How to Implement Parents’ Energy to Fuel Plans, Not Trip Them Up
By: Jenny Su
CI-563: Teacher As Researcher
Emily de la Cruz
July 18, 2010
Chinese teachers’ and parents’ expectations differ on things such as homework quality, how to do homework, teaching methods, etc. These cause conflicts and disagreements in various areas. After contemplating this, I decided to pursue the general area of communication between parents and teachers to see if any research done on that topic could possibly solve the issues going on right now at my school. My question became, “Would better communication between parents and teachers help them understand our teaching methods and accept them better?” because I believed that through more communication, the misunderstandings between parents and teachers could be solved and more energy directed towards improving overall education circumstances instead.
My first article, “Enhancing Parent-Teacher Communication Using Technology: A Reading Improvement Clinic Example,” talks about tutors who were part of a university-based program for helping students improve their reading skills. These volunteer tutors used informal e-mails to update parents on how their child was doing every tutoring session instead of waiting until the end or just doing a “mid-term report” (Merkley, Schmidt, Dirksen, & Fulher, 2006). With these frequent notices, parents were much more informed about their children’s progress and happy with the results, one even reported saying, “To see it all here [in these informal notices], it’s like… oh my gosh, he accomplished so much high quality work!” (Merkley et al., 2006). There wasn’t any data recorded other than examples of how the specific tutor in the article sent e-mails/letters to inform parents of progress and established a portfolio of outstanding works her student made, but the approval and satisfaction of the parents was obvious.
Having that in mind, I believe that using this method could let parents at my school realize the benefits of our own teaching methods. Usually, parents believe that Chinese teachers enforce too much discipline with their class, but we can explain why through our notices. One common example is how we require students to be aware of the stroke order of the Chinese characters they write. For English, making a small mistake with a letter usually won’t affect how people read it, but in Chinese, missing a stroke or writing the character wrong can totally change the meaning of the word. Parents don’t understand those requirements and usually individually come to talk to us about it, but it would be more efficient if teachers use newsletters to inform parents first before they ask. At the same time, if there are still areas of our teaching they disagree with, parents can provide more input if we start using the “informal notices” method to tell them what’s going on daily or weekly. If they have concerns about their own child’s progress, they can also have more reason to seek the teacher out and discuss ways to help their child keep up with the rest of the class.
One of the most common problems that arose was how students did their homework. As mentioned before, the importance of every Chinese character’s stroke order was one misconception parents held. I found an article, “Parental Involvement in Homework: A Review of Current Research and Its Implications For Teachers, After School Program Staff, and Parent Leaders,” that commented on various areas in which parents can become involved in regarding their child’s homework. Positive feedback on students’ performance on assignments/projects and asking clarification questions regarding homework can reinforce the child’s overall performance at school (Walker, Hoover-Dempsey, Whetsel, & Green, 2004). “The more specific and knowledgeable parents can be in offering feeback and reinforcement, the stronger their impact on learning and student self-efficacy is likely to be” (Walker et al., 2004). Again, the article did not provide any specific data for observation, but instead listed general areas parents can become involved in regarding homework and comments on those areas.
At the school I teach in, many parents actually have a different first language, not English. Since our information is all sent out in English, parents who don’t understand it have a hard time understanding things that are going on or what events are coming up. Their children have to tell them, and sometimes they can forget to. Teachers might decide to assign students questions to ask their parents for homework, but after remaining aloof from school activities for so long, they usually decide that they won’t be bothered at all with things like that. However, we have to treat all parents with the same respect, so I believe that my school should start printing information in different languages or make similar allowances for each individual family that needs it. This way, parents would start feeling more involved and like they really are needed (which is true anyways) and have the urge to contribute more of their own thoughts on issues they disagree with or have suggestions for. They’ll also become more involved with their child’s work and support them like they need to be.
Besides touching on homework involvement, my third article, “Communicating With Parents: Strategies for Teachers,” also talked about the importance of one-way and two-way communication. Since my first article already touched on one-way communication using the methods of more frequent “informal notices” and other similar writings, I decided to focus more on the two-way communication techniques mentioned in the article. Methods mentioned included phone calls, home visits, parent-teacher conferences, open houses, and school-based community activities (Graham-Clay, 2005). By using these, teachers can gain valuable information regarding students’ lives and what problems they might have, especially with phone calls and house visits (Graham-Clay 2005). In the case of one teacher, “… the solid academic performance of her students came, at least in part, from positive communication with parents by phone” (Graham-Clay, 2005). Sometimes, using the Internet or other forms of technology for broadcasting information also became different ways teachers can communicate with parents (Graham-Clay, 2005).
I myself still only use the standard forms of communication such as monthly newsletters, parent-teacher conferences every term, a few open houses, etc. If any parents e-mail me asking about their student, I always reply or meet with them after school to talk. Other than that, I don’t use anything like the occasional informal notice e-mail or phone calls. It would be a good idea for me to implement these in the future to clear up any possible confusion parents would have.
After learning about all these different ways in which I can improve my communication with the parents of my students, I think it would be beneficial if I can spread these techniques among my colleagues so that our school can improve overall. This would require changing the school policy around a little bit, but if we discuss it with school authorities and provide evidence of the positive effects of these more frequent communications, I’m sure they can find ways to implement them and change the rules around a little. The ones that I think would be most useful and not take much effort is parent involvement with homework. This would require translating school publications to different languages to accommodate parents who need it in order to encourage parents to support both the school and their child more, but I think the benefits would outweigh the costs. I understand that it would be both time-consuming and a little more costly to do this, but in return, the school can gain the trust and partnership of the parents instead of having to deal with personal issues all the time. More effort can be focused on improving curriculums together rather than clarifying the same questions over and over every year. At the same time, parents are then motivated to help their child with homework, and it can let them understand more of what is going on at the school right now.
In the first article, I also realized that perhaps students’ performance improved because they had a tutor to give them extra attention. For students in less stable financial conditions, especially those who attend my school, I understand that it would be difficult for their parents to hire someone who can help them after school, but if they themselves take some time out of their day to help our their child when they can, positive results can also follow. Students just need that extra encouragement to help them perform better.
Besides translating things like newsletter, informal notices could also work for supplying information to parents, but as a teacher myself, I know that it’s hard to fit writing them in for so many students every day besides grading as well. Perhaps doing them weekly would be better; that way, parents have another method of keeping up on how their own child is doing at school and teachers would have the time to do all the notices during the weekend. Either way, using any one of these methods can show immediate positive effects and lead to better school conditions with the parents’ support.
Works Cited
Merkley, D., Schmidt, D., Dirksen, C., & Fulher, C. (2006). Enhancing parent-teacher communication using technology: a reading improvement clinic example.Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education,6(1), Retrieved from
Graham-Clay, S. (2005). Communicating with parents: strategies for teachers.The School Community Journal,15(1), Retrieved from
Walker, J., Hoover-Dempsey, K., Whetsel, D., & Green, C. (2004). Parental involvement in homework: a review of current research and its implications for teachers, after school program staff, and parent leaders.Harvard Family Research Project, Retrieved from