Last Friday I went to Ngee Ann Sec. to finish my Give Program. It is very interesting and meaningful. Considering the long distance between River Valley High School Hostel and Ngee Ann Sec. , I got up at 7:00 am to catch the MRT, however I still arrived there a bit of late. After a short period of talking about the lesson we would to teach, we finally went into a classroom and had a meet with our students who were all about 12 years old. Our tasks were listening and pointing out the mistakes they made during the talk with us. The talk was based on some pictures. We needed to encourage the students to describe the pictures to us. Of course they should use Chinese. I am so proud that I can be a Chinese teacher there.
There were some difficults in the teaching process. The first problem encountered was how to let my students understand me. They were good at English but obviously not so good at Chinese. Some students always asked their classmates about what I was saying in English. So I tried my best to use very easy words to express myself. The second problem was that I need to find some topics. as we can see, I can not sit there and just say 'ok! please explain this picture to me.' I must find some topics. The handbook which was given to us before really helped me a lot. The handbook told me some basic aspects for questioning my students. Besides I also found that treating every students equally was not easy to achieve. Because there were some very quiet and shy students in my group, they did not like to talk about the topics. I must always ask them some questions. In summary, I found some difficults in teaching these students but I also found some pleasure in that period.
I can not wait for my next lesson in Ngee Ann Sec. Hoping that what I have done can really help those students. They are really very clever and lovely students.
My teaching doesn't go on as smoothly as yours. I met with primary school students, and they just crossed threshold of grade 2! Seldom did they know about Chinese! Learning Chinese is quite hard for them, because many of them are overseas students, which means Chinese is their THIRD language! I struggled a lot to teach a little girl to accomplish her homework, which was writing 5 sentences in Chinese to decribe a picture. So difficult it was for her that I spent half an hour to help her. Well, this task is rather challenging, but I like it. I can cope with young students, during which I rejuvenate myself. Next time I would try harder to help students, and to promote our culture to them.
ReplyDeleteZhaoxian, I also teach in a second school, named Bedox North Sec. Sch. . Last Friday, together with Yu Dong, I got up at roughly 6am. Then I bought some sitr-fry rice, and ate it while skelping towards Jurongpoint. It took us some 1.5 hr to arrive at the school. However, we didn't meet the students,due to that the people responsible for this program were sick at home. And we just waited there for about 2hr.
ReplyDeleteWe taught the same subject with you. Through your blog, I get a rough idea about Singapore students and obtain some experience in how to handle them. Though it may sound a little chanllenging and tiresome to teach them, I am sure we will get enormous pleasure out of it. Like you, I also very look forward to my next lesson!
I'm glad you realise it is challenging to be a teacher. I face the same problem with your class: some of you are quite and some more outspoken. This is only natural. We'll try to draw out the silent ones and encourage them to speak in class. Don't take your teaching so seriously, especially with the primary school pupils. Make the lessons fun and play some oral games with them. They'll appreciate more.
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