Teach English in Linquan Zhen - Luliang Shi

School. For me, the word school invokes memories of guiding teachers, heavy books, crisp stationery and bubbling chatter with classmates. One of my favorite university experiences was working as a molecular biology teaching assistant for two years. Teaching felt natural. Soon I realized that I wanted to support and teach students in other countries, so I sought an opportunity to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Although they are different topics, I believe there are many similarities between science and EFL education, and teaching skills can translate between both fields. Regardless of subject, education has the goal of supporting students’ personal and academic growth. I find that in both language and science, the teacher must be fully supportive of the students’ learning by being fully engaged. The teacher’s attitude plays a large impact on how receptive students are toward the material. Simple things like eye contact, voice volume and asking questions during lectures make students pay attention to me, and make them feel like I pay attention to them. In my own classroom, I find that students are more willing to be engaged when I teach a topic with enthusiasm. Even if they have little interest in that particular subject, the students respond well to my high energy in the classroom. Teaching also requires a great deal of preparation. I have spent hours re-reading the course material and going through the homework worksheets so that I was ready to answer questions about the material. Before teaching, I never realized how much work goes into preparing lessons. I quickly realized that if I needed to lecture for thirty minutes, I would spend at least four times that much time to pull scientific papers, organize the information, create presentation slides, and rehearse. The preparation was always worth it. Reviewing the material beforehand and having a backup lesson helped me tremendously when the classroom projector stopped working and I gave students handouts of my slides instead. Preparation is key, regardless of subject material. Obviously, there are some differences between the subjects. The course material itself is vastly different. After all, talking about oxidative phosphorylation pathways with people who are just learning how to say “hello” is hardly appropriate. But both groups of students are actually learning a different language. Just as EFL students learn how to build prepositional phrases, molecular biology students learn how to phrase scientific reports objectively. EFL students pick up words to describe daily life while biology students learn a myriad of terminologies to describe tiny proteins in the human body. I have also found that describing concepts in molecular biology tends to depend on abstract, verbal explanations. Since molecular interactions occur at such a small scale (much smaller than can be seen by a regular microscope), it can be hard to model or give students hands-on practice with the subject material. On the other hand, language is more directly accessible since it only requires another person with whom to practice. That’s not to say that English language practice is easy. In fact, I find that practicing English requires much more repetition and time due to the extensive use of irregular conjugations, spellings and pronunciations. Regardless of subject, encouraging effective practice with precise correction is key for students to properly understand the material. Overall, EFL and molecular biology education have many commonalities. They rely on engaging the students and preparing beforehand. While they may have different terminology, both require students to use a language they would not use in everyday life. Students must also repeatedly review the material with corrections in order to accurately and effectively master the material. These key similarities between EFL and molecular biology demonstrate that certain aspects of education transcend subject matter.