Teaching Practice: 25 Feb - 9 May 08

Despite a virtual guarantee of a credit by my main CT, I only got a pass. I intend to clarify with her why this happened, but I strongly suspect my supervisor's ill-timed and ill-prepared second observation did me, Nazir and Hui Erl in. It does leave a bitter taste in the mouth, seeing we did our best and were at the mercy of general incompetence.
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9 Apr 2008, 1843hrs
I'm geting swamped here. Have been trying to keep up with my lesson plans and as a result, am falling back with my marking. The result? I bag full of worksheets and a 0.5m stack of books. Die...
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7 Mar 2008, 1343hrs
Another treat! My CTs don't require me to write daily lesson plans in painstaking detail. They just need a weekly lesson plan with details of the procedure, resources and all that. This reduces the workload by A LOT. Of course formal observations still need the detailed one lah. But thank God for His mercy and providence.
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My, my. What a surprise. Practicum's been a breeze so far with only obervations going on. Little chance of me teaching next week due to CA and my CT's wanting to finish their incumbent unit first. Looks like I'm only starting in Term 2, which means I have the term break to piah lesson plans. Term 2 Week 7-8 should be interrupted by SA1, so I'm left with 6-7 weeks to fit 10 observations in. It might not be that bad after all. I think the P2 class will be the challenge.
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21 Feb 2008, 1843hrs
This is the biggie. Ten weeks altogether. One week of observation followed by nine weeks of teaching. I'm teaching P3 & 2 English and Maths respectively. My main CT is the P3 level head. Our practicum will include CA and SA time, so that should cut down the teaching load.

Writing activity

Observed a writing activity conducted my Ms Lim Swee Ching. Ms Lim is my main CT and she's really, really nice. Prepared a file for me and all. If only all CTs were like Kok Siang and her, and the world will be a better place.

She did what I did not think was possible - take P3 kids through a four-period lesson:
First, she revised some good practices in writing, alluding to the introduction, ending, adjectives, adverbs and direct speech.
Then, she gave detailed instructions for group work, before releasing the children to generate vocabulary for the group composition.
At every point, she tried to stretch this above-average class by rejecting some of their simple words and asking them to try harder. This was stretching the children in practice. They were also advised to refer to their writing guides for ideas.
For weaker groups, she provided them a list of words that described emotions. This was differentiated instruction in action.
She then consolidated the groups' work and showed good examples to the class, including some of her own words.
The children were now tasked to write a composition in their group. Cue pandemonium, pen grabbing, arguing over who goes first etc. right? Wrong. By and large, this class was able to distribute work thanks to their well-defined roles of leader, quiet captain, resource manager and timekeeper. Only minor intervention was required.
Work all done, these pupils were supposed to write individually the next lesson, where it'll be graded and recorded. Let's see how it goes.

Practicum posting

Went there for induction today. Everything was hunky-dory, but as my soon-to-be Chinese-teaching colleague succinctly put it, "let's wait till we start working and then we'll know". Words of wisdom indeed.

Principal was impressive, school grounds even more so, but I could tell straight away that expectations are high at this school. Confirmation came when the P said that she deliberately left space in our timetables so that we would take the initiative to find periods from other teachers to teach their class. Like, what?! If I were a full-fledged teacher, I wouldn't really like pesky trainees meddling with my class' grades! Especially when you're expected to do so well at Rosyth. Still, I think I can do it with God's help.

The children seem normal enough, though I heard they are smarter and richer, and by design more spoilt. So therein lies the challenge to manage the classroom rather than manage them academically..

The school building itself is a masterpiece. Canteen and hall on fourth floor, indoor basketball court, music Centre of Excellence, two staff rooms, heritage centre, etc. This place really blew me away. Pity it's so far.
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Was supposed to find out tomorrow, but found out this evening that I'm posted to Rosyth School in Serangoon for my five-week practicum. And they changed it from 3+2, meaning three weeks of observation and two weeks of guided teaching, to 2+3. That may not sound like much, but it's 20 lesson plans man!

Was really looking forward to returning to Punggol, what with my ex-students and colleagues there, but I guess it was not to be.

On the bright side, I get to experience a new school; according to Jasmine it has some gifted students, so I get to learn from the best. She said maybe I was head-hunted. Ha! I wish. Could be true though, cos I did do well in NIE. But theory and praticum are two totaly different things.

I'll contact the school tomorrow to find out when I need to go down. But really it's quite far from my home. It'll probably take me at least 30 min to get there. No joke when school starts at 7am.

I don't know anyone there, nor are any of my friends posted there. Touch and go lor. Ironically, Jonathan got posted to Xinmin, Jasmine's school, and Angelica took my place at Punggol.

Pray for good supervisor and CT, both from Rosyth and NIE. As well as a sympathetic principal, though I heard otherwise from Aishah.

Here's where it is. Far out man.