Three Key Points for Three-Way Teaching

For our three-way teaching class, we had the chance to experience what it’s like to be a teacher, a critique of the teaching technique and a critique of the feedback. Three main things stuck with me during the activities and I will be explaining them in the next few paragraphs.

First, we should be cautious with teaching skills to our students the same way we learned it. As a teacher, we are supposed to first lean and know a skill or knowledge before we can teach it to others. When we teach this skill or knowledge to our student, we tend to use the same concepts, trick and methods that made learning it easier for us. And this is when we should be more tactful in the teaching process, because as we all know, everyone is a different kind of learner. You could use this technique for students who you see to be a similar learner as you, but not on all. We just need to keep in mind that we first have to identify our learner and be faithful to how we can facilitate easier and more effective learning for him/her. 

Effective communication using verbal and nonverbal cues is the key to easier teaching. We should not only use words easily understood by our learner, but we must also be aware of our nonverbal communication such as eye contact and hand gestures. 

Last summer, I had a part time job as an English tutor for Japanese students online. Back then, I was taught the sandwich method when giving feedback to students, especially beginner ones. In this method, we should always intersperse points for improvements between positive comments. I was aware of this, was glad I could apply it also in teaching in PT and further understood its importance. And that is the third point.