My teaching experience in River Valley Primary school

One and a half hours, photography taught, in English, 40 naughty primary school boys to cope with.

Teaching is a no easy task. Now I am quite convinced, well and truly.

This Friday was a huge challenge for me. I took up the Give Program in which participants volunteer to give lessons in some local primary school and middle school. The program lasts for several months and on that day was my first ever lesson. For years I had always been playing the role as a student, been taught by our kind teachers rather than the other way around. I had never got the chance to stand in front of the class for the whole lesson, to take up the responsibility of keeping the order and getting each of them truly engaged. It turned out to be rather tough when it came to large class size of give or take 40, let alone the language I was required to teach in.


I could hardly believe my eyes on seeing more than 40 of them when I entered the classroom, since I was informed previously that my students would be roughly 20 boys who are among the naughtiest. There was no air-con in it. I felt scorchingly hot. Moreover, it was not the kind of tutorial room of which my voice could easily reach every corner; instead, I found it really challenging to pronounce every word loudly and clearly in such a large classroom with all the windows open through which noises came from the outside playground.


I inserted the thumb drive and started my slides of the powerpoint. It seemed to them that I was confident and calm enough to give my lesson whereas meanwhile I was trying hard to get a handle on the situation and appear to be less nervous. Notwithstanding, as time went on I gradually keep to my intended pace and managed to let it go rather smoothly. I practised various discussion work and got them quite engaged by bringing the use of sounds and images into full play.







Zhang Qiong

TO BE CONTINUED...