AET第五集

Hey, guys! Welcometo Archimedes English Teatime!

I hope that you arehaving fun with your family and friends.

Here is today’sepisode.

Are you MVP?

Whenever I make adecision in my teaching scenario, especially when it involves high-stakes, Ioften remind myself of what an American teacher said to me when I was avisiting scholar in Maryland in the United States. She told me that a teachercan be tremendously helpful, or tremendously hurtful. She did not explain what“hurtful” exactly means, but I interpret “hurtful” as damaging students’ moraleand learning efficiency. However, recently, I seem to be trapped in a dilemmabetween maintaining students’ morale and ensuring their learning efficiency.Here is what happened.

Given thepandemic, the enrolment of postgraduates has been further enlarged at ourschool. As a result, all the students who have passed CET-6 or scored 80 andabove in TOEFL can be given free credits without taking classes. Even so, thereare still ten or twenty more students in each of a teacher’s classes than thelast semester.

Under suchcircumstances, if you know how many class activities and assignments would beinvolved in such courses like English Public Speaking and English ResearchPaper Writing to ensure effectiveness, you may understand why I came up with ameasure called “You are MVP.” Here is the criterion for becoming MVP. If astudent participates in class discussion and performs much better than his orher peers, he or she can earn the title of MVP because he or she contributesthe most to class. In return, he or she can have more detailed feedback aboutthat specific task from the teacher and if all his or her assignments go well,he or she can even skip the Mid-term test. There can be up to eight students asMVP in each class. There are supposed to be dual purposes for this bonus: Onthe one hand, it aims to encourage and motivate students to be better preparedfor class and participate more actively in discussion; on the other hand, itsaves the teacher’s time and energy so that the teacher can focus on thosestudents who need more guidance and practice.

Nevertheless, Ican vaguely sense that some students were upset about this measure. Even thestudents who earned the MVP title were upset about this. My guess is that theydon’t like the privilege because it may hurt other students’ dignity. I am notsure whether they think it would be unfair or in which way it would be unfair.Since I believe in the learner-centered approach, I would cancel the measure ifmy students feel uncomfortable about it.

Still, the logic behindthis mentality can be weird. Most of the students in my class lack the basicEnglish skills like pronunciation, reading, listening, writing, and speaking.Such fact suggests that they did not learn English effectively in the past. Bycontrast, I specialize in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and have readextensively about foreign language teaching and research. Besides, I haveevolved my approach over the past thirty years, and it has been proveneffective. If I give up my decision, it would be the students’ loss as well.

At this moment, itjust occurred to me: How about putting the question to a vote? Do we need MVPor not in the society at large and in our class in particular? Hopefully,better communication between the teacher and students can facilitate a win-winsolution, which can both ensure students’ morale and their learning efficiency.

Have a good timein the National Day Holiday!

你是 MVP吗？

每当我做关于教学的决定时，尤其是当这个决定可能对学生的影响比较大的时候，我常常提醒自己那句话，那是我在美国马里兰州做访问学者时一位美国老师对我说的话。她告诉我，老师可能给学生带来极大的帮助，但也可能给学生带来极大的伤害。她没有解释"伤害"的确切含义，但我把"伤害"解释为损害学生的士气和他们的学习效率。然而，最近，我似乎陷入了一个两难的境地，一边是维护学生的士气，一边是维护他们的学习效率。事情大致是这样的。

鉴于新冠疫情，我们学校研究生的入学人数进一步扩大。因此，所有通过 CET-6 或在托福取得 80 分及以上成绩的学生均可免修。即便如此，每个老师班级的学生依然比上学期多出十到二十位。

在这种情况下，如果你了解有些类型的课程要求多少的课堂活动和作业才能达到比较满意的教学效果，如英语公共演说和英语研究论文写作课，你可能会明白为什么我提出一个"你是MVP"的举措。选拔的标准是这样的：如果某位学生参加课堂讨论，表现远比其他同学好，他或她可以赢得MVP的称号，因为他（她）对课堂的贡献最大。作为回报，他（她）可以从老师那里得到关于这次活动的更为详细的反馈。如果他（她）的所有作业都进展顺利，他（她）甚至可以跳过期中考试的课堂报告。每个班最多有八名学生可能被评选为MVP。设想这项福利具有双重目的：一方面，它旨在激励学生上课前更好地预习，课堂上更积极地参与讨论：另一方面，它节省了教师的时间和精力，使教师能够专注于那些需要更多的指导和训练的学生。

不过，我隐隐约约感觉到有些学生对这项措施感到不安，包括本周获得MVP福利的学生好像也对此感到不安。我的猜测是，他们不喜欢这种特权，因为这可能会损害其他学生的尊严。我不确定他们认为这是否公平，或者是在哪些方面不公平。由于我相信“以学习者为中心”的教学路径，如果我的学生对某个教学要求感到非常不舒服，我可能会取消这项措施。

不过，这背后的逻辑有些奇怪。我们班的大多数学生缺乏基本的英语技能，如发音、阅读、听力、写作和口语。这一事实表明，他们过去学习英语的方式并不太有效。相比之下，外语教学是我的专业，而且我阅读了大量有关英语学习和教学的理论和实践研究。此外，我长期以来一直在探究和改进我的教学理念，并且我的教学效果在很大程度上得到过证明。如果我放弃我的决定，那也是学生们的损失。

在这个时刻，我突然想到，把这个问题付诸表决怎么样？议题就是：我们是否需要 MVP？就广义的社会环境而言，就我们班级的微观环境而言。希望师生之间更好的沟通能促进双赢，既能保证学生的士气，又能保证学生的学习效率。

最后祝大家国庆节快乐！