Mentor Conferencing Journal #1_REN Zhaohui

with Junying Lu

This is the first year that Junying Lu teaches in American school. She is now teaching

Chinese immersion program for 4th Grade at Walnut Hills Elementary School in

Greenville Public Schools. She teaches two different groups, each for half day. Her

students started to learn Chinese when they were in 1st Grade, so this is their fourth

year of learning Chinese. I had the first mentor conferencing meeting with Junying Lu

via WeChat call from 8:00 to 9:30pm.

I asked Junying to prepare one instructional issue and one management issue to talk

about in the meeting, but any questions are welcome to be discussed. In fact, during the

meeting we discussed four issues that Junying encountered in her teaching.

First question Junyijng brought up is that her students are reluctant to speak Chinese

even though they know how to say. I asked her how much proportion she speaks

Chinese in class. She said she almost speaks 100% Chinese. I affirmed and praised

her deeds and encouraged her keep doing it since teacher speaking target language

sets up a good example and creates a positive environment for students. I then

suggested that she must be firm with her students to speak Chinese and don’t give in

easily. She might considering using rewards, say credits, to encourage students speak

more Chinese, when they get to a certain amount of credits, the students get the

chance to win a gift or prize from the teacher. For those who don’t speak Chinese, give
them debit, a certain amount of debit leads to warning, less recess time, talk to their

parents, etc.

Then she said she doesn’t know what to do to early finishers and late finishers. What

she is doing now is to give the early finishers more extra work to do, but they still finish

the extra work much earlier than those slow ones. I told her that plan B of extra work is

a good solution and she should keep using it. I also suggest that she might think of

taking the early finisher as her little assistants to help those late finishers since peer

teaching/learning is also a very good way of collaborative learning. For those late

finishers, teacher should give them a deadline in order that they could never get their

work done. They’ll get consequence if they still can’t finish after deadline.

She then asked if there are some better solutions when there are no special classes

such PE, music or art in the morning and she has to teach really long time. I suggested

that she could use more students-centered activities instead of teacher teaches all the

time. It’s really hard for Students to just sit and listen to teacher for so long. Every other

15 to 20 minutes student should be able to shift between different activities, which

requires teacher to carefully plan their daily schedule in class.

She then mentioned that her students talk too loud during group work. My suggestion is

to use the voice level chart. Make sure they understand what voice level they should

use during different occasions. Before the group work get started, teacher should

emphasize and ask students to demonstrate what level they should use.
This conference is also a really good learning experience to me. When I look back my

first year teaching in America public school, I also was like Junying and had so many

questions, a lot of frustration and confusion, now I still have so much to learn. Thanks to

my mentor teacher, field instructors, classroom teachers who share their learnings and

experiences with me to help me grow. Teaching is a career path that comes from years

of teaching experience. To become from a novice teacher to an experienced leader, it

does not only take years of teaching and learning, it also means shoulder more

responsibilities and willing to share the experiences with others.