speak English in the classroom rather than use their native language, known as the goal of teachers who use CLT that is to enable students to communicate in the target language. Secondly, she thinks that a teacher should be like a guide, which is the same as a teacher as a facilitators in CLT methods, seen from her acts of monitoring during the performance, raising questions and answering questions after presentations as an adviser, and sometimes a co-communicator, engaging in the communicative activity and talking to students. And, another significant observation is that she would like to let students paraphrase whatever they see, hear or read, based on that class materials, to let them know that there are many different forms to perform the same meaning of ideas or thoughts, which also meets CLT methods’ goal and spirit when later on, she would ask students to present what they write, recognized as feedbacks. Besides, students’ cooperation and interaction is another important principle when conducting Communicative Language Teaching. In the view of this, seen through students’ group reports, they deal with each other very well during her class. Finally, Pro. Jessie aims to take students’ errors as tolerable errors since CLT is a fluency-based teaching method. However, she still encourages students to gain their English proficiency gradually because language is for communication, reproving that teacher should be like a guide or a tower, always lightning the way for students.
In conclusion, I am very glad and thankful to be able to interview Professor Jessie who is gracious, knowledgeable and experienced in teaching English listening and speaking. Before leaving, it is so warm that she reminds us of some considerate suggestions for being a beginner teacher in this field, saying that to create an environment speaking the target language is very important. Then, knowing teachers’ and classroom’s language and applying them to your teaching are other essential points. The last but not the least, a teacher should be professional; then, your students would come to believe that they can learn things from you. In the end, by doing this mid-term project, I have learned many useful and practical teaching experiences, strengthening my belief to be a good teacher.
