What I Learned as an Exchange teacher in United States. “Two Years Teaching at a Mandarin Emersion School” “The brief” The following is an account of my two years as an exchange teacher in a primary immersion school, as well as some of my personal life in United States. Recently the Mandarin immersion program has been gaining popularity in K-8 classrooms in the US. There are 57 Mandarin immersion schools just in California and 15 of them opened after the 2014-2015 school year. But most of Mandarin immersion schools are still in their pilot stage regardless of teaching pedagogies, training, and curricu- lum or teaching materials. I was assigned to assist and teach at Barnard Elementary School in the San Diego area, which was the first public school to bring in a Manda- rin immersion program and has developed into one of the largest in Southern Cali- fornia. I observed many different teaching styles, and participated in teachers’ col- laboration and tried out new teaching materials. However, compared with the cre- dential classroom teachers, being an exchange teacher in a public school system was a challenge. Satisfying parental concerns about teaching experience became a com- mon occurrence. At the same time of getting to know my new position as a teacher, I was simultaneously dealing with the proverbial culture shock. Being away from my family, familiar circles, and living in a foreign country without interpersonal support is hard for a lot of exchange teachers, and this was true for me. With no American teaching background, I was overwhelmed with tasks all the while trying to integrate into American culture. Increasing my knowledge as a teacher while simultaneously enriching my personal life experience at the same became a welcome challenge. At the end of my term, I received a satisfactory reference, this experience affirmed my
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What I Learned as an Exchange teacher in United States. “Two Years Teaching at a Mandarin Emersion School”
“The brief” The following is an account of my two years as an exchange teacher in a primary immersion school, as well as some of my personal life in United States. Recently the Mandarin immersion program has been gaining popularity in K-8 classrooms in the US. There are 57 Mandarin immersion schools just in California and 15 of them opened after the 2014-2015 school year. But most of Mandarin immersion schools are still in their pilot stage regardless of teaching pedagogies, training, and curricu-lum or teaching materials. I was assigned to assist and teach at Barnard Elementary School in the San Diego area, which was the first public school to bring in a Manda-rin immersion program and has developed into one of the largest in Southern Cali-fornia. I observed many different teaching styles, and participated in teachers’ col-laboration and tried out new teaching materials. However, compared with the cre-dential classroom teachers, being an exchange teacher in a public school system was a challenge. Satisfying parental concerns about teaching experience became a com-mon occurrence. At the same time of getting to know my new position as a teacher, I was simultaneously dealing with the proverbial culture shock. Being away from my family, familiar circles, and living in a foreign country without interpersonal support is hard for a lot of exchange teachers, and this was true for me. With no American teaching background, I was overwhelmed with tasks all the while trying to integrate into American culture. Increasing my knowledge as a teacher while simultaneously enriching my personal life experience at the same became a welcome challenge. At the end of my term, I received a satisfactory reference, this experience affirmed my
interesting in education. I ascribe to the philosophy of “work hard/play hard”, this experience has allowed me to do both, not only as a teacher, but also as someone who loves the great outdoors and the newfound appreciation of “American life”.
“I’m a teacher!” …help! I was hit with my first big challenge in the first week of being in the country. I was assigned to teach two Mandarin immersion classes of third grade because the cre-dentialed teacher was still in China, and her paperwork was not complete to start the school year. Therefore, instead of being an observer as was my understanding and expectation, I became the primary teacher on the first day! The model for the 1st to 5th graders is 50% Mandarin and 50% English, school time is 7:40am to 2:10pm for the students, while teachers arrive 15 minutes earlier and leave 15 minutes later. Except for a half hour lunch period, teachers stay with the kids all the time. Barnard Elementary School is currently the only Mandarin/English-only immersion school in San Diego, and for better or worse, most parents are very involved in their kids’ learning. Many have high expectations, a few even too high, of their child’s Mandarin learning experience. Some parents had even changed jobs or moved into
the area in order to offer their kids the opportunity to learn Mandarin. I did not receive any American k-8 classroom teaching training before I entered Bar-nard. I did not know what Common Core was. I did not know how to do classroom management, and I knew less about immersion class. On top of all the professional skills that I was lacking, surprisingly the most stressful experience was simply being told that I had to decorate my classroom. I didn’t have a clue how to go about this task as in my educational experience in China, we simply do not place any value on the decoration of a classroom and therefor I had zero frame of reference. All of the other teachers started two weeks before I did and had for the most part already dec-orated their classrooms. In addition to my inexperience, the classroom given to me was in utter chaos and looked like it had ransacked and robbed. I did a bit of spying on the others to get some ideas and eventually gave up on decorating and simply set-tled on stuffing all of the junk in several closets to give the impression that I was or-ganized. To compound my newfound stress of being ‘instant teacher’ simply to getting to and from school also was a challenge. I of course did not have a driver’s license nor my own mode of transportation, and therefor was completely reliant on my host family. They were wonderful in getting me to and from work, but not having the control of my own time at school only multiplied my stress. So, now I was ready to teach, the only problem was that I had a classroom full of un-ruly children and I found myself struggling to simply keep order. It seemed the hard-er I tried to keep them in order the worse they became. I was remembering when I was the same age and my teacher scaring me by stating “whoever talks in the class will be punished”, common sense told me this was not going to work in the American classroom. But, what to do, how was I going to reign these children in so as to be able to begin teaching them Mandarin. I would like to say that I figured it out and that the kids all settled down and all was perfect. But, the reality is that after four weeks the credentialed teacher finally came back and the students’ behavior was no longer my responsibility. I was then able to primarily focus on teaching Mandarin, and then had less concern about losing my hair, but was secretly happy about the weight loss. After handing over the third grade teaching, I was afforded the opportunity to ob-serve in many different classrooms. This experience was invaluable as I was able to discern many different teaching styles and saw firsthand which teachers had total command of their students and which did not. When I started teaching the FLES classroom (Foreign Language in the Elementary School), it was my responsibility to teach Mandarin to four classes, one hour each at different grade levels. I copied the best I could the classroom management of the teachers I deemed having the most success. I eventually was able to incorporate my own style and was on my way in creating sincere interest in my children with the Chinese language and culture. Some of the successes came as the result of observing the kindergarten classes’ morning routine. The content was rich with fun games, with singing and dancing, and adding
rhythm to language. The kids were happy and engaged as the activities were con-stantly changing. Their morning routine was consistent each day, with a lot of repeti-tion and slightly adding one or two things they learned the day before. It was not long that I realized that teaching should be fun like that. I integrated a lot of songs and dances in my classes too, and also made sure every student was engaged. I felt great when the kids kept telling me that they loved learning Mandarin. I wish I could say at this point that the hard part of beginning was over, but unfortu-nately it had just begun. After only three weeks I was assigned to be the primary teacher of a Kindergarten class whose teacher was scheduled to take maternity leave. Because her delivery came two months earlier, the school needed me to take the class. It is probably safe to say that they were desperate as I was not qualified at that point to take over the class. I was tasked to teach the multiple subjects, i.e., math, science, social studies, etc., to children in a language they did not know. To compound matters this particular group of children had an unusual amount or be-havioral issues. Some kids walked out of class without asking, they cried and fought with one another. A few had legitimate medical diagnosis of ADHA and ADD and re-quired medication. An inexperienced teacher and a crop of unruly kids was a recipe for a perfect storm…the storm that came upon me was upset parents. Some even stayed at school in the morning not wanting to leave their children as the chaos was impossible to hide. Because I was not a credentialed teacher, and it is California law that a credential teacher must be in the room, the school scrambled to find teachers to come to class. On those days that an English speaking credentialed teacher made it to class some were helpful and engaged the children the best they could, while others simply sat back as they knew they would not be staying and all they really needed to do was to be present. Now, things actually got worse because the children had no consistency from one day to the next. It was all I could do to calm the parents with promises that this was a normal transition period and that things would soon get better. All though this was mostly wishful thinking on my part…this wish actually came true! A truly dynamic, skilled and wonderful teacher came to take over, it is safe to say that this was the turning point for me in which not only had my night-mare ended I was on a path of learning myself. Not only did this woman settle the class and the children, she taught me how to be a teacher. She quickly became one of many mentors during my two year stay, and to this day is a dear friend outside of the classroom. This was indeed a tough time for me, but as the Americans like to often say “that which does not kill us will make us stronger”, and I was undeniably strong-er. In spite of the challenges of the beginning, by the end of my first year I had fallen in love with each of the children. Each of them having their own amazing personalities. I even learned to understand and love the kids that seemed hopeless to me in the beginning. I can honestly say that to the extent that the first year was a challenge it was equally rewarding, with the proverbial happy ending.
Year two: The second school year was much more peaceful for me compared with the first one. I was assisting the kindergarten room teachers the first three months, helping them to prepare teaching material or provide the kids with extra help. During this time, I was once again able to observe different teaching styles, which inspired me a lot, and I tried to incorporate these skills into my own teaching. The position for a Confucius Institute teacher is more or less like a firefighter. I worked at where the school needed me the most. I was assigned to put out the fire for the first grade when the credential teacher had to leave the US and return to Chi-na because of a Visa issue. This could have given me once again a reason to be over-whelmed with stress and pressure. But, it was instead a happy reunion with the kids that I had learned to love from the year before. Maybe all my experience counted this time, maybe the new teaching curriculum and materials from Better Immersion helped a lot. Perhaps because I had the previous relationship with a lot of kids when they were in kindergarten, or maybe their former teacher had good classroom rules, and I just needed to follow them. The bottom line is that I had a very good start with them. All the teaching objectives started and finished with fun, and all the classroom management worked very well. It would be prudent of me to mention that creden-tial teacher in this class was also instrumental in the success of this class. Even though he did not speak Mandarin, he was there the entire time, both physically and mentally. The classes in which I was responsible to teach were actually taught under his name. He was a very experienced and responsible teacher, and we planned the lessons together everyday. The parents contacted him directly, so I able to primarily focus on teaching. Therefore, the kids, the parents and the teachers, we were all happy. Since I did not need spending too much for classroom management, and most of kids
were very focused on what they learned, most of the original teaching plan was a little easier for the kids. However, there was general concern about the American students’ math regarding their algorithm performance. A lot of kids had to use their fingers to help their addition and subtraction within 10, which did not seem good for me since they were already first graders. While I was thinking about how to improve my kids’ performance in Math, the Shenmo Education who focused on abacus teach-ing came to Barnard introducing abacus to the students. And more importantly, they gave each kid an abacus, and left some teaching material for me. The kids were very enthusiastic about the new tool, and I think the mentor math it eventually lead to was perfect to help the kids’ math. From then on, I divided the 45 minutes math time into two parts; the first part was practicing the original lesson and then the abacus time. After three months, 17 of 45 students mastered the addition and subtraction within 1,000 with the help of abacus, which was far beyond the curriculum. And what made me proud was most kids did not need use tools to help them do the addi-tion and substation within 100 after we practiced mentor abacus. Abacus became their good friend to learn Math. This inspired me that I could successfully integrate some traditional Chinese teaching methods to the immersion curriculum. The other component of learning that was somewhat unconventional for first graders was Chi-nese poetry of the Tang Dynasty. I was successful in teaching poems that were more than 1,000 year old. These poems were invaluable in practicing rhythm and also get-ting to know the quintessence of Chinese culture. To my surprise, the poems became one of their favorites, and they chanted them whenever they got chance. I was wor-ried that the language might be too difficult to understand since it was not daily lan-guage anymore. However, most kids understood the poems well enough, and were very excited to recognize the characters they knew in the poems. They practiced a few minutes in chanting the poems everyday, and then singing and dancing a certain one. At first we focused on the forms and rhyming, and later on we focused on mean-ing. Each month they learned a new one; they mastered six at the end of school year. Before lunch time, they chanted Sympathy for the Peasants together; when I men-tioned the poet saw the bright moon and he missed his hometown, they would chant In the Quiet Night by Li Bai, etc.. At the end of the school year, I asked them to make a Chinese poetry book, after they wrote the poem they drew a picture beside it ac-cording to their understanding about the poem. I had made a false assumption that poetry might be boring, but the fact is that they are kids, and they loved rhythm and rhyming. The last day in the school (June 21, 2016) was sad and happy for me. The kids came with gifts, cards and hugs. They expressed their gratitude, and I hugged each of them. Each of them was my sweetheart. I remembered the first time meeting them, they were adorable and worried, and now they could talk with me in Chinese, I know that most are likely to forget me, and I them, but in that moment we were the closest people for one other, and this I will never forget. Besides having the precious time with the kids, I also promoted my teaching skills with the Profession Development (PD). There was a PD day each month for the teachers. This was a time we discussed any concerns anyone would like to discuss,
and we tried to find solutions. We would do lesson plans together, or we learned new technology icons together, or the experienced teachers share their wisdom with new ones. Besides getting the ideas and skills from the other teachers, there were a lot of reading materials to help me teach in English. One of the most important and rewarding experiences was the special needs chil-dren brought me into contact with the special educational teachers, from whom I learned how to communicate effectively. I was grateful to have the realization that some children who acted out simply may have a problems they are dealing with at home. Instead of blaming them for their poor behavior, teachers should learn to lis-ten and observe their changes, and offer them better service on their way to growing up. Learning to become an American teacher was not easy for me. I experienced many hardships in the two years teaching, however, in the end I felt grateful to have had these conflicts in my life. I will benefit from the experience and use them to continue with my career as a teacher.
“A little bit (more) about me” I am a fan of both outdoor and indoor sports. When I was studying in the university in Xiamen, I ran a lot, participating in both marathons and school sports each year. I love the freedom of riding a bicycle, and with my somewhat competitive nature I found myself on a month long trek of 2,500km through Mountains of Tibet. I enjoy swimming as well, sometimes even in the cold winter you might find me in the out-door swimming pool of the university. As someone like me who favors athletics as I do, a place like San Diego which is mostly full of sunshine should have been a jackpot for someone like me…but instead of enjoying the great outdoors in the first year I become a workaholic.
When I stayed with my host family in Point Loma, we had a great view of the Pacific Ocean sunset, but I had no interest in the scenery. All of my thoughts day and night were how to resolve issues at work. I was either worrying about the next day’s les-son plan or preparing the materials. The thought of going out for a jog seemed to be a waste of valuable time. Then one day, when I realized that I had lost too much hair and I was too worried about the work, I just felt wrong. So, I decided to change my outfit and put my running shoes on. On the sunset cliffs, I saw so many peaceful and happy faces, it then occurred to me, why could not I be one of them? It is so true that United States is a country on wheels, the ability to drive was so im-portant in San Diego. I was so eager gain my freedom and I started driving by myself in my own car after only a few months of being in the US with help from my host family. It felt awesome that I could get wherever I wanted in the city, all the beautiful places felt like my backyard. I realized the happiness related to the feeling of belong-ing and being free. Very soon, I got my own apartment. By now, I felt I was totally ready to explore more about this city and get involved to SoCal life. My apartment was next to Mission Bay, if one were to search online, you’d that it boast to be a fantastic place for running, biking, kayaking, volleyball and many dif-ferent sports. I took my geographical advantage of using the park. I bought a bike I once thought I could only dream of and while the park ended up not being a good place after all for a serious biker, it soon became my favorite place to run. For a while, I would run a circle around the bay every weekend, which was close to a half marathon each circle. When I saw the promotions for the famous Rock and Roll San Diego Marathon I did not hesitate to register for it.
I was content with running until spring break, it was the time that my schedule was different with my Chinese friends as they worked in a different school. I felt lost to have so much time and did not know how to use it. I started searching online and luckily discovered a group people planning to backpack across Catalina Island. I was always looking for having backpacking experience and wanted to camp so much. Even though I had zero gear for backpacking, it did not give me the reason to say no to the opportunity. I drove to REI and got all the gear I would need in a very short time, as it was literally the day before the hike. Knowing I did not have any experi-ence in backpacking, the organizer said he needed to meet me first in order to make sure I was not kidding. We met when I was shopping for my gear, I suppose he saw a crazed look in my eyes, he said my ambitiousness was encouraging and gave me the permit to hike with the group. It was such an inspiring experience, particularly in meeting Lucy. She was a woman in our group who shared her experience with me of hiking the PCT (Pacific Crest Trail) which is from Mexican border to Canada. And she did it when she was 64. I hiked then hiked every weekend after the amazing and in-spiring experience of crossing Catalina Island. The more I hiked, the more I was fas-cinated by the trails. I heard more and more people talking about Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) that Lucy did and John Muir Trail (JMT), and the more I knew about them the more I wanted to hike on them. I did not have six months to do what Lucy did, but she recommended JMT to me. It was also a famous trail; most people could finish the hike in about three weeks. My summer vacation was perfect for that. After visiting my family back from China, I started preparing for the trail right away. Because of my lack of experience, I did not know that a permit could be so difficult to get. I decided to camp in front of visitor center to be the first one get the walk-in permit. However, I was luckier than that. When I my friend dropped me in the visitor center, I got the last permit they had. The permit started my 21 days hiking in the wild. It was one of the best choices I ev-er had. When I carried half my weight’s backpack on my back, across the forests, get-ting up the passes, seeing clear lakes, drinking the water directly from the melting snow, I felt life could be so simple and contented. After setting up my small tent in the mountains, I would breathe in the eternally immutable Milky Way. The impossi-bly beautiful starry sky was often divided by the shooting stars. Views so amazing words can’t describe. Biologists tell us the endorphins produced when we do exer-cise triggers positive feeling in the body, this is unequivocally an international rec-ommendation.
I met so many people on the trails. I more or less made a name for myself in many of the hiking groups and clubs of the girl that was always so happy. Most of these hiking excursions would require me to get up at 2: - 3:00am, drive for an hour or two or carpool with others to get an early start to the day. Having the joy in my heart of a successful year of teaching, and my newfound love of hiking, I had no need to im-prove my life as I was happy and content. I could not know that my life would forev-er change and that my happiness would far exceed any I had ever dare dreamed. On April 25th 2015 I had signed up to do one of the most difficult day hikes in the entire US. I could not find my Meetup hiking group and asked a man that was starting the same hike as me if he could help me locate them…to make a long story short, I hiked with him and his friend that day, and now to the very day of this writing we have been the two happiest people I have ever known. We have conquered many hikes together, he taught me to ski in Utah, and we’ve traveled to Florida, Chicago IL and Washington State, no matter where we go we always end up hiking and exploring. In summation, I went to the US simply to be an immersion teacher and maybe expe-rience some US culture. I could not ever have envisioned the difficult but eventual rewarding experience as a teacher. Nor could in ever even imagined that I would find myself in the wilderness for 19 days hiking 340km by myself. And lastly, I could have never dreamed that I would meet the man that is to be my husband in the middle of it all -