相信很多新的海外志愿者老师，都有过迷茫不知道所措的开始。痛苦教学任务太重，不可能完成！不知道自己到底该教什么？很多很多个为什么。至少我自己是这样走过来的。这是一篇根据自己1.5年在美教授汉语的经历，总结出来的如何让你的备课工作更轻松。自己写的英文版，发在自己的个人网页。 现在转到简书来，希望更多的海外汉语教师可以看见，有所获益。
12/27/2015
Part 1: Pain
I was literally in pain last year. I wanted to tell my boss and my 400 students: Hey, guess what? My dog ate my lesson plans!(Just kidding. Never done that and I don't have a dog.)
2014-2015 school year was my first year here in America and taught CHINESE! I grow up in China and I am 100% Chinese! However, I have no idea what exactly I should share with foreigners, just like people here won't think free thinking is any special. Meanwhile, I didn't know any "Education" terms in English. Plus the fact that there is no curriculum or textbooks for my elementary school students. I have to create my own curriculum and lesson plans. I spent my whole year, no, every single day in thinking really hard on what I should teach! As for my middle school students, we are lucky enough to have textbooks and work books which is really good, wait...yes, there is always a "but". But it's hard to design something fun to attract "I- know--everything " middle school students and keep them learn a different and "difficult" foreign language.
Part 2: Joy
This summer I started my second year teaching in the same school. Maybe because I feel more secured and comfortable here, I actually start enjoying this really intense teaching job: 5 different levels of planning per day for 5 different classes. This is the ideal situation while the reality is sometimes I have 7 classes a day with only 30 minutes for lunch and bathroom in order to meet the needs of homeroom teachers. However, I'd like to use a Chinese saying: 这都不是事儿 Which means it's not a big deal.
Here are some tricks making my planning easier:
1.Get a school calendar at the beginning of school year.(It's not as pretty as other ones, however, it has all the no school days and early dismissals based on your school district).
2.Mark Chinese holidays on your school calendar such as Chinese New Year, Lantern Festivals etc.(Use a Lunar calendar to help you. This works perfectly for new Chinese teachers.You can know what you are going to teach much ahead of time.)
3.Mark American holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving etc.(You may want to teach them a few related terms in Chinese).
4.Mark special events like field trips etc.by checking school bulletins every day. It helps to avoid unnecessary planning (Normally school bulletins will be sent out every morning through emails; different schools vary.)
5.Mark these "special" occasions which you won't expect your students to learn something HARD like the day before Halloween, Thanksgiving, week before Winter Break, any day after a short break, the first week after Winter Break etc.（DON'T THANK ME! I have been there and failed teaching them anything difficult）
6.Mark these"review" time which for sure kids need to review Everything they learned before. Of course at the beginning of school year!!After a long summer, they may only be able to say "你好！" But don't feel frustrated. They just need two weeks' review! Don't forget the week coming back from Winter and Spring Breaks.
7. Set up learning goals for each month ahead of time.I don't encourage language teachers, maybe new teachers to prepare specific lesson plans for the whole year ahead of time. Because you will never know if kids can actually fulfill it. What I do is I will have goals of each level for every month and then break up them into weeks. What I really need to plan is each week!How easy it is!
Last but not the least:TECHNOLOGY makes your planning much more fun!(if you enjoy organizing everything!)
I learned about planbook.com from one workshop by Ms. Lee in Boston this fall. The best thing about this online plan book is teachers can share lesson plans with students, parents and other teachers.That's why I wanted to use it at first place. Later on, I found out more amazing features about this awesome tool! I can add standards to every lesson which helps me to plan better by thinking about the goals. Standards I use are 5C and Can-do Statements for foreign language teaching. It's kind of like using Backward Design, you just need to find out ways to help our kids meet the standards. I can set up my own schedule so that it's easier to keep track of every class, especially when you have over 10 classes. There are more great features of it. I will let you explore on your own. Also feel free to check out my lesson plans: https://planbook.com/planbook.html?t=1218589&k=1987
Those are what I have learned about "making lesson planning easy and fun" from 1.5 years' teaching Chinese in America. Be an organized person and a life-learner are the keys to brighten your teaching life.I hope you can benefit some from this article.
If you have any thoughts about lesson planning, please feel free to contact me!
Wish everyone the best in teaching. And all the new teachers, good luck!
Yiheng
