Action Plan for Improving Practice

Name: Tian Fengjun Date: 20^th October, 2003

What would I like to improve?

To be precise, what I would like to improve focuses on the following: ‘How can I help teachers in Haiyuan Middle School do a better job with their English classroom teaching?’ ‘Better’ means that teachers will know how to manage well with their teaching, they will have greater flexibility in their research into how to teach and will ultimately help their students learn English more effectively.

Why am I concerned about it?

Teachers there have truly been working hard for years, but it appears that they only make progress slowly with their teaching and with the students’ learning. This worries me a lot. I am lucky to be a graduate of this school myself, so I have a great passion for it. It is my honour and authentic responsibility to do something for them as they did so much for me. Whenever I meet the students there, I find they too are worrying about their English learning. I have now made up to do something for them. Lastly, education itself drives me to think more and work harder!

How can I improve it?

I’d like to spend some of my spare time, maybe every two weeks, visiting them and deal with their difficulties and problems in teaching and learning. We can exchange ideas related to improving teaching quality. I can also read more and discuss the situation more, helping myself with Action Research to clear my mind and heart with knowledge and experience of practice and theory. I’d like to go to colleagues’ classes, talk with the students, meet with leaders and the president, and also share these new ideas with parents and families of the students, no matter how diverse these ways if they are helpful. I will do my best to try them out effectively.

Who can help me and how?

VSO volunteers, my colleagues, presidents, students or those managers in the local Educational Committee – indeed anyone concerned. What’s more important is to get everyone involved in the action to work effectively and also to try to spare as much time as possible for carrying these actions through to research. Classrooms, offices, dormitories, families and all related places are conducive to this work. Surely, great devotion, steadiness and keeping a keen and hopeful mind really play an important role in this.

When will I know it has improved?

Through the deadlines of colleagues’ action plans I will be able to see if my dream has been realised and in exactly what ways. Teachers will have changed their mindsets about how to well in the classroom and after class, and students will have improved their learning of English in speaking, reading, listening and writing. In addition, teachers in Haiyuan Hui Middle School will be able to talk to me freely and confidently about English teaching and be accountable in their achievements.