In Motion

This happened when I was carrying out my final practicum in SK Taman Rasah Jaya 3 years ago. I was teaching a class of 9-year-olds with low to intermediate proficiency and my supervisor had decided to pop in for my final assessment unannounced. I was taken by surprise, but was relieved that I had borrowed a soft toy turtle and some teaching aids from another friend. Because we were teaching the same grade, we often borrowed lesson ideas and teaching aids from each other.  The topic for the day was pets and my objective was to teach my kids to write about their own pet. At the end of the lesson, I asked different students to share what they had wrote. One student stood up and went: "My pet's name is XX. It is pink and blue." I was appalled. An entire lesson on pets, and this girl STILL didn't understand that a pet had to be an animal? Did bringing in a soft toy backfire on me? And my supervisor was sitting right there at the back of the class assessing me!...

I've been through 12 weeks of practicum, and this practicum has been the best one ever. I love everything about SK TRJ, except the canteen food. The admin and teachers there were so nice to us and treated us like real teachers instead of their personal assistants/free labour. Everyone was eager to help us and make our stay the best one possible. I am so in love with that school. I can only conclude that if the school admin is ok, everything else falls into place. I love SK TRJ, and I even miss the admin there more than the students. =P In terms of students, other than the discipline level, SK TRJ has a wonderful bunch of kids. They are still...kids, not teenager wannabes. I was impressed that the young girls didn't send the handsome male trainees love letters and stalk them like what I'd previously witnessed in other schools. The kids were really sweet, too. I entered some classes only for relief, but the kids in those classes still greet me and beam at me happily eve...

My Year 3 class is NOT the best class, but they have an uncanny affinity for worksheets. When I go into that class for Moral Education, they will eagerly ask "Will there be a worksheet?" even before I finish teaching. =.= Just yesterday, I went in to the class to discuss about today's party, and their Mathematics teacher was in the class. She asked them to listen to me, and threatened them with, "Kalau tak...saya akan ambil balik lembaran kerja awak!" The class shuddered . I think any other class would've loved less homework. But not this class. I think they're crazy. xD

Sometimes, I envy teachers who have seemingly perfect class control. By perfect class control, I mean that whenever I walk past their class, pupils are seated quietly with all eyes on the teacher. The teacher concentrates on teaching, and the pupils are engaged in learning. One disclaimer is that I bet those teachers don't employ group work strategies most of the time. I also suspect that they have taken drastic measures such as publicly mincing a kid into pieces to deter the others from trying their stunts in the classroom. =P I think most people would think class control is easy. I used to think that myself, since I have a fiercer nature and people tend to be scared of me. After undergoing my practicum for more than 5 months, I know better than to make assumptions now. Children will be children, and if you spare the rod, you'll spoil the child. Nowadays teachers aren't allowed to use the rotan anymore, so our level of scariness has gone down a few notches. Scolding ...

Last post - 8th February. Wow. It's been a month since I posted anything here. Oh well, not as if I don't know what practicum is like. Every day is a never-ending cycle of lesson planning, sleep, drive, school, lunch, drive, nap, lesson planning, sleep. Throw in another 2 assignments to be submitted next week and you get no weekends too. The good thing is I actually like teaching, and I have a nice combination of classes this time. Besides that, the school admin has been really nice and considerate towards us, and I really couldn't ask for more. So despite the super long drive (40 minutes each way, depending on traffic conditions and how many lorries are in front of me), I guess I'm having a good time in general this practicum. I don't really like teaching Moral Education for my minor, though. Mainly because we have to dwell on one topic for 2 weeks (3 lessons a week) or more, and there are only so many things you can do with a weak class on the sameeeeeeeee t...

After 6 hours of brainstorming, searching, cutting, folding and pasting, the end results do not disappoint. Here, I present to you the English Language Month poster for the opening ceremony on Monday and a notice for the notice board. The "book" in the centre is meant to be opened and signed by the headmaster as he officially launches the English Language Month. Fancy eh? =P I hope the notice board is big enough for this pretty sign. =D Thank you for your compliments, you are far too kind. =P I can't take any credit for the ideas or art sense, though, because all I did was the typing and printing and cutting. Josephine and Deborah decided on the designs heheh. One must always be aware of her shortcomings, and I definitely fail in the visual art department.

I. Am. Loving. It. When I hear stories of what my other friends are going through, I thank God over and over again for letting me come to SK Rasah Jaya together with Deborah and Josephine. And I also pray that God will give them the strength to endure the next 12 weeks until the end of practicum and the internship. With the Action Research that we have to do this year as well, the last thing you want to deal with is a difficult school with plenty of demands. I can't wait to start teaching, although I still feel some inertia after so many months of not writing super long lesson plans. It's probably going to be fun. =)

Phew. The end of practicum, at last. It didn't exactly end on a good note, with the GPK giving us a big lecture for a minor mistake. Just left us teacher trainees with more sour feelings towards the school, since we had contributed so much and were repaid like that. It wasn't even MY mistake, but to be fair, it could have happened to any one of us. The other trainees who were at fault were just a little more unlucky. But ENOUGH about the school, I'm moving on with life. I love my weekends. I love that I get to laze around and do absolutely nothing for a few hours, and that I don't have to rush to get things done in time for the next day (which pretty much summarizes my life during practicum). I like the freedom of having spare time to watch a movie, or to just get everything done at a leisurely pace (including ironing my clothes for the next week or tidying up my desk). I love being able to wake up AFTER 6, and then sleep some more if I feel like it. It's just...

Tomorrow I'll be entering the 6th week of practicum. Right now the bug of demotivation has hit me and I don't really feel like doing anything but listen to music and blog. Sometimes I wonder if these moments hit me because I've been depriving myself of the simple pleasures of life simply due to my crazy schedule. Like birth cravings, yannoe, the mother's body recognizes a deficiency of some vitamin or something and WANTS IT. Those musings aside, I feel like after I hit the fifth week of practicum, I started getting a handle on my pupils. They know me better now, and I definitely know them better. I'm tougher on them in terms of discipline nowadays, but there is a bond of affection between me and most of them. It's still difficult to motivate them to learn (well, they've been in the last class for some 3 years or so, it's kinda hard to unlearn unhealthy attitudes), but at least now I know what they like doing and I try to let them enjoy themselves even ...

It's the 3rd day back in college, and I'm already having a splitting headache. Well, the headache actually started yesterday. No idea what caused it, but I'm blaming it on the stress and workload. =P I miss my kids. Not a day goes past without my thinking of them. It might be the fault of that great yellow USB fan sitting next to my laptop (a gift from one of them). Teaching is really addictive and you can get so much satisfaction out of it when your kids can spell and understand new words days or weeks after you had taught them. Of course, one can't do much in a month, but kids are really sponges that can soak up new information. The only frustrating thing is that sometimes it's so much easier to just give instructions or translate new vocabulary for them in Bahasa Melayu...that cuts the delivery time in half. But it's not encouraged. I mean, I understand that we want the pupils to be exposed to as much English as possible, and not be conditioned to wait ...

It's FRIDAY phew. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but it's been quite a week. Every day, I get barely enough time to finish everything I need to do and plan for the next day. And get this - I only teach 10 periods a week. If I had to teach 20 periods a week, I don't know where I'd get the time from. And teaching isn't the only thing - a real teacher has to do admin work and paperwork and has multiple roles as Head of Panel or some teacher advisor of co-curricular activities...how about their roles as mother and wife in their own family? No wonder teachers are so burnt out and disillusioned with the heavy workload nowadays.  The first thing to go is usually the lesson plan, I guess. With all their other responsibilities, and the reality of weak students, sometimes lessons just can't afford to be interesting. For example, when a class doesn't understand what you're saying in English, there's bound to be some restless souls who start d...

First week of practicum is over. And I'm raring to go into the second week. I miss my little tots already. Although I know only a grand total of 3 names in the class (and I'm not sure I can actually match them to the correct faces in my head), I can tell that my kids like me and they enjoy my class most of the time. I say "most of the time", because some of the time I'm threatening to deduct marks for noise and moving around, or telling them "3, 2, 1.." whereupon they will say 'ZIP!'. Okay, more like half the time. =P Kids will be kids. I don't mind the noise level, but if it interferes with how much work they are getting done, my objectives won't be met. A cold, silent classroom isn't the kind I want either. Another challenge is dealing with mixed ability students - some always finish the worksheet in a blink of an eye, while others are still struggling to write the first word down. It goes without saying that the ones who h...

So I'm back to college, and I'll be going to school tomorrow. Like primary school 'school'. Yay for practicum? We'll see. On a side note, I'm loving my cute little Xerox P205 b printer. It's just so compact and it even saves ink *falls in love again*. The best part is it only cost RM 185. If you're wondering why I needed a new printer, I don't REALLY need it. It's just that buying toner for my OTHER printer would be even more expensive (RM 250), and that other printer limits my computer to XP. I want to eventually upgrade my com to Windows 7. Or 8. Or whatever. I really love laser printers. They can last forever.