I was only assigned 1 EL class to teach during TP and I don’t know if it was a good or a bad thing that I had been assigned a banded class consisting of 3E1 and 3E2 – the 2 supposedly top classes in the Sec 3 Express cohort. On the whole, it meant that the pupils were better behaved and I did not have to deal with too many disciplinary problems but that having been said, I found that the students were too placid in class because they were simply uninterested in English classes. To be more specific, I think it was more to do with the fact that they did not like the way that English was ‘normally’ taught in schools – that which goes along the “CompoCompreCompoCompre” lines.
At my TP school, I had to follow a rather tight scheme of work and as my English periods were always scheduled for the periods right after recess, I never ever had the full 1 hour to carry out my lesson, which greatly limited my efforts to plan for and incorporate and “fun” activities to bait the students into not looking like they were attending the obligatory church service every Sunday.

I did however, have at least one success story. When we were done rushing through the syllabus, I had to prepare the students for the coming mid-year examinations and I decided to revise the skills of summary writing with them.
I did it in the form of a game. Basically, the students had to pair themselves up as A and B, and A would recount an interesting incident which happened to them. They were to make the recount as detailed as possible. B would listen and take note (mentally, not on paper). At the end of it, all the Bs would have to find another A (that is, someone who was not their partner. To facilitate movement, the Bs in each pair simply traded places with their next nearest pair of neighbours sitting next to them.) and retell the incident to their new partner as if they were they one who experienced the interesting incident.
1) They were to only pick out the main highlights of the incident and were also encouraged to
2) recount the incident in their own words.

The kids all had great fun during this activity and more importantly, I got them to realise and put into practice the skills and strategies of effective summary writing.
I thought that it was successful because
1: It was something new and unexpected for them and
2: It was heavily learner centred.

I find that it always helps to involve the students’ personal lives in their lessons. Of course, a lesson must not only be just fun and no learning point. At the end of the activity, I asked the students for their feedback and some of the Bs answered that they found it troublesome to have to remember the main highlights in the first recount they heard. I told them that it was precisely this skill they have to master to write a good summary and I saw more than a few faces light up in understanding. Too often, teachers just tell students, “pick out the main points, THE MAIN POINTS.” And the students would have no clue as to what constitutes a “main point”. I thought that through this game, the students came to understand how to distinguish between the important details and what they can leave out that will still make the recount understandable.

I guess one approach to garnering student interest and to facilitate understanding would be to make the activities actually relevant to the students, as well as to make them understand exactly how the activity would help them to develop skills which they can apply. With my students, I find that the attitude towards learning is always vastly more positive if they know that there is a practical reason for doing that they are doing in class. That being said, this bunch of kids ARE the supposedly best in the Sec 3 cohort and I do not as of yet, know if the same approach can be used with an NA class.


Sheena