C lassroom Time Management and Discipline

When I first arrived in Taiwan from Canada I didn't have any teaching experience at all and would look everywhere to find something to help me improve my methods but after teaching in Taiwan for two years now I have learned many things. One big struggle I have while teaching is the limit of time that the students have to learn. It is very difficult to teach students a second language when they only have six hours a week to do so. I have worked a few different schools in Banchaio and Tucheng but I found Happy Marian to be very well organised. It helps the learning process to have a well set organised schedule to keep the class flowing and help maximise those two hour classes into something that the students can get a lot of experience from. What also helps in a limited time frame is to have the students well disciplined class.

As a teacher you learn very quickly that if a student is playing around and not listening then in the end they will need you to tell them these things over and over again. I have organised my classes now so if I am not there I can expect to see that everyone has put their homework on my desk when they arrive and wrote their schedule for the day inside their communication books. When a class is organised many more things can get finished. Also, in every class that I teach, I like start the class and get everyone into the English learning mood by having a spelling test using the homework words from the previous class. I think the kids really enjoy this because not only is it a change for me to see that the kids were paying attention and studied their homework but I usually will give out prizes for students who were able to get 100 on the test.

I have taught at many different schools during my time in Taiwan and each one was very different with different views on learning and classroom management. It is very clear to me that students who are being taught using a very organised and full classroom schedule always get more results from these classes. This is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching at Happy Marian so much. The classes are always very busy and the students never have a chance to become bored because they are always working on something fun and new.

This is the first school that I have taught at that I was lucky enough to have a Chinese teacher working with me through out the elementary class. They are always a big help at doing things while I am not there such as organizing and marking tests and making sure that students who didn't do well on a previous test have a chance to correct and improve their work to know where they made a mistake. This gives me more time to focus when I am preparing a lesson. They are always asking me if there is anything they can do to help me which is excellent and a very big assistance. Having worked at many schools during my time here I find that Happy Marian is great for helping me organise my time well with well planned out lessons and great assistance from the Chinese teachers. I think that if I decide to stay in Taiwan I will stay at Happy Marian because I really enjoy the way they do things.

Happy Marian, Tu-Cheng
P2 & P3
Chad Drewitt
Mohawk College , Canada