On May 22nd, 2021, the preliminary round of the SHSID Outstanding Young Teachers Contest, which takes place every four years, was held in Zhentao Building. 50 teachers actively participated in the high-school-contest group. The preliminary round was divided into two parts: Impromptu English Speeches and Lesson-Plan Presentations. To make the contest go efficiently and smoothly, the participant teachers switched in groups to finalize the competitions.

In the Lesson-Plan-Presentation session, due to the large number of subjects in high school and to ensure the fairness of the contest, the jury put a lot of time and thought in creating the involved questions. For example, the social sciences group provided several core words such as Change, Fairness, Sustainability, and the participants were required to set their own teaching content around these core words. For the music group, the "Patriotism in Musical Works" topic fully exhibited SHSID’s “Being in China while Facing the World”. For the participants, though there was only one hour of preparation time, all the teachers quickly completed the outline of the lesson plan, and some even finished the production of the PPT. While speaking, the participants not only demonstrated solid academic expertise, but also showed their vitality, innovation, and student-oriented educational philosophy to the jury. It was impressive to see that the participants’ teaching designs were both well organized in structure and diverse in methods, and a range of activities such as flipped classrooms, group discussions, hands-on experiments, and online simulations were added to the teaching. More importantly, many teachers also elaborately integrated the core qualities of the subject, such as mathematical-modeling ability, scientific-exploring ability, and literary quality. Even though these participants were young and relatively less experienced, the development and growth of their teaching abilities in the last few years has been significant.

In the Impromptu-English-Speech session, participants had 15 minutes of preparation time, but no tools were allowed. In recent years, young teachers’ English proficiencies have generally shown an upward trend. Not only can they appropriately use professional terms when teaching, they can also richly express their thoughts when discussing topics outside of the subjects, such as cyberbullying and globalization. As the jury commented: " We know how challenging and nerve-wracking it must have been for the teachers to come in on their day off and deliver an impromptu speech with limited prep time, but they all did exceptionally well. They spoke with confidence and conviction, and it was our honor to see them shine in this way.”

Young teachers are the power of the school's sustainable development. It is exciting to see that so many young teachers have emerged in this contest. Let’s wait for the final round in mid-June!

(Written by Teaching Affairs Center of High School Pictures by SHS Media Center Reviewed by Qian Zuo)