Hope I’m not too late for the party!
I’m Connie. Originally from Malaysia, my family and I moved to Vancouver a few years ago. This is my fourth (or fifth course) in this MET program; I’m taking two courses together this term. I was an elementary school teacher in Malaysia and then now, teaching ESL in a language school in downtown. While I have been teaching for as long as I remember, I have always been impressed and driven by teaching relevant skills that could change the world for the better. Therefore, I am hoping to explore some immature social enterprising ideas in this course. Looking forward to learning with and from all of you!
Hi all!
2 responses to “Hi all!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Hi Connie,
I always find it interesting to learn from others who have teaching experience from other parts of the world. When I first graduated from my B.Ed, I taught overseas in Taiwan for a year and that was an eye opening experience for me. Looking at different cultures and understanding how the same thing (i.e. teaching) can be done differently help us to be open to change. Taking what works from different ideas and merging them together to make something new is something that I like to do.
Hi Joyce,
I could totally relate on how cultural tendencies impact the ways students learn and the teaching methods teachers adopt to effectively engage students in the classroom. Personally, I found the biggest difference is in terms of student participation. With highly teacher-directed lessons in Malaysia, students are reliant on their teachers for information presentation and students are expected to passively receive the presented knowledge. On the contrary, students here enjoy thinking out loud and engage in group work to create positive learning environments. What matters is taking the best of both worlds and creating something that would positively impact student learning to create autonomous and independent learners.