I read CLEARING THE WAY chapter 7 and 8. Through reading
these chapters, I got ideas how teachers should act and teach. The author
mentioned teachers should encourage students but, at the same time, they need
to think about how to deal with students’ problems. Therefore they have to talk
about what is bad and should be revised. I guess this is sometimes really hard
for the teachers. They want encourage their students and they don’t want make
their students disappointed but they have to tell what is a problem on their
work too. The author of the book told some suggestions you could do to your
students but I think it really depends on your students how to encourage and
tell their problems.
I want to talk about grading too. Teachers must be fair to
all of their students. Sometimes, in the middle of the grading, teachers’
criteria might be changing but they need to grade their students with the
absolutely same criteria. So sometimes, teachers need to take some time and
double-check students’ works. The author said English is an art. Students make
poems so it’s different from math or science. This is one of the reasons why in
English the grading is sometimes hard for teachers. They can’t just count the
numbers of correct answers but they need to see what this student got from this
or improved from the last work. The author mentioned about her way of giving a
comment to her student. She said that if a student uses the technique that was
introduced in the class, she praises it. I think this is really good idea
because it encouraged the student to use those techniques.
There are various ways to teach students but every time
teachers should be honest to their students and tell what is good or bad on
their work and keep encouraging their students.
