A Growing Teacher

MATC Synthesis Paper

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the

Master of Arts Degree in Curriculum and Teaching
Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University

Puying Peng
PID A56249949
April 23, 2020
 A Growing Teacher 1

Introduction

H. B. Adams says, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence

stops.” As far as I am concerned, my ideal is to make positive contributions with the power of

education. I stepped in the education area after working in the logistics area for five years,

which inspired the deep true me and also my families, most of them are teachers. Even now I

feel I am lucky to get involved in this Master of Arts in Teaching and Curriculum program,

from 2017 to 2020, at Michigan State University, and continuing my study in the education

area.

Meanwhile, in these three years, I teach in Rochester Community School, Michigan.

Rochester Community School is a large district, which contains three high schools, four middle

schools and thirteen elementary schools. Together, these buildings serve more than 14000

students, the latest graduation rate is about 96%. The ethical groups, about 73% of students, is

Caucasian; then is Asian American, African American, Hispanic, and others. The majority

school families are middle class.

The Chinese program of the district in elementary level is Language and Culture

Program, and in secondary level is Chinese as a second language. What’s more, all the students

in the sixth grade will have a four weeks introduction to the world languages that are Chinese,

French, German and Spanish. Students in seventh grade can choose one from the world

language as their second language.

A Facilitator

I have taught Chinese as a Second Language in the first year in high school and middle

school in the first semester. In between, I have taught Chinese level two as a second language

in a high school building, and Chinese Introduction as one of the world languages for six and

seventh grade students in four middle school buildings. Then I taught Chinese Language and

Culture Class in elementary level from 1st grade to 5th grade in the next two and a half years.
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Compared with three years ago, I was in China, and most of the teaching style in my

country is assessment oriented during K-12 level, the role of teacher is explanatory most of the

time. After the International Education Group and 2017 CI-MSU Winter Training, the first

semester of teaching in United States public school and learning from MSU, I started changing

my role of teaching gradually to a facilitator who provide a learning experience that students

centered, prepare resources for students, monitor their progress and encourage students to

problem solve. In the following three-year learning and teaching, from 2017 to 2020, I noticed

that I am becoming a teacher that can not only complete the teaching tasks, but also learn from

others, be a leader, and contribute to the Chinese teaching area. Like solving issues from

different aspects of ways, expanding my own learning into a realistic situation, to make

improvement by implementing academic and non-academic research.

Also, a book “How to Assess Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Your Classroom” written

by Susan M. Brookhart helped me to change my mindset. To be a facilitator, teachers need to

provide resources and monitor the progress for students to solve the problem by themselves.

Then, students do the work after the teacher guides them how to do it. Also, more peer

interactive work happened.

Understood Students and Their Learning Background More

I understand students and their growth background from several aspects. First, from the

aspect of psychology, with the course CEP 891, The Social and Emotional Development of

School-Aged Youth. I acquired the knowledge of research, theory in social and emotional

development of children during the school-age year. With many cases analysis of classroom

scenarios, family relationships and its influence, I understand students more in the diverse

contexts of the U.S. within providing the solutions of cases reading. Besides, those solutions

providing and reflecting show my critical reading and writing skills development. Meanwhile,

they are the good connections between learned theory and my teaching practice. For example,
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one of the cases talked about the students’ achievement linked to the emotional climate of the

classroom (Ebert & Culyer, 2011). Students do not do as well when teachers rely heavily on

criticism, ridicule, threats, or punishment. Based on this research, I revised my rules and lesson

plans, changed some unnecessary negative words into positive, especially the first class, which

is important to establish a classroom climate that can promote students’ achievement and let

them enjoy the Chinese class (Please see Appendix A). Furthermore, I remind myself to use

positive words verbally as best as I can during the class.

Second, I established a systematic understanding of the curriculum, especially the

language curriculum within the diverse culture of school districts and the United States society.

During the course TE818, Curriculum in Its Social Context, I internalized the development of

curriculum and how it has been influenced and shaped by the education mainstream and

people’s perception. By concluding the definition and features of the M-Step and the AP

Chinese Language and Culture Exam, which indicates the meaning behind the assessments,

and also shows how the way of assessment has been influenced by the development of the

society (Please see Appendix B). Moreover, the exam evaluation criteria show what kind of

performance and language performance that we need to foster for our students. Based on these,

we can design the curriculum, set goals, objectives, analyze needs of students, etc. I also

realized the difference of the curricula between the U.S. and China. It fosters my ability as a

teacher to foresee the proper practice for students, too.

Third, from the daily interaction with students, which guide me on the track to be a

teacher as facilitator. At the end of my first-year teaching in the United States, I felt more

comfortable and established a positive connection with students. With daily interaction with

students and communication with colleagues, especially classroom teachers, I realized that my

students could acquire new content like new vocabularies and sentences quickly. But during

my teaching I noticed the teaching content is emphasizing on language, and there is no

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conclusion, analysis or evaluation happened during my class. And sometimes I need to spend

time on classroom management which is not that effective as we only have 30 minutes in fourth

grade and 40 minutes in fifth grade Chinese class time once a week. It made me think about

how to change my teaching style into more student-centered, and to improve students’ higher

order thinking and engage students more so that they would not cause classroom management

issues. So, I did my first action research about Encouraging Students’ Higher Order Thinking

in Chinese and Culture Classes to try to solve the issue (please see Appendix C). I analyzed

the whole situation based on the lesson schedule, the teaching background; and combined with

teaching strategy, I designed lessons with the jigsaw activity to enlarge students’ critical

thinking. I collected and analyzed data of students’ performance with a designed worksheet.

Also, I gathered students’ comments on the lessons and their own reflection of the thinking

skills they have used during the class with questionnaires. This project resulted in an

improvement of students’ performance of their thinking skills, and their interest in learning

Chinese. Also, I established a right track on myself teaching improvement with this project,

received advice, comments, encouragement by sharing this project report with peers,

instructors; and even had a chance to share this project and communicate with other Chinese

teachers in the 2019 Chinese Language Teacher Association Annual Conference. This research

is a milestone to me, I gradually foster a teaching style that guides students to reach the desired

outcome by enlightening other than directly showing them exactly what a facilitator does. I

started establishing my own way to improve my teaching with the cycle of identifying the

problem, assuming possible success, developing a plan, collecting evidence or data, analyzing

and refining. What’s more, within the result, I expanded the teaching strategies about higher

order thinking in my teaching, and it is not only about the instructions, but also the environment

setting.
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Learn Different Area Knowledge to Enhance My Own Teaching

I accumulated different knowledge in the education area, like teaching approaches,

literacy teaching and assessment, etc. to enrich myself to be a better facilitator in a classroom.

At the beginning of this MATC program, before I stepped in the real local classroom, I

understood language learners, teaching theory and how to apply the theory into practice during

the course TE891, Special Topics in Teaching, Curriculum, and Schooling. By concluding the

background, definition, features and application ways of the natural approach that published in

1983 by Terrell and Krashen (please see Appendix D), which has been considered as one of

the mainstreams second language teaching approaches, I had a basic guideline on how to set

up the language instructions. Based on this knowledge, I designed a demo instruction of how

to ask and give answers to the question “Do you like…?” in Chinese and implemented with

my peers. Additionally, I shared my learning of the natural approach result with my peers and

instructors, discussed, commented, finalized. Meanwhile, I realize it is important to personalize

a theory and combine others within a certain circumstance to reach a better outcome.

Then, in my second-year teaching, I have connected with language literacy teaching

and assessment in course TE842, Elementary Reading Assessment and Instruction. Within

understanding the English literacy teaching and assessing. I know even better about my

students’ native language learning experience and prior knowledge and shift them into

Mandarin teaching accordingly. I design a basic Chinese reading class, found a way to enlarge

both my and students’ literacy and biliteracy understanding by implementing the “reading

aloud” project with a bilingual story book that contains Chinese words, Pinyin and English

meaning under a low frequency class session circumstance (please see Appendix E). With my

guidance of part reading of the book, it turned out to be a good result of students’ performance

on the reading task with key words summary in Chinese. It can be realized that even under the
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limited language level with specific lesson plans, certain help and enough support, the basic

reading comprehension can be achieved. I also reflected on the whole project and shared it with

peers, colleagues and instructors, received comments, encouragement; contributed to the

curriculum design in the school district.

Contribution to the Field While Inspire Students

I have conducted several projects to improve students’ learning, to foster the global

citizen competence of students and my teaching as well. Among those, two of them can prove

my effort best. First is a task-based instruction I implemented in my second teaching year.

Another is a project of authentic learning experience in Chinese language and culture class, to

check if this kind of learning experience can and maintain students’ learning better or not.

To let students accomplish different tasks by using target language to solve realistic

problems by using target language, I designed a long-term plan, eight weeks, based on task-

based instruction (please see Appendix F), at the end of the project, students can order food in

a Chinese fast food restaurant. Sequence language-learning tasks were designed and

implemented to promote communicative competence and performance of. Students can finally

conduct a conversation in Chinese to order food in a Chinese restaurant after several lesson

inputs and tasks are accomplished. Through the process, I developed a teacher role that has

critical awareness in planning, implementing task-based instruction, sharing phased

achievements and devoting to curriculum. It is also a good practice of fostering the global

citizen competence of students through the learn to use experience. Besides, my teaching

philosophy is shaped within the process of reflection and designing the learning to use learning

experience for students to adjust myself and adapt to the future education.

Thinking as a facilitator in the classroom, I am wondering what kind of learning

recourse I provide can enlarge students’ learning better. Then I did this action research on “Will
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a Chinese authentic learning experience project enlarge and maintain students’ learning better?”

in my third year (please see Appendix G). The learning experience includes the authentic

materials that are the videos with the authentic environment, and tools. At the end of this project,

students can identify features of Chinese characters, how to write the basic Chinese strokes and

Chinese traditional calligraphy. They will complete a worksheet of the features of Chinese

characters and calligraphy and write out 3 basic strokes. Then they will write Chinese

calligraphy with a brush pen. This classroom inquiry is under the guidance of course TE808,

Inquiry into Classroom Teaching and Learning. It is a cycle of study and plan, action taking,

collection and evidence analyzing, and reflection, which is a large-scale logical project of

literature review, design and method, implementation, data gathering and analysis, conclusion

and discussion. At last, within the evidence, data collected, analyzed, it showed a positive result

that the Chinese authentic learning experience project implemented with authentic materials

indeed enlarged the learning and performance of students. From the findings of data analysis,

in the first forty-minutes lesson, 90% of the students submitted finished worksheets. Despite

the third question, “How could we write Chinese calligraphy beautifully?”, which could be

enhanced in the second upcoming lesson, 84.78% students can accomplish the worksheet

correctly. Then, all the students would like to practice Chinese calligraphy with authentic

Chinese brush pen, water, and water reusable practice paper in the second class. Some of them

even accomplish works of calligraphy with ink and rice paper after practicing, and they felt

confident and comfortable. Besides, from the feedback of students, it concluded that 89.58%

students give positive feedback to the usefulness of the authentic videos, 95.14% of students

think the activities is supportive for their learning, 80.56% students like this kind of class that

combine with authentic materials, and 88.89% students would like to try to write Chinese

calligraphy with a brush pen. Turns out, it not only approved that authentic materials or projects

in the language learning can enhance students’ learning experience and performance in
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speaking, listening, comprehensible, and grammar, etc. indeed. It can also benefit students’

other ability, like conclusion and analysis. Besides, I also found students accept Chinese

writing better than I thought that it might make them feel frustrated in learning Chinese. On

the contrary, most students feel good about writing Chinese characters, they regard it as a kind

of art, and it is cool to write. So I can continuously work on how to implement writing Chinese

characters interesting in my future teaching.

This conclusion from the systematic design and data analysis represent my growth as a

teacher, which represents my understanding and ability of inquiry and integrates the inquiry

into my own teaching practice under a certain circumstance. During the process, I expanded

my learning of how authentic material might influence the language learning to enlighten

students. Besides, not only the knowledge I learned in TE808 has been integrated with the

research, but also all the knowledge like literacy, methodology, and experience I gained so far

have been integrated. Moreover, the project report paper highly proved my writing and

communication competence that grew as a professional. Last, it indicates the refinement of my

own teaching and contribution to the professional community.

Conclusion

These three years of learning and teaching is valuable for me (please see Appendix H),

it is a great learning and teaching experience that we can apply what we learned into practice

immediately, and benefit both teachers and students. Besides, my research ability developed

within several cycles of formulating research questions, practicable methodology, detailed

analysis, integration of literature, and reasoned conclusions with different projects. Also, my

teacher leadership has been fostered with the knowledge, skills and professional conversation

with peers, instructors and colleagues. Third, it refined my own teaching and also provided

some implication of the future teaching practice and study. It is not easy also, I am glad I hang
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in there, aligned with the standards and achieve the goals of this program eventually. Many

thanks to our Professores, instructors, administrators, mentors, colleagues and peers, with your

support, I can finally be here.

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Reference

Brookhart, S. M. (2011). How to Assess Higher-Order Thinking Skills in Your Classroom.

Cheltenham, Vic.: Hawker Brownlow Education.

DeFrates-Densch, N. (2008). Case studies in child and adolescent development for teachers.
Boston: McGraw-Hill.
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Appendix A

Artifacts #5: Reflection of Course—The Social and Emotional Development of School-Aged

Youth (CEP891)
https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com/artifacts5-reflection-of-coursemdashthe-social-
and-emotional-development-of-school-aged-youth-cep891.html
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Appendix B

Artifacts #2: M-Step and The AP Chinese language and Culture Exam (TE818)
https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com/artifacts2-m-step-and-the-ap-chinese-language-
and-culture-exam-te818.html
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Appendix C

Artifacts #3: Encouraging Students’ Higher Order Thinking in Chinese and Culture Classes
(TE842)
https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com/artifacts3-encouraging-studentsrsquo-higher-
order-thinking-in-chinese-and-culture-classes-te842.html
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Appendix D

Artifacts #1: Natural Approach: Naturalistic Language Acquisition in A Classroom (TE891)

https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com/artifacts1-natural-approach-naturalistic-language-
acquisition-in-a-classroom-te891.html
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Appendix E

Artifacts #4: Reflection Journal of “Reading Aloud” (TE842)

https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com/artifacts4-reflection-journal-of-ldquoreading-
aloudrdquo-te842.html
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Appendix F

Artifacts #6: Task Based Learning Project (TE894)

https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com/artifact6-task-based-learning-project-te-894.html
 A Growing Teacher 17

Appendix G

Artifacts #7: Implementing Authentic Learning Experience in Chinese Class (TE808)

https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com/artifact7-implementing-authentic-learning-
experience-in-chinese-classte808.html
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Appendix H

MATC E-portfolio of Puying PENG

https://portfolioofpuyingpeng.weebly.com