Keys to Success - Chinese Program
Teachers as Facilitators
While teachers may not be teaching directly during small group activities, they have an even more important role and responsibility: that of giving support to the groups in terms of:
- a) identifying the needs of a group;
- b) identifying the needs of individual students within a group;
- c) intervening in the group process if required;
- d) correcting linguistic errors;
- e) suggesting appropriate strategies for students to tackle a particular task as individuals and as a group.
Team Teaching
In combined classes, teachers from different classes come together and work as a team, sharing ideas, supporting each other in the effort to develop activities/tasks that will enrich the learning experiences of students. Differentiated Tasks As each group consists of students with a range of backgrounds in the language as well as varying levels of proficiency, tasks need to be differentiated to meet the needs of such a diverse group of students. While the less advanced student is given the basic grounding in the language, the more advanced is given more challenging tasks.
Maximum exposure
Students within such a classroom will not be exposed only to what the teacher offers them, but to a range of metacognitive, cognitive, social and linguistic skills offered by their peers in class.
Experience that is relevant
Giving students the experience of using what they have learned in real-life situations makes learning relevant.