How to make your teaching time more
efficient with backward design
Shuyuan Chen (陈²Q´D)
When a Chinese class meets only twice a week, but covers the same content as
schools where classes meet three times a week or more, what the instructors can
do with the limited time to still help students develop their languages
competences presented in three communicative modes and their cultural
understanding in perspectives, products and practices? In my presentation,
first I will describe the common challenges and difficulties instructors and
Chinese learners have when they meet less than three times a week. Also I will
address the mismatch between the textbook¡¦s arrangement and teaching contact
hours and the consequences of undesirable teaching and learning outcomes.
Furthermore, I will address why and how backward design would be the best
solution to help other instructors execute their unit design and lesson plan in
a more efficient way and motivate their students to enhance their language
skills in real-life situations. I will present varied teaching techniques,
including how to employ technology or visual aids to present comprehensible
input to raise learners¡¦ attention and activate their personal experience and
prior knowledge to connect to the language materials. In addition, I will
introduce how I employ real-life tasks to enhance students¡¦ language
performance in the interpersonal mode, the interpretive mode and the presentational
mode. Finally, I will provide some students¡¦ performance examples to support my
teaching approach and philosophy.