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Eastern and Western team teachers— two heads better than one
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Twice the teachers, twice the ideas, twice the experience — it all adds up to twice the reward for students! Team teaching enables two teachers to bring their skills, expertise and experience together to educate the students in their class.
As Grade 4 homeroom teachers at Shanghai United International School’s Hongqiao campus, we have been team teaching together for the past two academic years. Our team is comprised of Narcy, a Chinese teacher with a degree in English; and Charlotte, a British teacher with a degree in Maths and Philosophy. We have grown up in massively different cultures, each with their own unique education systems, which have shaped our decisions in life and who we are today. Yet, we share a passion for education and we both have high expectations and aspirations for our students.
For us, a typical day starts at 7:30am with a quick chat about the day ahead. Regular contact is a vital element of team teaching, sometimes jokingly described as an “arranged marriage.” Joking aside, it is an arrangement that is both challenging and rewarding. Throughout the day, we continue to talk whenever we get the chance — even just a few minutes helps. Sometimes our discussions involve a student behavioral issue whilst at other times it might be to suggest a new questioning strategy or to share an insight into a student’s preferred learning style. When time allows, we buy each other a coffee and chat about films, restaurants and life!
When teaching, we adopt a variety of team teaching models. These include demonstrating a dialogue to the students (with one of us leading and the other supporting), splitting the class in half and each teaching a group, or each of us taking turns to teach while the other tracks student responses. The content of the lesson and the method of formatively assessing our students determine our approach to team teaching for a particular lesson. Our particular strengths and interests also influence the roles we take in each lesson. Whichever way we decide to approach a lesson, we have found that it is beneficial to be really clear about our particular roles. At the same time, we find that it is important to be open to change if things don’t go exactly as planned.
In addition to allowing greater flexibility in our teaching methods, team teaching is an excellent way to model positive relationships to students. Thus, we believe our team teaching encourages the development of social skills in students and collaborative learning, key aspects for our IB PYP school environment. As teachers, we learn a huge amount from each other (i.e. subject content, teaching strategies and more) every day — in the same way, we hope that our students will learn from one another, too. Having a Chinese and a Western teacher working together also helps promote the acceptance of cultural diversity.
At the end of a school day, we reflect on the happenings of the day and confirm plans for the next school day (more vital communication). Sometimes, we vent about our frustrations. At other times, we celebrate successes. Often, we laugh and smile about something interesting and funny one of our wonderful nine-year-old students said that day.
Overall, whether our school day is exciting, emotional, rewarding or stressful, it is a pleasure to be able to share in the challenges and successes that are ultimately what being a team teacher is all about.
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