In order to help teaching assistants practice teaching skills and bring the Asian International School’s students the most exciting and useful lessons, the primary level of The Asian International School organized the first training of the new school year for all teaching assistants in the hall of Cao Thang campus on September 13th, 2014.

Teaching training is an annual activity of the new school year to help teaching assistants of all campuses of the IPS have an opportunity to approach the most scientific, efficient and attractive teaching methods presented by Vietnamese and foreign teachers who have experience and excellent teaching methods at The Asian International School.

An overview of the training

The training for the teachers of the IPS focused on teaching methods of six basic subjects at the Asian International School: Listening, English, English Music, Grammar, Outside and Drama. The teachers chosen for the demonstrations of the school year 2014-2015 are Ms. Nguyen Thi Kieu Tien (Listening), Ms. Joy Erica Cabango Tan (English), Mr. Le Song Dinh (English Music), Ms. Lam Thi Minh Trang (Grammar), Ms. Nguyen Thao Thuan (Outside) and Ms. Le Thi Hong Phuc (Drama). They all have experience in working at The Asian International School with creative and attractive teaching methods to create interaction with students.

All teaching assistants from the primary campuses in the training session

The extremely interesting thing of the training session was that the hall became the classroom where the lessons were organized as the real ones. In these classes, the teaching assistants were students, reviewed the old lessons, got the new knowledge, practiced and played games with the presenters. It is also the guideline of the School Board of Management: giving opportunities for teachers to exchange and collect new experience, improving teaching assistants’ major as well as suggesting teachers to be in the role of students to understand their emotions, their process of perception and their wants.

A group of teachers in the role of students, the others observing to gain experience

Having the trend towards English teaching methods in developed countries, the presenters all applied the audio visual method to their classes. With this method, the teachers used funny colorful teaching aids, combined the way of creative transmitting “playing and studying together” in order to illustrate and supplement to the teaching knowledge. Students will be easy to get the new knowledge and memorize the new lessons immediately if they study in such funny exciting atmosphere and a sense of initiative.

All of the teachers eagerly took part in the lesson

Because each subject has its own features, every teacher tried their best to make their lesson very impressive. The first Listening period excitingly presented by Ms. Nguyen Thi Kieu Tien was such a sweet start. In its game, she divided the students into two teams A and B, all the members had to listen to the words and quickly choose the correct pictures that they’ve heard.We had a blast in her class!

The Listening period presented by Ms Nguyen Thi Kieu Tien

The second performance was an interesting English lesson by Ms Joy Erika Cabango Tan who was wearing a funny apron. Her lesson made good visual stimulation because she brought some models of students’ favorite food such as pizza, sushi, hamburger etc. The students were taught how to learn the new words and pronounce them correctly in a funny environment. The lesson ended by a game as the same way it had started, Ms Joy Erika Cabango Tan made all the teachers feel so excited.

Funny English class by Ms. Joy Erika Cabango Tan

To help students memorize the lyric of the song quickly, Mr. Le Song Dinh – English Music teacher – used games with balls to introduce the lyric to students. Besides the games, students were really excited about The Voice – a popular music competition. Students might sing the song solo or in groups. Three judges were chosen from students to give marks and funny comments.

“The Voice” in English Music class by Mr. Le Song Dinh

Games in teaching Grammar and Outside class were used effectively by Ms. Lam Thi Minh Trang and Ms. Nguyen Thao Thuan. In the role of umpires in games, the teachers created an interactive playground in class to help students play and learm English naturally without writing or learning by heart anything.

Using games in teaching Grammar and Outside Class

The Drama lesson of Ms.Le Thi Hong Phuc was the most impressive one with the story of a humorous dentist. As a story-teller, she concurrently played the roles of the dentist and patient. She attracted the attendees’ attention to the story by her sweet voice and funny ways of showing her emotions when she constantly changed her happy, sad, angry and frightened feelings, etc. It was more interesting that she asked students to act as the characters of the story and this made all the people laugh loudly and gave the model class a big incentive hand. The drama lesson has been teaching at The Asian International School for years to help students prove their acting aptitudes, be more confident and creative, and freely show their emotions.

The impressive Drama lesson of Ms. Le Thi Hong Phuc

At the end of the teaching assistants’ training of the school year 2014 – 2015, Ms. Nguyen Thi Van Anh – the executive manager of the International Primary School said that this was a good chance for all the teachers of the school to share and learn teaching experience together in order to improve the professional competency to bring the most interesting and useful lessons to The Asian International School’s students. The School Board of Management always highly appreciates the creation and dedication of all teachers and desires teachers’ conscientiousness and love for their students. Teachers should strive more and more for the development of The Asian International School’s qualitative and prestigious educational environment.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Van Anh – Executive Manager - gave a speech at the end of the training

Teachers’ comments

Mr. Le Song Dinh

“The training program which was organized at the beginning of the new school year is one of the useful activities for teachers at The Asian International School. I would like to say thank to our School Board of Management, who gave me an opportunity to participate in this training session. Through inquiring experience from our colleagues, all teachers can apply and create their own teaching ways. The big purpose that we aim at is students’ achievement that can help them to be more confident and active in their study”.

Ms. Vo Thi Ngoc Mai

“This is the first time I have an opportunity to take part in the training program at our school. With the role of a student, I felt very excited about all subjects that were taught in the training session. Each teacher knows how to organize the class and transmit knowledge interestingly and ebulliently. By means of this training session, I could recognize the shortcomings in my own teaching methods and gain experience for my future teaching”.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Phuong

“I’m especially impressed with the way of organizing games, which helps students not only review the old lessons but also get the new lessons skillfully. Besides that, I can realize the teachers were very creative when designing and collecting plenty of illustrated models and tools for teaching. I can learn many interesting things in the training this year”.

Ms. Do Thi Thanh Hien – Executive International Program Manager of Primary level

“The policy of the school through the training courses always desires teachers to learn the specialist skills of professional teaching methods of their colleagues in all campuses of The Asian International School. All teachers are representatives of the school, directly build good quality learning environment in which students are centered. New teaching methods are always updated in order to help students have best skills to meet the needs of our modern society nowadays”.