I arrived in the classroom, ready to share my knowledge and experience with 75 students who would be my English Literature class. Having taught in the US for 17 years, I had no 1 about my ability to h

>> 高等教育 / 新发展英语综合教程（二）

I arrived in the classroom, ready to share my knowledge and experience with 75 students who would be my English Literature class. Having taught in the US for 17 years, I had no 1 about my ability to hold their attention and to 2 on them my admiration for the literature（文学）of my mother tongue.
I was shocked when the monitor shouted, "Stand up!" and the entire class rose as I entered the room, and I was somewhat 3 about how to get them to sit down again, but once that awkwardness（尴尬）was over, I quickly regained my calmness and began what I thought was a fact - packed lecture, sure to gain their respect - perhaps 4 their admiration. I went back to my office with the rosy glow which comes from a (n) sense of achievements.
My students kept diaries. However, as I read them, the rosy glow was gradually 5 by a strong sense of sadness. The first diary said, "Our literature teacher didn't teach us anything today. 6 her next lecture will be better." Greatly surprised, I read diary after diary, each expressing a similar subject. "Didn't I teach them anything? I described the entire philosophical framework（哲学体系）of Western thought and laid the historical 7 for all the works we'll study in class," I complained. "How can they say I didn't teach them anything?"
It was a long term, and it 8 became clear that my ideas about education were not the same as those of my students. I thought a teacher's job was to raise 9 questions and provide enough background so that students could draw their own conclusions. My students thought a teacher's job was to provide 10 information as directly and clearly as possible. What a difference!
However, I also learned a lot, and my experience with my Chinese students has made me a better American teacher, knowing how to teach in a different culture.