What do I want my students to learn

I should make this clear: In the cover, I was not teaching, but presenting. The photo has nothing to do with what I am going to talk about now.

My students, though quite young, are active and diligent English learners. For me, my primary job is not to teach them concrete English knowledge, but to teach them a certain kind of thinking pattern. 

Just as I stated in my previous articles, both writing in English and writing in Chinese need to be logic. For example:

Rainy days make me sleepy.

This is inadequate. You have to explain and offer more details, especially the process in between.

Try this:

In rainy days, I don't want to go outside. I just want to stay at home, sit by the fire and have some hot drinks. This cosy and warm atmosphere make me really die for bed.

Every time, when I pose a question to my students, I will lead her answer to be more concrete, detailed, and logically acceptable. What I am expecting her to present is not a simple answer, but her thinking process. How will you convince me of your answer? More details and logic chains are essential.

Through practice, they can master this kind of thinking pattern pretty soon. I am really glad to discover that they can analyse questions as I expected, without my help.

I should say, this kind of practice is really helpful for academic thinking and writing.

By the way, the thing that has tortured me for almost two days has yielded great results. And this poem can partly uncover my feelings now.

孩儿立志出乡关，

学不成名誓不还。

埋骨何须桑梓地，

人生无处不青山。

——毛泽东

与君共勉。