Alt Prac in Hong Kong! #2

The students at the school were extremely well behaved compared to Canada. I somewhat expected this from hearing other people who have taught in Asia. However, the extreme politeness and respect to teachers given by students is extraordinary. The only classroom management I’ve seen was when students were not listening to teachers while they were giving out instructions (the students were working on some questions). In Canada, this would definitely been let go. It is amazing how students don’t talk during the lesson. Some lessons are 2 hours long due to double lessons. Their ‘attention span’ trumps most Canadian students. To be fair, I have no idea how much information is actually getting absorbed during those double lessons! However, this sometimes causes a problem as they are very shy. Therefore, getting volunteers to answer questions is close to impossible. In order to fix this, teachers tend to pick on students to answer questions. In addition, the class sizes are very small for the year 12 Physics (only 10 students / class), so a lot of attention can be given to the students. Teachers can pick students to come up to the SmartBoard and complete the problem.

I really like this since there is more individual time for students. However, then I thought about how much money these students pay to go to the school and is probably not so probable in Canada. I guess if one wants quality education, there is always the money factor that follows. Though at the same time, it doesn’t seem like students here ask for a lot of extra help, whereas extra help is very common in Canada. I believe this maybe a cultural difference, where almost all students have a tutor after school. In Canada, tutoring is NOT as popular as it is in Asia.