Miss Bah-Chang’s experience.... (this was what the kids at FTPSS called me)

first of all, apologies to Miss Chan that this is late, and thanks for the extension….am still marking exam scripts which I am giving back to the school tomorrow...and I know that I’m not alone here…(I mark at the rate of a snail...argh)

Workload:

16 periods a week (it was originally 20 periods until there was a timetable change)

Classes:

2 Sec 3 Express classes (core lit: Midsummer Night’s Dream, Mockingbird, Unseen)
(elective lit: Mockingbird, Unseen)
1 Sec 2 NA class (English)

STs are expected to participate or “help out” in MANY school activities, and depending on the department which organises the school event, teachers from that department are expected to contribute more in terms of organisation, planning and the carrying out of the duties, etc. Because of the NUMEROUS school activities in Term 1 and 2 (many of which took place on Saturday), many teachers lost quite a bit of teaching time and were forced to either rush their teaching or make students stay back after school (which I had to do, much to the students’ reluctance).

General experience

In general, I think I probably have the least to complain about (judging from preliminary gossip sessions with some friends), not just about CTs, workload, students, other teachers and the school, etc…

There were 5 NIE trainees, and 4 of us were seated in the upstairs staffroom away from the bulk of our CTs…In hindsight, I guess I made the correct political move to request to shift to the lower staffroom if there was space, because that way I got to know not just my main CT better, but also the other teachers in my department, and it REALLY helped that I got to learn a bit from everyone (even teachers from the other departments), and when I needed help for small things I could ask anyone who was available if my CT wasn’t around.

I remembered Ms Chan’s words about us being the smallest fry in the entire school so I did my best to be humble and cute and smile at everyone (from the canteen aunties, cleaning aunties, admin staff etc) so hopefully if I offended anyone they won’t be upset with me…especially since the NIE trainees sponsored curry puffs for everyone…*grin*

No complaints about the upper management at my school in general—the P, VP, SCM and (some) senior teachers have been pretty warm and motherly so far…the P likes to put her arm around people and calls everyone “dear”, which unnerves me a little, since I don’t know how to behave towards her—Polite? Friendly? Keep an emotional distance? How do you treat your boss man? One of the VPs is the DM, and I’m rather afraid of her but so far from my observations, I can foresee that I might either 1) need her help with disciplining the kids next time, or 2) argue with her over some of her discipline methods with the kids, so we’ll see what happens…I’ve been warned of politics by some of the older staff, so we’ll see if I get promoted after 3 years or remain at the bottommost rung while everyone around me moves upwards…*wry look*

In general both CTs admitted they don’t really follow the SOW, and for English what my CT would usually do was to decide what she wanted the class to cover that week, and then I’d just teach it that week over 3 lessons. I taught film review (for the kids’ entertainment), summary writing (for the CA), report writing and oral (for the exams) during TP, and I don’t think the kids saw the linkage between all these lessons because they were not linked by theme or text type or language skill or whatever…For them English meant the teacher walking in, telling them what she was covering today, and then they had to sit through and finish whatever assignment she gave them, and that was it. They had no interest and didn’t think they would learn anything really useful or fun in English, and that was that.

The EL teachers admitted that they didn’t really have the culture of sharing resources (which was really odd, since most of them were on good terms), and so most English teachers have to come up with their own materials to teach whatever they needed to teach. You can imagine the varieties of teaching standards the school had then…I was forced to adapt stuff from assessment books because the textbooks were useless (I finally got the Popular card! 10% discount! haha..) and then try to pitch my lesson at the correct level.

To be honest, I don’t think I did a good job teaching this class English, firstly because of their attitude towards English, and secondly because of the wide gap between the different learners which made it extremely difficult to pitch my lesson. Their language abilities are generally low, but even so, there are still students which complete some of my grammar and vocab worksheets really quickly and are bored stiff while the rest struggle with the work.

My earlier lessons with them were teacher talk, like when I did summary writing with them, I tried to make my powerpoints more interesting by adding pictures, and breaking it up into small paragraphs and getting students to read, but after my 4^th week the class was begging me to do more “fun” stuff. Up till the 6^th week, I had refrained from group work because I felt it was impossible to conduct group work in their classroom because of the space constraints and noise levels. It’s hazardous having 44 hyperactive sec 2 NA students do group work in classrooms built in the 1980s for 30-odd students, with their things all over the place, and their noise levels can escalate to potentially dangerous levels. There are times when I find myself yelling at them to shut up, and then I usually stand at the front, fold my arms and wait for silence while some of the “cool” girls yell at their classmates “Quiet!” and “Listen to the teacher la!” The students also have their fair share of family and school issues to deal with—bullying, ostracising, family breakups, financial difficulties, etc—and the hate between the cliques is really intense and stupid, so asking students to cooperate with their “enemies” can be a headache if I get the group dynamics wrong.

I changed my approach a little when I taught report writing and oral practice, and incorporated some class games and group work into my lessons. The students enjoyed the games (especially the kinaesthetic ones), but again, I’m not too sure what they took away from these lessons, especially when I tested them for oral and some of them didn’t even seem to have comprehended anything! This is especially scary when you factor in how I taught picture description and reading for 2 entire weeks—6 lessons!

I could go on about this and my insecurities forever, and later move onto my Lit CT and what I learnt from her, but I think I’ll just focus on my English lessons and reiterate the point I made in class, which is that I found myself teaching the students about behaviour and morals more than I actually taught English (maybe it’s my auntie side coming out). For this class, it was ALWAYS classroom management, and despite all the problems I had with this class, it’s the class that I care for and worry about the most. They’re absolute monkeys, and get into a million scrapes with the other teachers, their parents and with me, but I do enjoy their liveliness in class and they do have times when they make me laugh. Some of them entertain me outside of class, and I know of a few who try very hard but don’t see their efforts translate into good grades / acceptance from some of the (prejudiced older) teachers. I doubt I’ll have the chance to teach them again when I return to the school, but I’ll work on actually making English fun AND useful for them. Will let you all know if I succeed. :)