The Core of Teaching
I once had a Chinese cook who can make wonderful Asian cuisines. One day, I wanted her to make some Western butter squash soup for me. I told her the exact instruction. Unfortunately, the final result was nothing but a Chinese-style squash soup which I couldn’t puree. The taste was just not what I had in mind either. Believe me, I tried to teach her again and again later, but after a few more failures, I concluded that there is just something impossible for a Chinese cook to change, especially when she’s set in her ways for years because that is her “core.”
Over the years, I have found it difficult to find one who possesses a high quality in ALL of the following:
- Chinese language proficiency,
- Knowledge of the Western culture enough to understand the audience’s way of life, i.e. the children of today’s modern society,
- Proficiency in how children work and how to teach in general
Perhaps this is one of the major difficulties most Chinese language classes face in finding competent teachers to pass on the language. As the soup analogy goes, “core” of teaching styles is hard to break. Children are smart enough to notice the difference between one who is only proficient in the language and one who truly cares about them and their learning. Contrary to what most schools are seeking using the priorities above, it may be more effective to reverse the order. It is certainly possible that a teacher, who knows more how children works than how the language works, has a much higher chance of nurturing Chinese into the core of her students.
