Two years ago, Dr. Ng Mei Lee started to invite overseas Guest Lecturers, either preschool English teachers or language teacher educators, to speak in her BEd course “English in the Early Years: Child-Centred Pedagogies.” By bringing in Guest Lecturers with experience in other contexts, Dr. Ng hopes to provide students with more authentic and engaging opportunities to understand the issues concerning teaching English in low immersion contexts, similar to that of Hong Kong. Her previous speakers were a Spanish practitioner and a teacher educator from Singapore.
This year, Dr. Ng's guest speaker was not only an experienced practitioner but also a teacher educator. Maestro Octavio Flores Orozco was a preschool teacher who had taught in different countries. Today, he teaches students training to be preschool teachers at the Centro Regional de Educación Normal (CREN) in Ciudad Guzmán in Jalisco, Western Mexico. His talk, "A Story of Teaching English to Young Children in the Czech Republic: Pain and Gain," was based on his experience teaching English to children in the Czech Republic. It was held on 22 September 2022 at 10:30 am in Hong Kong, which is 13 hours ahead of Mexico.
In the lecture, Maestro Octavio shared teaching tips with the trainee teachers, encouraging them not to be afraid to use teaching tools like visuals and body gestures, and even children's peers to enhance their learning experience. He also encouraged non-native English-speaking students not to be ashamed of their accents, as it is normal for everyone to have an accent. However, having the correct pronunciation is essential, and if students are unsure of an articulation of a word, they should check for the correct pronunciation before teaching it to students.
A student in the class of Dr. Ng asked an interesting question during the talk. Maestro Octavio shared that Mexican classrooms are different from Czech classrooms. Czech classrooms are more like Hong Kong classrooms, with expectations of good and orderly behaviour, but Mexican classrooms are much more vibrant, social, and lively. The student wondered how a preschool teacher in Mexico would maintain classroom discipline in such energetic environments. Maestro Octavio explained that besides laying the ground rules early in the term, it was important for teachers to re-direct and engage students' energy and attention to well-designed classroom tasks to channel students' excitement into meaningful learning.
In the afternoon, Dr. Ng replayed the lecture recording to her second class, taking the same module. While there was no real-time interaction this time round, Dr. Ng discovered that replaying a video had its advantages. First, she could pause the video when she wanted to bring students' attention to a point or get them to discuss something mentioned; second, the students were less shy and more forthcoming with their thoughts and answers. Hence, she realised that these recordings she has collected over the years are teaching resources that can be used in different classes and to illustrate various points.
In the comments collected, student Ms. Wong Chi Ching said, "I like listening to the first-hand information and feelings from an actual teacher who teaches a second language to children, and his genuine sharing of tips on using body language is invaluable. I also understood more about the teaching/learning culture in his country." Another student, Ms. Yau Hoi Nam Kary, commented she learned that "a real learning and teaching setting applies different methods to encourage students to use English."
Maestro Octavio also shared his thoughts about speaking in Dr. Ng’s course, “Preparing and giving the lecture to the students in Hong Kong made me more aware of some of my practices. I believe we adopt teaching strategies based on successful experiences, although we may not always reflect on why we use such teaching tools. It was fascinating to reflect on my early years as an in-service teacher and discover this. I hope this talk will contribute to the learning of future ECE teachers on the other side of the globe.”
You can watch the recorded guest lecture here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cet8HS-XJA
Written by Sofie Chua (schua@eduhk.hk), COIL Facilitator