Teaching "INVERSION"

An affable, convivial, and enthusiastic English teacher at Second High, Ms. Jing-yi Ma, whole-heartedly invited me to observe her teaching a grammatical demon entitled "Inversion," a complicated grammar which sometimes obfuscates students who do not have an excellent command of English. Her exceptional pedagogy, which embodied at least three striking characteristics, was deeply etched in my mind. Well-organized handouts and systematical teaching procedure, first and the foremost, were her sharp teaching ammunition that was able to rout a lot of callow teachers. The ways she lectured the grammar was always transparent and riveting to her students. For example, this creative teacher applied some protagonists derived from Jin-yung's novels to her teaching. She ingeniously classified "Inversion" into three groups, called "Wu-dang Pai (武當派)," "2-may Pai (峨嵋派)," and "Gai-bang Pai (丐幫派)," through which students were not only willing to pay attention to her lecture but also unconsciously mesmerized by these funny terms. No redundancy, I think, was her second teaching weapon. She articulated her MAIN POINTS without hesitancy, clearly conveying the usage of that grammar as a teaching machine. Once she desisted teaching one particular section, she would never reiterate that which she had mentioned. Provided students raised their hands begging her to repeat again, they would be severely reprehended and lambasted for their absent-mindedness. Owing to her strident broadside and sternness, most of her students dare not play chess with Morpheus in class; instead, they would devote all of their energy to their study for fear of being castigated. Cooperative teaching methodology, of which I was deeply appreciative, was her third armament. In lieu of asking students to squeeze grammatical rules into their minds, this English-teaching authority, who has won the accolade of many professors at NTNU, enjoyed encouraging students to generate some sentences spontaneously by using "Inversion." As students made grammatical mistakes ( i.e., Student: Never I saw her again), they would be rectified immediately (i.e., Teacher: Never did I see her again). Moreover, they were assigned to memorize some simple "INVERSION" sentences after school, and they would be given a quizz the next day morning. If they failed to write down the correct sentences, that austere teacher would tell on them to their parents, asking their parents to pay more attention their indolent kids' studies.