This week we are pleased to publish our interview with Victor Wu.
Victor Wu is part of our team at the CI, supporting teachers in his role of Teacher Training and Professional Development Coordinator. He leads the enquiry-based Subject Expert Micro-programme, the findings from which will be presented by four experienced teachers – David Kral (Harris City Academy Crystal Palace), Taylor Zhang (Bohunt School Liphook), Mengru Xie (Lister Community School) and Nicki Lin (Norwich School) -in two workshops. These relate to three areas of Chinese teaching and learning, and the relevant teaching and learning approaches.
Hi Victor, could you share some information about your workshops?
Those two workshops will allow participants to discuss the three areas of practice – namely spoken and written vocabulary learning, listening skill development, and language-culture knowledge development – while reflecting on their current practice in the three areas, and sharing their ideas, thought and questions with other participants.
Then participants will have the opportunity to experience the teaching and learning approaches explored through action research projects – supported by IOE CI Enquiry-based Subject Expert Micro-programme 2021-2022. They will also have the opportunity to consider the impact of those approaches upon learning – supported by data and evidence. They will also be engaged in evaluating their practicality and applicability in real classroom context, developing variations of those approaches, and brainstorming upon further approaches.
In short, those two workshops provide the space for teaching practitioners to “talk” about teaching and learning of Chinese, to “co-reflect” and “share” our current practice, to learn about different approaches, to upgrade our subject and pedagogical knowledge, and to adapt those approaches to varied school contexts. Literally, participants will be the main actors in those two workshops.
What do you hope the participants will learn from your workshop?
It is hoped that participants will be optimising and enriching their teaching practice by evaluating their current practice, learning about practice of others, upgrading their knowledge and deepening their understanding of the above-mentioned areas, and exploring the impact of those approaches with data and evidence as well as their adaptations. Participants will especially have the opportunity to learn about independent learning activities for written vocabulary learning, music as a means to develop vocabulary knowledge, “bottom-up listening approach” and its application in learning activities, and “soft-CLIL” as a material development framework.
It is also hoped that participants will discover how powerful “action research” is as a means to professional development, how it may lead to deeper and more detailed understanding, and how it could help practitioners question and vary their current practice. Ultimately, participants would witness how teacher-as-researchers could innovate their own teaching practice, enrich knowledge and practice in the community, and pave the way to further dialogues and exploration with colleagues from the wider community.
Thank you, Victor!
We look forward to welcoming ticket-holders to those two workshop on Saturday 12th November at the IOE
