My name is Yilin Wang, and I am a Hanban teacher, arrived in Bendigo about two weeks ago. I had been looking forward to working at this school even before I came here, as my coordinator Mr. Juncai Lin offered me a lot of information and support. He supported me when I was dealing with the visa, offered me house rental resources a week before I arrived, picked me up at the Melbourne airport when I arrived, drove me to the house I would stay and asked the landlord to take care of me, brought me clean bed linens, and helped me settle down and made me feel I was welcomed here. There are in total 11 Chinese language teachers in Confucius Classroom in Bendigo Senior Secondary College, including 8 VIT teachers and 3 Hanban teachers. The teachers’ teaching covers more than 20 primary and secondary schools in Bendigo as well as community classes offered to the local people. The next day after my arrival in Bendigo, I received a professional development with other newly joined members from Mr. Lin. He gave us some tips in Australian classes and also listed many challenges that we might face in our classes, then we came up with the solutions together. It did freshen my thought about Chinese teaching situation in Victoria. During the following days, Mr. Lin took me and the other new teachers to meet principals of schools that we would teach Chinese at, to get well prepared in advance with name lists of the students, their learning levels, teaching facilities and transportation, etc. In the first week, all of the teachers worked on lesson plans. Based on students’ ages and learning experiences, curriculum were divided into different levels, including Prep-Grade 2, Grade 3- Grade 6, Grade 7 - Grade 10, Kids Community Class, Adult Beginners Community Class and Adult Advanced Community Class. Because of vastly varied learning experiences of the students, there were no any Chinese text books suitable for the whole program. Teachers were divided into groups to do lesson plans for different student levels. Each group needed to work out the topics, contents, activities and worksheets for the whole term. Every teacher took turns to present their work, discussed and revised for better outcomes. It’s the best way for the new teachers to get familiar with the teaching contents and methods, and the fruitful outcome of lesson planning made teachers well-prepared for the Chinese language classes. I began my teaching from the second week. After the whole week’s teaching, I found that the classes in Australia are extremely different from the language classes in China. There was only one-hour lesson each week on average for each class. It’s more like focusing on keeping their interests on the language and culture and making Chinese language classes more fun. Even though it’s only one hour, it needs to be well planned with both language learning and cultural-related activities. There are a great variety of those activities, such as making Chinese handcrafts, colouring Chinese cartoon characters, watching Chinese cultural videos, and learning Chinese songs along with dancing. The students here are fond of singing Chinese songs. Students of my colleague Chunjing Zhang once showed me the Chinese songs and dances they learned last term and they could remember the rhythms and most of the lyrics. It was really amazing. They could even sing the Chinese national anthem which moved me into tears. Besides adapting to the teaching situation, it took me a while to adapt to the life here as well. For instance, the first few days of my arrival, I didn’t know how to recharge my phone, how to take the buses, and even how to cross the streets. In China, the traffic lights turn red or green automatically, but here in Australia, you need to press a button for a green pedestrian light if you want to cross the street. What’s more, after eating lamb and beef for over a week, I started missing Chinese food and I nearly cried over my poor cooking skills. Another thing that I’ve been struggling with is that there’s no nap time after lunch. I was used to taking naps in China. I also needed to make effort to adjust my biological clock to adapt to the timetable here. However, these are not big deals as long as I accept them with an open mind and eventually I will get through and enjoy the life here. 我叫王亦琳,是一名汉办公派汉语教师,两周前刚从中国来到美丽的澳大利亚本迪戈市。来之前我就对新的环境充满了期待。本迪戈孔子课堂负责人林俊财老师在我办理签证期间给我提供了很多信息和支持,出发前一周为我确定了可以租住的房子,到达当天还专程开车两小时到墨尔本机场去接我并把我送到家,带来前任教师留下的床单被罩,帮助我尽快安顿下来。这些帮助和关心让我在异国他乡感到非常温暖。 本迪戈高中孔子课堂现有中文教师11人,其中维州注册教师8人,汉办教师3人,负责本迪戈地区20多所中小学和本迪戈高中孔子课堂社区课的汉语教学。到任第二天我就到学校和新老师一起接受岗前培训。林老师先给大家普及了在澳大利亚课堂上新手教师应注意的事项,然后又把课堂上可能遇到的状况列举了一遍,还模拟了应对措施。这让来自另一种教育体系的我对维多利亚州的中文教学情况有了大致的了解。接下来的几天,除了和团队里的其他老师见面,林老师还带我去了我任教的几所小学与校长们见面,提前了解学校和学生的情况,提前准备好教具和教学设备,提前熟悉路线。 新学期开始了。第一周,按照惯例,是大家集体备课的时间。老师们根据教学对象的不同情况,把学生分为小学低年级,小学高年级,初中,社区儿童班,社区成人初级班和社区成人高级班,并分别确定不同的教学内容,老师们分组进行备课。因为教学对象构成复杂,现有的教材并不一定适合,因此每个小组接到任务后,需要确定整个学期的话题和具体内容,并设计课堂活动及课件,之后,大家轮流展示、互相提建议、共同修改。这样既能集思广益,又对新手老师起到一个传帮带的作用。 第二周,我们开始正式上课了。在澳大利亚上课和在国内上课感觉很不一样。这边学校一周一次汉语课,一次大约一个小时,在教汉语语言和文化的同时,更多的是让孩子们保持对汉语和中华文化的兴趣,寓教于乐。虽然一次课只有一个小时,但是我们要让孩子们学一会儿,活动一下,不然大孩子小孩子都坐不住。“活动”的方式也很多样,既可以是跟所学话题相关的手工制作,也可以是看相关文化的视频,还可以是和所学话题相关的歌曲加舞蹈。这边孩子很喜欢唱中文歌,张春静老师的学生就给我展示了上学期学习的中文歌曲和舞蹈,有《小苹果》、《新年好》、《你好吗》,最后竟然还唱了一首《义勇军进行曲》。听几十名小学六年级的外国学生一起唱中国国歌,让我激动得热血沸腾。作为一名汉语教师,我既对孩子们唱中文歌的水平感到惊喜,又为我的同事感到骄傲。孩子们对汉语和中华文化感兴趣,并能把汉语学好,真的会给我们满满的成就感。 除了工作需要适应外,澳洲的生活也需要适应。刚来的时候,我既不会给手机充值,也不会坐公交车,甚至连过马路都不会。有一次我过马路,站在路边一直等交通灯变绿,等了好几分钟也不变,才想起来同事们告诉过我,过马路前要摁下路旁的按钮,等出现一阵急促的“嘟嘟”声,红灯同时变绿了,就可以通过了,如果不按按钮,红灯是不会变绿的。俗话说,民以食为天。来澳洲后,即使无肉不欢的我都受不了这边大块大块的牛羊肉,想念中国的豆浆油条包子饺子,所以来澳洲之前我们一定要在家练好厨艺,这样想吃什么就可以自己做了。还有这边没有午休,在国内习惯午睡的我们真得提前调整好自己的生物钟,不然到了午休的时间就会犯困。不过这些都不是什么大问题,调整好心态,抱着开放的心态去接受并拥抱全新的生活,这些小插曲都会变成美好的回忆。 来澳大利亚的这两周,我充分感受到了领导的关怀体贴,同事们的热情互助,团队的认真敬业。感恩我是本迪戈高中孔子课堂的一员,也希望未来我能为本迪戈高中孔子课堂做出自己的贡献。 |
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September 2018
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