Thank IECP for their kind efforts to arrange the meeting and communications between the Korean teachers and us! We've learned something in common with the education in both of our countries!
I talked with a Korean high school teacher about some problems in English teaching we all face. I guess big size classroom is a big problems for both of us. It is just near impossible to arrange various speaking and listening in class. But of course we should still be trying, though it is step and step further.
Another thing we find in common is research-orientation at universities in both of our countries. I do want to say a little more on this point. I think researches are indeed important for college teachers, but if we emphasize too much on that, I wonder whether it could be beneficial for students. We are called teachers, and that is why I am so obssessively persistent in taking teaching as our basic jobs. I hope university teachers could balance well between teaching and arousing students in their classrooms and carrying out researches and getting promoted!
It is fantastic to communicate with the world in this program.
Well-done.I admire your updating all the time just like keeping a diary.Hold on!Also thank you for your help.
ReplyDeleteI am glad that you enjoyed meeting the Korean teachers and sharing ideas with them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your thoughts about balancing a focus on research and the classroom. How often are CUMTB faculty expected to conduct research and/or publish scholarly articles?
We don't have a very rigid requirement for annual research papers now. But it is necessary if we want to apply for professors in the future. And there is the trend at universities in China to focus more and more on research, which does bring a lot of pressure.
ReplyDeleteI know we actually have a benefit in SLA, which allows us to combine classroom teaching and learning with research, but it is still a big problem to face both the tasks within a limited time. It is really challenging to prepare for classes for each new group of students, read their portfolios and feedback, mark examination papers for a large group of students and keep up with research topics and carry out them in our classroom.
To balance teaching and research is hard when we are requested to give so many lectures to our students. Fortunately the situation is turning better. Coming to Penn State for the training program is a good beginning. Hopefully we'll have more oppotunities to communicate with the outside world to see what other foreign language teachers are doing and how effective their teaching is.
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