Reflection

Dear All

I was posted to Yuhua Secondary in mid-Sep last year. This is a neighbourhood school where the kids usually do not speak English at home. Even, if they speak English, many are still not proficient in speaking and writing standard good English. The school is very old and does not have very good infrastructure. The library is very small and only a small number of students actually make use of the library resources for their own learning.

Last year, I had opportunities to observe English lessons. However, as it was during term 4 , the teachers were all going through examination papers and common tests. So I had no opportunities to observe how the English teachers actually taught their students.

Then, at the start of this year, I was assigned a 3NA class to teach. In the beginning, I faced difficulties in classroom management, conducting the English lessons and meeting the expectations of the English department in my school. Fortunately, I had two teachers who were in-charge of the other two 3NA classes. I worked together with them and the three of us actually shared resources among ourselves. From time to time, the three of us met and planned our lessons. In that way, we were able to save a lot of time and I definitely learned a lot from my peers.

Then, recently, I had opportunities to observe a few English lessons because of the hand-over of my class to another teacher. I particularly liked one of his lessons and wish to share with all of you. There was a news report some time back in which an ex-police officer boarded a tour bus in the Philippines and took hostage of 25 passengers. The hostage-taker was Rolando Mendoza who had hijacked the tour bus to get his job back.

The teacher actually showed videos of the hostage incident to the students and tried to get the students to critically question whether the Philippine police had actually done their best to rescue those who were held hostage. The students actually showed a lot of enthusiasm during the group

discussions and the lesson served as a hook to get the class to pay attention. The pupils also learnt the skills of writing an information report.

However, in my opinion, I feel that the teachers have problems getting the students to pay attention to all of their lessons. I have heard many students complaining that English lessons are

boring. As such, I am keen to know how lessons can be carried out to capture the attention of pupils. Besides, nowadays, we have foreign students in our classes and learning how to handle a diverse group of students is no doubt, a real challenge for teachers.

Warm regards

Ramya