These days I’ve been trying to prepare lessons and teaching all by myself. I prepare Chinese lesson for 3rd grade, and teach English reading for one of the small group at Ms. Kinzer’s small group with some special students.  At first, it’s really hard for me. Students are always attracted to something else，I have been struggling to try to attract students’ attention. But I never give up, I have tried many strategies，then things going better and better. I grow up so much these days as a teacher, and I really feel it’s really not a easy job. There’s still a lot of things I should learn as a teacher, and I believe I can do better with more practice.

Today, I went to Apollo, to observe the deaf&hard of hearing class. The teacher I followed named Brianna, she is such a nice and sweet teacher, I like her so much. She is the only deaf teacher here, they have 5 deaf and hard of hearing students in Apollo, Brianna teach them one on one.

The first class is for a Somalia deaf girl. She is still learn English and ASL, so what she learn is very basic English words and  sentences, when she trying to do the paper, she have to practice some ASL at the same time. I think the lesson is so useful for her, and she really learn it very well. That class is easier for me to follow, and we really had a great time together.

The second class is for a deaf and brain paralysis boy. He’s always so happy though he even can’t walk very well. He have a a interpreter, she help me to translate, so I can understand everything and that’s so awesome. He’s lesson is read a very easy book, see the picture and sign the color. It’s a very interesting class.

It’s so nice to observe the class at Apollo, but the most important problem for me is still the language. After so many time did’t practice my ASL, it’s much hard for me to follow the teacher. Because high school is not like elementary school, what they learn is much harder. Next class we are reading an article about loan, and when she’s teaching I basically can’t understand everything. That’s made me feel sad, but it let me know I still need to learn more ASL, and I need to work harder. Hope I can make a progress!

  At Nov. 07th, 3rd grade students and teachers went to San John’s for field trip ,we spent a very good time together.  All of the students were so excited to go into the forest though it’s so cold outside.

  The theme of the field trip is seeds. A teacher introduced  a lot of seeds we can find in this area, then she gave every students a box, let them put seeds they found into the box. Every students are so excited to find all kinds of seeds as much as they can, and they are all full harvest. They show me what they found and I said I am so proud of them.

After that, we saw the beautiful lake, frozen in the law temperature. The view in the winter is so special, and I really like it. Finally, tired but happy, we head back to school.

I think it’s so good for students to have a field trip, and they really can learn something , something we can’t teach at classroom. I hope I can have another chance to go to field trip with students.

These days, I followed Ms.Kinzer’s step, try to know more about American’s special education.

Ms.kinzer told me, special education usually happened at public school and special school, Some of the student with special needs at private school will go to public school to do the small groups for couple of hours, when they’re done with small group, they’ll go back to private school. Sometimes, not every student with special needs can be successful at public school. When they decide some student really can’t be successful with small groups, they’ll suggest their parents to change their kid to special school.At special school, they’ll have more teachers, less students, it’ll be much easier for students to learn. When students make a progress at special school, they can come back to public school.

I think American’s special education is a really good system, and it really works, it help so many special students success. I think China’s special education still have so many things to learn, there is still a long way to go.

It’s been several days since I’ve been observed the special class in Madison every morning. I am so excited to have this opportunity to know more about special education.

I follow Ms Kinzer , a very experienced special teacher, to learn how to be a good special teacher in elementary school. Ms kinzer have her own small groups, usually less than 10 students per group. Every students in her group come from normal classroom, they come to Ms Kinzer’s class at the same time, after that, they go back to their classroom to continue to study.

There’s several kinds of special students in Madison like autism, learning disabilities, brain paralysis, emotional disorder and so on, it’s hard for them to learn in the normal classroom, they have special needs. They have different goals in their IEP, but they’ll make a group with students have similar goals.

It’s very hard for special teacher to teach in their small group, although there are less people in the same class, they have difficulty to learn and sometimes it takes more time to manage their behavior than teach. Sometimes some students are out of control, it takes so many times to fix their problem.It’s so hard to be a special teacher.

It really need some method to communicate with special students, I hope I can learn more about it in the future.

I am so happy that I had a chance to prepare my own lesson to teach in small groups in Madison. I choose to teach “HanFu” to students to help them know more about China. “HanFu”is the traditional Chinese clothing，it represents the Chinese culture. So I want to let my students know what traditional Chinese clothing looks like, and then we can design our own “Hanfu” with Paper cups together.

Prepare a lesson like a real teacher is new for me, I’ve been thinking about how to make students understand what I say, and how to teach can make them be interested in what I teach. I found a video to describe what is “HanFu”, and I found a lots of picture of all kinds of beautiful “Hanfu” to show my students. After I finish my PPT and lesson plan, I made a Paper cup “HanFu” to show my students the model.

The first time I teach is great, I choose a very good group ,every students followed my direction and we really had a great time together. They seems really like the beautiful traditional Chinese clothing, when I told them only the imperial household can wear clothing with dragon, they all wanted to design a “HanFu” with dragon, and their work are so beautiful that make me so proud. They really make me feel happy that it’s so worth to take time to prepare the lesson for them.

In 21th September, Dr.Zheng and I went to MDS together. This is the second time I came to MDS. The first time I came here is also a very good experience, I had a tour in MDS, say Hi to all of the nice teachers here. This time I finally had a chance to saw teachers and students all together in the classroom. Observe the lesson here is totally a different experience. Although I only had less than half an hour in each lesson, I still feel that the harvest is huge.

Courses in MDS are rich and colorful, there are American sign language classes, language training classes, physical education, science classes, society classes, history classes and so on. Students have a large age span, ranging from pre-school to high school age. There are all small classes here, basically each class only have four or five students, each class up to no more than eight students, It’s completely different from Madison. And multiple disabled students have a teacher with special help, and sometimes there are more teachers than students in one classroom, which greatly guarantee all students Learning efficiency.

What impress me the most is everyone here is so nice, they always smile and full of passion, to see them with their special body language to express the welcome is so sincere, so I was deeply moved. In the first class I observe, an American sign language class, there are two third grade boys, expressed great interest in my appearance. They can’t wait to sign to me to say hello, ask my name and where I come from. After they found I am not that good at ASL , they are particularly enthusiastic to help me with it, they help me to correct my mistakes, and we learn from the teacher together. The teacher is also very patient, she write down the word in blackboard to make me understand. This makes me from the initial out of tune into can gradually into the collective , and really from the bottom of my heart to thank their goodwill. In Madison, all the children will not have a big interest in a new teacher. But in MDS , the distance between people can be quickly pulled closer, which makes me really touched by.

Of course, the biggest problem for me is communication, because I still can’t master a lot of American sign language, so it is very difficult for me to understand. The first time I came here, there is a teacher to help me to translate, but this time I am on my own, and this is very different feelings. And deaf school in United States is completely different from deaf school in China. All of deaf school teachers in US are only use sign language, do not use spoken language, Chinese deaf school teachers Speaking and signing at the same time. In addition to the most basic greeting, the other sign language is so hard for me to understand, so most of the content of their expression I can only rely on my own imagination to guess what they mean, which makes me feel a bit depressed. But there are a lot of teacher’s sign language playing very image, with vivid facial expressions, I can guess what they are talking about the course. I think their course is very interesting, and very willing to continue to see it.

Half of the teachers here are deaf people, half is hearing people. But surprisingly, I can’t tell which teachers are deaf, which teachers are hearing. The haring teachers’ sign language is surprisingly proficient, both the body language and the facial expressions are vivid and rich, and even in many respects have the same characteristics as deaf people. They are completely integrated in the middle of the deaf, it makes me very admire. This also encourages me, I believe as a hearing people, as long as the continuous efforts I will be able to become a qualified deaf teacher.

Although only a short day, I think I have harvested a lot of things. I sincerely hope that I have the opportunity to once again come to MDS to study, there are more worthy of my exploration and learning, I am looking forward to our next meeting!

Time passed quickly, It’s been 2 weeks since I’ve been working at Madison. There are a lot of challenges and difficulties in the work , but surprises and happiness as well.

I’m working with Miss Lu, a very experienced teacher, who taught me a lot of things about how to be a good teacher in elementary school. I really enjoy to working with her, I have my small group everyday, we paly games, read books, do exercises in groups. It’s totally different from what we teach in China, which is very interesting to me.

I wake up very early in the morning, the beginning of the work in madison is helping students to get their breakfast. I feel so good when students say “thank you” , at this time, every students look like an angle to me.

After breakfast, every student will sit in the carpet to start a day of study. They have Chinese, math, PE and art classes. At 9:00 am they’ll have some desert, at 11:45 am they’ll have lunch at cafeteria. After lunch they’ll still have classes till 2:00 pm. Help them to learn Chinese is my first goal, I realize some of the student did a really great job in Chinese, and most of the students really enjoy Chinese class. I feel so happy to see all the students works so hard to study Chinese, it’s such a pleasure that I can be here to help them!

Next month I’ll be at Metro Deaf School in Saint Paul. These days I’m trying to learn ASL as much as I can. It’s still hard for me, but I’ll try my best to do it. Hope I can do a really good job at MDS.

Welcome to my blog!

I am Amelia Liu, I come from Shandong province, China. I come here to finish my student internship in Metro Deaf  School.

My major is Special Education, my field of study include psychology, teaching methodology, sign language, braille, and special children’s rehabilitation.

I hope I can have an amazing experience in US!