Remedial

Can it be? I enjoy giving remedial more than actual teaching. The pressure of book checking is lifted and I can afford to be creative with my lessons. Proceeding with diagnostic tests for English and heuristics for Maths and maybe Science. But having fun so far and I hope I can remove the stigma of remedial in the students' minds.

5 Joy

I'm the new form teacher of 5 Joy and I must say that I've done things very atypically so far. New teachers are warned not to smile, joke or do anything that can give away the fact that they are actually human, especially during the first week.

Well, guess what? I did - and I feel much better for it. I have chosen to take the trust-trustworthiness equilibrum with this class and with my tolerance for behaviour also going up, this has resulted in a less threatening classroom environment. As one student put it, they don't even dare raise hands in another class. I introduced the notion of appropriate and inappropriate noise, so they know how they should react to different situations.

Slowly but surely the tide is turning from ignorant apathy to daring responsibility. Students are beginning to tale risks as they know they won't get shot down if they get an answer wrong, because they realise I'm rewarding them for the effort.

I've also impressed on them that interesting lessons require a partnership - participative students and an interactive teacher. They responded well to my Maths lesson today, even though it's a simple manipulation of practice of fraction-decimal conversion. Didn't take too much time and effort to plan either.

I really hope to keep this up, and once the class desktop and e-Beam are up, who knows? The sky's the limit.

Seng Kang Primary

Just finished a whole-day meeting at school. I must admit it was not what I expected.

Firstly, the principal, Mrs Lew, although she prefers to be called Lan Chin. She's more from the Miss Chua Soh Leng-type (Punggol Pri) of principal. She looks like Shirley, and from what I can observe, possesses a true Christ-like character. Her words are so encouraging and she used her sharing to marvellous effect.

While other principals would deign to use the time to talk about policies and programmes, she did it differently. Yes, she was talking about a new initiative called Invitational Education, but she talked about it with such conviction and belief that she really sold me on the idea. I'll probably even use it in Professionals for our module on communication, and I told her so.

I could sense that God knew I needed some encouragement as I was not doing a good job of getting used to teaching life again. Her session on something called unintentional disinvitation (or being unintentionally disinviting) resonated with me. It's basically a scenario where people unwittingly make themselves unapproachable. We were asked to give a personal experience of this, and she shared her example of aunties asking nephews/nieces when they are getting married every CNY - they mean well, but it's just a complete turn-off. *winks to Yinglei*

My example was just as explicit, and I believe God was giving me an opportunity to be open to my colleagues. Bear in mind that I knew 5% of the people in the room, and that some have never talked to me or even seen me. I shared my experience of people recommending cures of eczema to me and how despite their good intentions, it was a bugbear for me. It allowed me to appeal for their understanding, as well as help them understand how to relate to me with me on this sensitive issue. I told them to keep their cures to themselves, and tell me when my skin looks good not bad. I sincerely hope my honesty will make it easier for me to break the ice with them, as I'm not a very sociable person and struggle to make close friends outside of church.

Throughout the session, Lan Chin was encouraging and effusive with praise of people's honesty, and found ways to use visuals to get her ideas across. I badly wanted to pee/doze off, but I found I didn't dare to, lest I miss something important/interesting - such was the engagement.

To top it all off, she asked for a volunteer to read a list out, and I just felt compelled to volunteer, partly cos I haven't heard my radio voice in a while. After I had read the meaningful list of paradoxical commandments, she turned around and told everyone she was giving me the book I had just read from. What a gesture! I really admire her optimism and zest for life and such infectious leadership has sort of hooked me. That's the power of inspirational leadership by example.

I hope to do that some day, where someone turns around and says I've inspired them. Till then, I have next week's lesson plans to write. =[

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.

Listening & Speaking lesson plans

Finished both, including my calculator activities. Now for practicum.
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Took me ages to complete one. I think I'm gonna just die at practicum.

Microteaching

Kena massacred for microteaching, but I didn't even get the worst of it. Two others got it worse, including one for speaking out of turn. At least it's over.

There really isn't much reason to come on Tue and Thu any more since we're just observing our peers. I will go see Dr Hia tomorrow afternoon before he flies to Japan. Makes sense.
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19 Jan 2008, 2259hrs
Supposedly after TA, microteaching is peanuts. Well apparently I'm a monkey with digestive problems, because the same problem of mental block and creative haemorrahage seemed to happen when I was doing my lesson plan. The ideas just don't seem to flow. Can't explain it. Well, at least the lesson plan is done and ready for Thursday.

SOD: Masterlife 1

Guess who's teaching Masterlife 1? Wah lesson plans all over again!

Hell Week

And it's finally over. Finished my practicum with comments of 'outstanding' and 'many good things' coming from my CTs and Principal, but all in all, just glad to learn so many things and get it over with.

I think I left an impression with my students in 4 Earnest & Youthful and Tennis CCA. Some of them were kind enough to give me gifts & cards too! I'll miss them. Hope to see some of them in P5 next year.
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Managed to write six lesson plans, so maybe it's worth it.
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I'm spending my Saturday writing lesson plans and marking. How sad is that?
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What a week it's been, and it ain't over yet. Lesson plan afer lesson plan; 10 in all for this week alone. Plus I've got observations over the next two weeks [three in all] which means I need to plan for a more kilat lesson. Just two more weeks to go! I shudder to think what next year's practicum will be like.

Exam results, Yr 1 Sem 2

Just got my results and didn't do as well as the first semester, although I didn't expect to anyway. Have to thank God for getting me through a tough semester, though I felt I should and could have done better.

DCE100: B- [thanks to be not following instructions in SBA]
DCM100: B+ [could've put more effort in Lesson Plan]
DLK100: A- [could've worked smarter for group editing work]
DSE101: A+
DSM101: A+
Cumulative GPA: 4.54 [dropping from 4.83]

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.