On Chinese Stenography Training from The Perspective of Coaching Technology

Introduction

Coaching technology originated in the sports industry of the 1970s. Its main purpose was to allow athletes to get gold medals through optimal training. In the 1980s, this technology was popularised in business management to develop the potential of employees. Different from traditional educational methods, coaching techniques focus more on problem-solving, the development of students’ potential and the role of students as agents in the learning process.

This article is based on the teaching equality principle, advocated in coaching techniques, whose goal is that students and teachers are “dual subjects” in vocational education. It integrates some traditional coaching techniques into teaching Chinese stenography. Its aim is to provide practical building blocks for an educational reform and a trial.

Starting points

When facing problems in learning, teachers and students need to solve them through one-to-one communication. Through communication, teachers will find students’ hidden blind spots through the Johari window. The Johari window theory suggests that individuals’ knowledge of the world is essentially composed of four parts: public, blind spot, private and hidden potential. Public refers to things about oneself that one knows and others also know. The blind spot refers to things about oneself that one does not know but others do. Private refers to things about oneself that one knows but others do not. Unknown things are things about oneself that one does not know and others do not know either, and they are called the hidden potential. The Johari window is not static but dynamic: we can change the distribution of the four areas through our efforts. That is, when the facts that are public and private are magnified, our blind spots and hidden potential will be relatively smaller.

In this approach, the fundamental factors that restrict and influence our potential, such as blind spots and privacy, are addressed through a new team-based interactive learning method, using rational coaching techniques such as questioning, responding and sharing. These approaches break through our instinctual resistance and make our blind spots fewer and our privacy fully disclosed, thereby achieving fundamental changes in personal qualities and organisational effectiveness.

The problem that prevents students learning is a so-called balance wheel. The larger part of the balance wheel is the most urgent problem to be solved. After the problem is identified, the teacher will guide the students to focus on their own goals, become an effective supervisor of their own actions and be responsible for their own plans and goals. With the adjustment of students’ mentality, teachers will also give the students new encouragement and motivation, not only satisfied with solving problems but maximising the students’ potential. Finally, teachers will carry out phased detection and follow-up for students’ problem-solving. For example, a common learning bottleneck encountered by middle school students in the process of shorthand is an accuracy rate of less than 98% of the standard, the ability to distinguish sounds and a speed of less than 220 words per minute. Teachers will give methods and suggestions through communication with students, and together they will find the most suitable method for students’ personal improvement.

When applying coaching techniques, the teacher’s identity is a fusion of coach, compass, confidant, career advisor and cultural guide. They should actively pay attention to the growth of the students and guide them to look at their learning challenges from different angles. They should also help students change their bad learning habits and fully tap into and expand their comprehensive qualities to enhance their personal value and beliefs. For example, in stenography these bad learning habits might include incorrect sitting posture, wrong use of hands and hitting keys with the wrong fingers. This kind of coaching technique is most suitable for students with strong action, concentration and reflective abilities. Other teaching methods should be adopted for students with whom these properties are weaker. However, all students should be taught effectiveness.

Stratified teaching

In order to better carry out whole teaching – paying attention to the learning of all students – it is necessary to carry out stratified teaching according to students’ learning foundation, psychological quality, acceptance ability, classroom performance and test situation. In stratified teaching, students have different learning objectives, guiding principles and assessment principles. It should be noted that stratified teaching will be dynamically adjusted according to the learning situation of the students. It is also targeted not only at the best students but at allowing every student the opportunity to progress.

Stratified teaching begins with hierarchical classification. Here, the teacher assigns students into categories and formulates corresponding learning objectives and tasks for all categories. This means setting learning goals and tasks for students according to their learning foundation, learning ability, psychological properties, classroom performance and other factors to ensure that each student can achieve their best learning level. In this phase, the teacher stratifies students according to their overall learning situation and performance over a period of time before releasing any learning tasks. However, this stratified classification should be constantly adjusted according to the situation. It should always be dynamically adjusted, for example, according to the previous learning situation and the results of this test. After necessary adjustments, the teacher can formulate learning objectives and assign teaching tasks according to the situation.

The significance of this multilevel teaching exploration lies in the fact that when teachers stratify students, they should also explore the process of optimising teaching means and fully respect students’ learning characteristics, such as their subjectivity, creativity in the learning process, and the future generated after learning. At the same time, with hierarchical classification teachers should implicitly fully protect students’ self-esteem and self-confidence, and the continuous change and adjustment of students’ learning must be in line with students’ reality and scientifically rigorous evaluation criteria.

For example, in stratified teaching, students with a good learning foundation and strong ability should not only learn the knowledge in books but combine this with the competency of the job, so that they have excellent theoretical and practical abilities. Shorthand should be close to the standard of an advanced speed reporter in terms of content and speed. The learning foundation should be good, although the ability might be slightly weak. Students who do not have a strong learning foundation or abilities might base their capabilities mainly on the theoretical knowledge of books. Then, their speed and accuracy are lower than the actual work requirements.

Combining differentiated instruction with information technology, these teaching methods aim to achieve the optimal teaching process. That is, based on the requirements of teaching objectives, teaching tasks, teaching principles, and teaching laws and regulations, the best teaching plan for the given teaching task under the given conditions is designed to maximise the development of students’ intelligence and ability with the least time and energy.

Using these teaching methods in a Chinese stenography course, the stenography teaching in Sichuan has achieved a certain level of development and the students have repeatedly won awards in the National Vocational College Skills Competition. The stenography students have also become senior stenographers through guidance, and they have made great contributions to the information work in the western region of China. This has further deepened the function of vocational education serving society. The training of quick reporters can play a great role in local economic development, market construction, cultural communication, education and teaching, and personnel training.

Conclusion

In this article, I have introduced a coaching-based teaching method of stratified teaching in stenography education. However, it should be noted that the combination of differentiated teaching methods requires the support of all staff members and should not be the task of a single group of professional teachers. The optimal teaching process still needs the support of top-level design and the co-operation of functional departments. At the same time, the scientific base and rigour of the classification still need to be strengthened. Also, a teacher and student dual evaluation and an industry and enterprise third-party evaluation mechanism should be introduced. Finally, social service should be included in a student’s comprehensive evaluation. This means that, in order to assess students more objectively, evaluations by governments, enterprises, social organisations and groups should be included. However, at present these are still in the research stage, so in-depth research is needed.

He Danqing is an associate professor at the Mianyang Polytechnic in China.