According to what we learned in the past couple weeks, TPRs emphasizes not giving our students too much pressure and teaching through comprehensible input. We talked about the importance of reducing students' anxiety to improve the learning efficiency. In my view, to reduce their anxiety, we need to build a relax learning environment and trusting relationships between teachers and students, so that our students are willing to have eye contacts with us and ask questions. The classroom culture is powerful. I remembered when I studied in China, I barely made eye contacts with teachers because I know eye contacts mean nothing good will happen, usually students will be asked questions or in trouble. I thought this is culture thing until I start studying here. I always make eye contacts with professors because I know I have nothing to be afraid of.
Being flexible is the way I learned from the class on this Wednesday to build a trust environment and relationship in class. I believe that every teacher have struggled about the pace of teaching was not as fast as expected. There are so many unpredictable situations came up every day and they might result in delay of schedule. Should we change the context of the class for dealing with unpredictable situations? The teachers need always assess the problem and balance the context of the course. Like Dr. Patrick's example of using the class time to talk about racism, I believe that he earned the trust from that class. The race talk is always important for students from diverse background. Talking about the problem helps students open their minds to others.
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