Farewell to 52TA
Time flies. And we just can't stop it. Very soon my first term at NTU comes to an end, and so does my first class for English major students. This is just the right time to look back at what happened so that improvements can be made for later courses. Briefly, the course was not as successful as expected; in details, we could look at the syllabus, the school policy, and a self-study project that I implemented in the course.
Firstly, the syllabus, which seemed to be clear at the very beginning, turned out to be out of date. Half way through the course, I got updated from the Training Department that we had to cover like more than 10 topics, not just 5 as indicated in the original document. Basically this mixed up everything: We gotta rush madly through 7 topics in less then 7 classes (2 periods per class). Did you feel the rush, folks?
Secondly, the students were not used to credit-based training. The idea of having 2 hours of self-study for every one hour in class sounded like an UFO to them, particularly when they had just left high school. Personally I still think that giving them too much time is not a good idea, as we all know that idleness is the root of all evil. Go ahead and tell me that I'm old-fashioned, conservative, outdated, and whatever, I still say that giving too many options for someone who cant make a right choice is always the last thing you could do.
Thirdly, my add-on SELA project gained just some basic outcomes. I expected too much, did I? Frankly speaking, the students spent most time on reading the textbook, memorizing the meanings of those idioms, learning by hearts the examples. That's what reflected in the quiz and the presentation. Most of them can understand the meanning, but not many can creatively use them to make sentences, and not many showed improvements in intonation, not to mention their errors in pronuciation while presenting. All right guys, we know that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. In fact you drank a little, and I hope you will return to this pond when you ever find yourself thirsty of English idioms.
There are, of course, many other things to mention, like the two software for self-study, and an observation class, in which a video clip was shot and saved on youtube. They are all good memories, and I'll gonna miss you. You work hard, folks, I appreciate it, though not hard enough ^^. Remember that teacher just gives you a key, and you must unlock the door and step into the world of knowledge yourself. Farewell, and all the best to you. Yeah, almost forget, Merry Xmas!
Bui Chi Thuan said:
Here you can get the audio file for your final test in class
http://www.mediafire.com/?owqaxh76smjei08