December 11, 2006
To Whom It May Concern: I honestly and sincerely recommend Gregory John Matheson to you as an EFL teacher. He is intelligent, hardworking, creative, dedicated, and energetic, both physically and mentally. All his students love him.
His intelligence is seen in the flexibility and skill with which he handles students. I believe he has both a high EQ and a high IQ. He is sensitive to people's feelings, and is able to influence his classes to get them to do what he wants. This shows his EQ. At the same time he is good at devising different kinds of learning activities that help students, both high-level and low-level, learn. This shows his IQ.
He is extremely hardworking. He is always in his office, even on the weekend, working on the computer, preparing something to do with teaching and learning. The amount of preparation he does for his classes is phenomenal. He seems to want to develop all his own materials. He takes a lot of pains with this work.
His creativity is shown by his invention of various distinctive kinds of classroom and homework activities. He always seems to have a new activity, and after devising it and testing it out, he changes it, or develops variations on it.
He is dedicated. Teaching seems to be his life. There appears to be some deep emotional reason for his devotion to teaching and learning. Perhaps he has converted an interest in learning language to an interest in teaching language. And he is also energetic. It is hard to believe he is 58. He acts like a man 10 years younger. He is always rushing down the corridor, or riding his bicycle around.
In addition to these qualities, he is also unfailingly good-humored. He is always smiling and happy. We never see him in a bad mood. Despite the intensity with which he approaches teaching, he is easy-going. He gets on well with other teachers, and doesn't create problems for his superiors.
Finally, he is knowledgeable about applied linguistics, EFL, English and computer programming, even though he has no formal qualifications in these areas.
In conclusion I recommend Gregory John Matheson to you extremely highly. I believe he will do magnificently in any teaching job he takes on.
Sincerely,
Hsiu-Feng Chou
Chair, Department of Applied Foreign Languages
Chin Min Institute of Technology
(Email: jungle@ms.chinmin.edu.tw)
December 9, 2006
To Whom It May Concern,
I heartily recommend Greg Matheson to you.
Over the 7 years we have been together at Chinmin, it has been a pleasure working with him, as his dean (now ex-dean), and as a colleague, discussing English and teaching.
He is an excellent teacher. He has the ability and the will to do the best job possible. His old GRE score of 2270 shows that he is intelligent. And he is always able to think of new ways to teach students. One interesting activity he devised is the ordinary multiple-choice question quiz, which he converted into a basketball game. But his goal is always to get the students to use English. For example, he designates students each week to grade the class's homework, under his direction, so students interact with him outside the classroom.
He clearly thinks teaching English is very important, something that we should try very hard to do. He is apparently moved by some deep feeling, some deep desire to teach. I can remember on one occasion him breaking down and leaving the room when some students from another department invited him to a graduation party. He told me he felt he had failed to teach them adequately. He sets himself high standards. This particular class, like all his classes, apparently thought he was a great teacher. They loved him.
Despite his high standards, he is very patient with his students. He doesn't seem to be upset when they are reluctant to speak. Instead he encourages them and creates a supportive environment so they feel confident and are not afraid to make mistakes. This may be due to his background in psychology, and a deep interest in how people learn.
His students also think he is an interesting teacher. Sometimes we hear him singing in his class, for example. Apparently, he likes to sing.
If he is not teaching, he is sitting in front of the computer. He is an expert at using software.
But, finally, his most memorable characteristic is his collegiality, his friendliness, his openness. It has been a pleasure, indeed an honor, to call him a colleague and a friend.
I cannot recommend Greg Matheson to you highly enough. He is truly an exceptional teacher.
Sincerely,
David Tung-Ching Tung
Ex-Chair, AFL Department,
Chinmin Institute of Technology
(E-mail: twng@ms.chinmin.edu.
Another letter from Peter Hsia, Associate Professor at Yuanpei
May 18, 2007
To Whom It May Concern,
I recommend Greg Matheson to you without hesitation.
I worked with Greg at Chinmin for almost five years, as chair of the department, and as a colleague. I know that he is capable of good work.
I always regret I was never able to get him to write and to publish research papers while I was at Chinmin. I know he is capable of doing research. His period as a graduate student shows that. He was also a copy editor at a newspaper in Korea. He is used to working with text, editing it to make it convey the message he wants. His status as a native speaker also makes it easy for him to write in English.
But he always told me he is more interested in programming. He spends a lot of time at the computer, writing email and developing programs for use with his teaching. Teaching is apparently more important to him. He is interested in practice, more than theory. Still, it would have been good for him to publish something on the classroom activities he has developed using the computer.
As for his personal characteristics, I can confirm that he is cooperative with his fellow teachers. One time when he and I were each teaching two sections of a total four parallel sections, I proposed to him we set a common pass rate. He was agreeable to this. We also developed some common exams for the four sections, for which he contributed a few questions. I think he is interested in joint curriculum development.
Lastly, I believe he is a reliable informant on English. Although he is Australian, not American, whenever I asked him vocabulary and usage questions, he was always able to give me a good explanation.
I have great pleasure in recommending Greg Matheson to you. He will surely acquit himself well in the teaching position he takes on.
Sincerely,
Hsia Chung-shun, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Applied English, Yuanpei University