This is my second time participating in the UVA STARTALK Chinese Teacher Academy program. It is truly an amazing program for Chinese teachers in the United States. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this program and to work and connect with the best Chinese teachers across the country. We collaborate closely to address real classroom challenges and create lessons that can be implemented in our own classrooms.
The biggest takeaway is that I have learned how to design a task-based lesson plan with a sequence of tasks. I also learned the strategy of creating suspense in classroom instruction instead of feeding the students by answering at the beginning, so students can be motivated to complete various authentic tasks. For example, in the lesson plan, for each specific task, we usually ask students to guess, then discuss, and finally present their viewpoints. The third takeaway is the strategy of Dictogloss when students are required to listen for details.
What a rewarding and inspirational experience! It has been my honor to participate in the UVa StarTalk program. After three weeks’ intensive training with the mentors (huge thanks to Dr. Tseng, Dr. Geng, Dr. Gao, and Ms. Cai) and working with the other 11 excellent teachers from all over the United States, I have learned effective pedagogy practices, which reshaped my approach to both online and in-person classes. The program provided various opportunities to apply the knowledge through peer teaching and peer critiques.
It has been an honor and privilege to be a part of UVA Startalk this year. From the very beginning, during the application process even, my expectation was that this particular program would be both very competitive (to get accepted) but also very rewarding. I am happy to say that, at its conclusion, UVA Startalk exceeded my expectations. I attribute much of this to the exceptional peers I had met in attendance; not since graduate school have I felt surrounded by individuals who were focused on the work at hand and committing their all.
Authenticity has always been a keyword in my instruction prior to attending UVA Startalk Academy. However, not until I went through the whole workshop, did I realize that how restricted my understanding of authenticity is. This program’s training has provided me with the opportunity to reflect on my instruction, innovate authentic design , and most importantly, work collaboratively with my fellow teachers on brainstorming the best teaching practice.
I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to learn and work with a group of colleagues in the 2021 UVA STARTALK Chinese Teacher Academy. I have learned a variety of effective interactive teaching strategies and online tools, and have incorporated them in both online and in-person teaching practice in the fall of 2021 to achieve a better teaching effect and learning outcome. What I treasure most is the bonding and the sense of belonging that I get from the UVA STARTALK learning community, which I believe I can always rely on in the future.
UVA STARTALK Chinese Teacher Academy is truly an amazing program for Chinese teachers in the states. I feel grateful to have the opportunity to participate in this program, work and connect with the BEST Chinese teachers across the states. We collaborate closely to tackle some real classroom challenges and create lessons that can be applied in our own classroom.
UVA STARTALK Chinese Teacher Academy Program is an “Amazing” teacher training program. It not only provides theoretical knowledge of why we do it, but also the pedagogical practice of how we do it.
It was great to prepare the class with two very experienced Chinese language teachers and guided by a very productive and supportive team. The teaching was enjoyable because of the excellent materials.
I wish I could do a better job than I did in the demo but honestly it was a good class for myself who never got such a precious chance to prepare a class so engaging for both the teacher and students, and relevant to the students' time and life.
I sincerely thank Dr. Tseng and her team for this incredible professional development opportunity. This was my first time participating in a StarTalk program and I cannot overstate how much that I have learned from this opportunity. With this training, I am now able to find authentic materials, create authentic scenarios, and implement task-based lessons, as well as use technology tools to accelerate student learning. The summer program extended into the fall semester. I had the chance to apply what I learned inside my classroom and received valuable feedback from my instructors and peers.
