2020-03-07 [“Language” Accompanying You:] Overcoming Challenges Together and Sowing Spring Seeds—Teaching Fellow Zhang Jianquan’s Online Course on British and American Cultures

The pandemic may be heartless, but people are not; great love transcends all boundaries, sowing hope across the land. The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 has not only disrupted people’s normal life rhythm, but also affected the normal teaching order. Under the correct leadership of the Party Central Committee with Xi Jinping comrade as the core, people all over the country have joined the battle against the epidemic, and all teachers in the Department of College English of the School of Languages and Communication Studies at Beijing Jiaotong University are no exception. In response to the Ministry of Education’s call for “Classes Suspended but Learning Continues”, all teachers in the Department of College English have begun active preparations for the challenge since February 6th. On February 25th, over 30 teachers from the First Teaching and Research Office of the Department of College English, along with more than 3,000 undergraduate students across the country, gathered virtually to successfully commence the first lesson of college English teaching for the entire school. Behind the smooth implementation of online teaching lies the efforts of many people racing against time and struggling against difficulties. Prepare Early, Teach Flawlessly. Associate Professor Zhang Jianqun is a frontline teacher in the First Teaching and Research Section of the Department of College English. This year marks her sixth time teaching the “British and American Cultures” course. Despite having accumulated a wealth of materials, for this online teaching, she revised the courseware again following the BOPPPS effective teaching structure, pondering how to better impart knowledge to students. The revised courseware attaches more importance on the interaction between teachers and students, making it more suitable for online teaching and can compensating for the drawback of teachers and students not being in the same space. In order to enliven the class atmosphere and engage students, Teacher Zhang told short stories that match the course content, played interesting videos, and designed effective topics for discussion in class. She consulted materials and prepared lessons until midnight almost every day. She discussed and exchanged ideas with her colleagues, and was thrilled every time she gained new insights. With years of teaching experience, she meticulously designs every lesson, crafting various teaching activities based on clear teaching objectives. Teacher Zhang has always held a deep reverence for the podium, harboring a heart of love and responsibility towards every student in her classroom. She deeply understands that to a school, a student is merely a student, but to their family, they represent the future and hope of the family. She believes that delivering high-quality lessons and ensuring students continue to learn and gain something valuable despite the pandemic is a teacher’s most powerful weapon in combating the pandemic! Selecting the Platform and Mastering Its Use. After the Ministry of Education mobilized efforts to respond to the pandemic, frontline teachers suddenly had to transform into online streamers. Many teachers felt anxious, but the best way to overcome difficulties was to seek solutions through learning. During the winter vacation, the university’s Teacher Development Center organized a series of training sessions on operating online platforms. Like other teachers in the department, Teacher Zhang attended every session without missing a single one. She became familiar with and experimented with various platforms such as the internal course platform, Tencent Meeting, Tencent Classroom, and Rain Classroom developed by Tsinghua University, and even self-taught DingTalk. Whenever she encountered problems, she would consult her colleagues. Finally, considering the stability of the platforms, Teacher Zhang not only made full use of the internal course platform but also chose Tencent Meeting and Rain Classroom as two auxiliary teaching platforms. To ensure the smoothness of the live broadcast, she had her family members act as students to practice over and over again, prepared multiple live broadcast plans, and finally mastered all the skills of live broadcasting. Leverage Strengths to Enhance Teaching. As a teaching fellow at the Teacher Development Center, Teacher Zhang meticulously applied various methods and techniques acquired during training to her classroom teaching. The BOPPPS effective teaching structure serves as a powerful tool for her. Each class has clear teaching objectives, and through pre-tests, she gained insights into students’ interests and prior knowledge of the teaching content. Based on the results of these pre-tests, she adjusted the course progress. Post-tests measured students’ achievement of learning objectives and verified learning effectiveness. Quizzes, which will be recorded, ensured that students are fully engaged both physically and mentally. During the participatory learning phase, Teacher Zhang went all out to ensure that every student actively participated. She carefully designed many questions and awarded coupons (extra points for regular performance) to outstanding students, fully mobilizing their enthusiasm. She used Rain Classroom to send single-choice and multiple-choice questions to students, and their answers could be recorded. For students who were unable to answer due to network issues, she would provide an additional 30 seconds of answer time while explaining, ensuring that every student could keep up. In traditional classrooms, Teacher Zhang sometimes adopts the teaching method of group discussion, but online teaching can only adopt one-to-many or one-on-one interaction. She fully utilized the chat function of Tencent Meeting. Whenever she found good comments or answers in the chat area, she shared them with all students, prompting further comments from other students, bringing broader participation. Students with active thinking have a platform to showcase themselves, creating a lively atmosphere. Occasionally, for students who did not show up, Teacher Zhang would inquire after class, timely tracking and caring about the students’ situation. During class, Teacher Zhang seemed to have grown three heads and six arms. While delivering the lesson content, she invited students to speak, monitored students’ comments in the chat area, and recorded the grades of the speaking students on a paper list. This is a demonstration of a teacher who has been teaching for nearly 30 years, accumulating profound knowledge and experience, and demonstrating responsibility at crucial moments. How we teach is what we teach. Through their instructional approach, teachers profoundly inspires their students. Managing with Science, Educating through Curriculum. Teacher Zhang is a renowned instructor at Beijing Jiaotong University and an internationally certified ISW trainer. Her teaching is highly popular among students, and she has put effort into both educating and managing students. This semester, her “British and American Culture” course has three classes with 132 students, nearly 85% of whom are new students. After trying to reach all students, Teacher Zhang leveraged the principle of leverage and adopted a four-level communication approach. She divided students into groups of five to six, assigned group leaders, and had group leaders contact their members before the class began. The class representatives then confirmed with the group leaders, and the teacher confirmed with the class representatives, ensuring efficiency and ensuring that no student was left behind. She collected each student’s mobile phone number and required students to use the naming convention of “class + sequence number + name” in WeChat groups, online classrooms, and homework submissions. The numbered names facilitated quick and efficient communication between group leaders and the teacher regarding attendance and homework submission status. During the course, she could quickly and accurately recorded the number and quality of each student’s speeches, which served as an effective basis for their usual grades. After the first week of school, Teacher Zhang’s class gradually added five students who were exempted from classes, retaking courses, resuming their studies, or had other situations. Teacher Zhang contacted them one by one, patiently answered their questions, helped them understand the course requirements and content, and sent them screencast videos for making up missed classes. Teacher Zhang believed that these students who speak timidly due to various reasons such as physical conditions need more encouragement and attention from teachers, so that their steps on the path of growth can be more firm. Teacher Zhang not only strengthened management but also paid more attention to guiding students. Teacher Zhang entered the classroom at least twenty minutes in advance for each session and played the class bell as usual to enhance the sense of ritual. Facing the pandemic, Teacher Zhang conveyed the university’s care to students in Wuhan and all over the country, reminded students to protect themselves, and encouraged them to enhance their confidence in defeating the pandemic. She made students feel that although they are thousands of miles apart, everyone’s hearts are together. The classroom serves as a battlefield for knowledge and a platform for educating individuals. “British and American Culture” is an extended course within the general basic courses, catering to over a thousand first and second-year non-English majors on campus. Beyond fostering language proficiency, it places greater emphasis on cultivating students’ thinking patterns and critical abilities. Through language learning, students are encouraged to enhance their sensitivity to cultural differences, adopt a more rational and positive attitude towards cultures distinct from China, and ultimately comprehend and embrace these cultural disparities, thereby deepening their understanding and confidence in Chinese culture. A student is like a spring seedling, and a teacher is like a gardener. During the days when we have achieved phased results in fighting the epidemic, Beijing Jiaotong University has sown the hope of spring for students across the country to grow and thrive through its online teaching platform. (Contributor: Qiao Chengche)