如何创建适合的课堂氛围？How to Create a Proper Classroom environment?

How to Create a Proper Classroom environment?

              Sun Yijing

When it comes to the topic How to Create a Proper Classroom environment? I’m going to talk about today, I would like to share a story I wrote in the USA with you.

Once upon a time, a famous philosopher alone with his disciples set off for a worldwide trip visiting different states and well-known scholars which he thought the best way to learn. During the journey, they may see, practice, experience and face various occasions and challenges. Anyhow, it proved to be successful. All the students turned out to be perfect and well-learned. Finally, it was time for them to go home. Just as they arrived at the outside of their city, the teacher suddenly stopped. Looking around the wasteland, he casually said, “Well, we are about to have the last lesson here. Tell me, where are we right now?” The answer was obvious. “What is on the land?” he continued. “Wild grass, litter and waste.” “So how to clean up?” Hearing this, all students began to talk, discuss positively presenting their own different opinions. “Well, class is over, you had better do what you said and we will meet here in one year.”

Time passed like an arrow. One year later, all the students gathered again---of course, they had put their suggestions into practice. Just imagine how the wasteland changed--green trees, colorful flowers, prosperous crops, running water, and singing birds. However, to their surprise, their teacher didn’t show up. For the first time, he broke his promise, but why?

The reason why I retell the story here is that it always reminds me a lot every time I do my teaching reflection and meditation. As is known, we are now taking steps on English education, introducing a variety of new teaching ideas and approaches especially adopting humanistic and task-based approach, designing new syllabus and curriculum, spotlighting on whole-body quality-oriented. After reading some theories and books about, I try to form. my own teaching style. by combining the ideas of respect, trustworthy, creativity, and open-minded all together. It so happens that the story can explain the theory of task-based to some extent---treating students really as human beings, persons with potential. And something more important is that we should try to focus on the students’ learning skills and learning abilities and the ability of getting information from different resources. In this way we can experience and get team spirit and co-operation, how to learn to do, learn to be, learn to live together, learn to learn, how to train the next generation to be people with healthy mind and healthy spirit. And finally to make students able to work independently from the teacher. Of course, it is impossible to do exactly what the master in the story did nowadays, but I always try my best to create an ideal classroom environment in my daily teaching. I stick to the principles of comfort, challenge, depth and motivation which I can figure out from the story. In teaching, comfort is essential if we expect students to respond positively and constructively to their education in a free, equal and harmonious learning environment. However, if too extreme it may lead to mental laziness. The students may behavior. in an easy way in class. So here comes to challenge which may arouse students to compete with each other. In competition, they should firstly have self- awareness to know what kind of person they are, and then they will have an obligation to do what to do. Students will be willing to accept a challenge if they feel teachers respect and value their dominant styles and intelligences. At the same time, Stop to treat students as test-taking machines! Instead of traditional teach-quiz-teach-quiz-teach-unit testing model, we should consider about the depth of learning, which means students process, learn more and think more intently about the content from various perspectives and in many lights, and also consider about the way to motivate students by creating a classroom environment in which all students are engaged in finding their own talents and interests. Therefore, students remain interested, participate actively, build self-confidence, and develop the self-motivation needed to become good learners realizing learning is their life-long task.

I remember one of the experts once said: The process of teaching doesn’t mean to pour teacher’s opinion on students but to listen to what the students want to say and guide them to develop more fantastic opinions. They are not prisoners, but friends; they are not machines but human beings. In my opinion, A successful classroom environment is one full of sunshine, fresh air, colorful flowers, and ripe apples. Sunshine stands for creative teaching ideas, which warms and lights teachers and students; flowers represent students’ characteristic and personal development; each flower has its own charm and comes out in their own style; fresh air means harmonious teaching atmosphere in which both teachers and students can talk heart to heart in an attempt to exchange feelings rather than language itself. Finally, apples ripe and we will have chance to taste our success. 

I think therefore I am. In order to create a proper classroom environment, we need effective teachers. Being an effective teacher means being a good thinker who is businesslike and task-oriented, yet flexible and adaptable when necessary to help students be successful, who is knowledgeable not just of the subjects he/she teaches, but also of pedagogy and students, who is positive and confident about his/her own and students’ success, who is supportive and encouraging of students, and is professional in his/her demeanor. Do remember school is a place for kids to have leisure and a place to help them learn how to be a real man.

By keeping all this in mind, I believe we will create a wonderful classroom; we will change ourselves from a simple teacher to an educator; we will hug a spring of education in which our students will be beyond us, beyond classroom and beyond textbook.

My friends,  let’s go hand in hand towards the Promised Land as I described in the story.