English is the teaching language at almost every international school, proficiency in English is absolutely the foundation for international school students to learn other subjects well, and therefore it is very important for schools to help its students develop their English skills effectively.

 

Beijing Xin Fuxue International Academy, which opened in September, has elaborately designed an English teaching program and recruited experienced English teachers to ensure effective learning of the English language by its students, as a majority of them are from non-English-speaking families.

According to Yang Tao, a Grade 5 homeroom Chinese teacher at Xin Fuxue, the first step the school took was to evaluate the English levels of each student at the beginning of the new school year. This evaluation process took about three to four weeks, during which both Chinese and native English-speaking teachers, took the time to strengthen their understanding of the textbooks. The foreign teachers give each student a reading assessment three times a year. This assessment benchmarks the proper reading level for each student. The student then has access to leveled books in their classroom library, library and online Reading A-Z account.

 

Yang has long been engaged in English teaching and translation and his teaching has been highly recognized by parents and students of the schools he previously worked at. He also has experience in compiling textbooks and was an examiner for Cambridge Young Learners English tests.

After the evaluation period, English is taught via a layered approach, says Yang. This means that students who are relatively weak in English go for lessons under ESL (English as a Second Language), those at medium level just have routine lessons, while students already with good command of English are offered “additional desserts” to push them to even higher levels.

As to actual teaching, Chinese teachers and native English-speaking teachers have different focuses and they teach separately, according to Grade 7 homeroom foreign teacher Joseph Hearn, who comes from Holland Michigan in the United States, and is a graduate of Oklahoma State University. He came to teach English in Beijing last October, after having taught at a High School back home for two years.

Hearn explains that while the Chinese teachers mainly explain English grammar to the students, the job of the English-speaking teachers is to guide the children to practice by a variety of means, such as western cultural introduction, listening, speaking and American Common Core Standards.

Because the Chinese teachers use teaching materials selected from the Chinese public education system and their English-speaking colleagues use those from the US, there is frequent communication and close collaboration among them, so that lessons are taught in an aligned and progressive manner.

For example, when a native English-speaking teacher wants to teach certain content that is common in the US for the age group but may be too difficult for the kids at Xin Fuxue, he or she can turn to the Chinese colleague who will then teach that content first to prepare kids more thoroughly.  Both Yang and Hearn place much emphasis on encouraging students to take their own initiative in learning English.

Yang uses a set of paper cards in his class, each of which has a word written on them and serves a relevant function. Students need to perform extremely well to ‘earn’ the cards and then use the cards for certain purposes.

For example, a card with the word “bomb” on it can be used by its student owner to ‘cancel’ certain amounts of homework, while a cunning Yang actually may already foresee such an action and therefore assign more homework. “Results of this game are of the least importance, and the students just love this kind of competitive play which in turn motivates them to learn,” he says.

As for Hearn, once in a while he may let his students teach each other because he believes this brings more fun to the students’ learning process. Once he asked the students to choose one figure from ancient cultures, find information about that person, and give a presentation of their findings to the whole class, all, of course, being done in English.

The two teachers point out that in addition to learning in school, students should be bold enough in practicing their English whenever and wherever possible.

And reading is a key means of practice, as Hearn says, “It helps reinforce what they learn. Even their pronunciation may not be perfect, reading still helps them with grammar and lets them know where certain words go.” The school has a detailed leveled reading program where teachers track progress through a reading logs and student assessment programs like the Columbia University Reading Assessments, Star, and Raz kids.