Sunday, May 30, 2010
Teaching is really another form of art. As a student, sometimes we don't undertand some of our teachers intentions. Now that I've also become a teacher, I can understand how my teacher felt when she told us certain things in the past.
Recently, I've just engaged myself in another music lesson: teaching erhu to a grp of three girls. Unlike my first student, their basics were shaky and one of them didn't even have any musical background. However, I enjoy teaching them becos they look sincere in learning. :) In my opinion, basics are the most fundamental to success. So I taught all of them frm the basics.
On the second lesson, I saw improvement in the bowing! I was really happy! At least it sounds less 杀鸡 alrdy! And their techniques r right! Haha! Next, I taught them how to listen n follow the beats. Among the three of them, the one who learnt erhu since p1 is the fastest learner, while the one w/o any prior knowledge is the slowest. However, my instinct tells me that the slowest girl will be the best among them. Although all r able to play correctly, she does the techniques the best. Teaching her would require much more time n patience. When teaching them how to follow beats, she could neither count the counts correctly nor enter on the beat. It took up quite some time trying the correct her. This is one of the challenging part for the teacher as u gotta make sure thenother two wouldn't be bored waiting for their friend, while u try hard to teach the slower learner. I made the others count for her n also point out her mistakes. I hope she wasn't feeling embarrassed when I made her play by herself. :x Eventually, she got the beat and could enter correctly! I was elated that she made it! :D Then I taught them how to read the scores cos they claimed that they're afraid of sight-reading n that this fear is hindering them frm trying grade 4. I taught them in a mathematical way n they were amazed at how music can be so closely related to math! Haha! I gave them several examples in the order of increasing difficulty. Whenever they saw complicated markings, they'd freak out. But after I broke it down note by note, they could understand it. I really hope they will apply it in any other scores n not freak out by te numbers and markings! :) I believe they'll be able to sight read soon. :)
A while ago, I just had lesson with my first student. Not sure if she's complacent (cos she has erhu background, a pretty good one), she doesn't seem sincere in practising. It's been weeks, yet she hasn't memorized 2 pieces, 3 pages long in total. Fyi, they're kuai gong n zong he lian xi. Even if she hasn't memorized, she's not even familiar with the scores. How to teach her the details when she' not even familiar with it? Well, at least she managed to improve her wrong techniques. At the end of the lesson, I pep talked her, telling her the importance of treasuring time esp in sec sch (when u have ample time for cca), n how much the quantity of practice matters now. I hope she'll start to 踏踏实实 to practise.
Today during my lesson with xu lao shi, she taught me how to practise a portion which clearly reflected my weakness. Then I understood something. I'm sure many of ushd have heard this: give a fisherman a fish, he'll be nourished for that day. Give the fisherman the skills to fish, it'll keep him nourished for life. Similarly, she's trying to teach me how to tackle with such challenges, so that I can apply the same thing in the future. Like her, I must also teach my students how to deal with problems themselves, so as to make them grow n learn.
Haha, after telling so much abt my lessons, what I wanna say is, I finally experience what xls felt when I improved n when I disappointed her. She's really a great teacher. W/o her, I wouldn't be who I m today. Thanks so much to her. Really, thanks a lot...
2:18 PM
Till we meet again..
