During the first week of school, Chinese visitors entered Poly for a four-week period to observe English language instruction. These Shanghai residents plan to watch PACE’s English classes, grades nine through twelve, and see how American English instructors teach.
Pamela Amici, AP Calculus teacher, arranged this via a Cal State Long Beach professor, Dr. Wu, who works with schools in China. She says that the Chinese teachers are reacting positively to the new environment and interacting well with their fellow American teachers in their free time.
“They ask a lot of questions about how the Americans teach and how they engage their students,” said Amici.
Laura Leaney, AP English teacher, agreed on the inquisitive nature of Poly’s visitors. Forty of them have already sat in five of her classes, rotating in at ten at time. However, they also travel back and forth between Stanford Middle School on Tuesdays and Poly on Wednesdays. The guests get ideas from the American teachers, while the latter observe the different cultural teaching styles, such as the emphasis on teamwork versus individuality. Every month, teachers choose a topic for a monthly newspaper, and the students must incorporate it into their articles. Chinese teachers also don’t decorate the classrooms as Americans do—the students have that job.
“A lot of things are different,” Isabella Liu, one of the visitors, commented.
Liu then explained how the students stay in one class the whole school year, while the teachers alternate throughout the day to teach the subjects. Liu enjoyed Poly’s classes very much, especially that of Leaney’s, and the energetic teachers. She also liked how impressive the students are.
Leaney is aware of her methods being observed, and though she said that she teaches the same way, she appreciated the visitors’ inquisitiveness of American teaching strategies.
“They arrived bearing a genuine interest and a humming curiosity about our teaching practices. It was a gift to host them in my class, I wish I could go to Shanghai and reciprocate their enthusiasm,” Leaney said.
The Chinese teachers plan to continue their learning experience at Poly until October and return with a new outlook on their own teaching styles.
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