Reflections

I was posted to Montfort Secondary School for my ESE and had the opportunity to continuously observe the same Secondary Two Express English class for all of the nine weeks, which I regard as fortunate as it allowed me to not only familiarize myself with the students, but also to develop some sort of bond with them. Eventually, the class turned out to be the group of students that I grew closest to at the end of the 9-week ESE.

In addition, I was given the chance to conduct a lesson on writing expositions with an animal theme. The title that was eventually chosen by my CT and I was “Man is a danger to sharks. Do you agree?”. My CT allowed me almost complete freedom in designing the lesson plan as well as conducting the actual lesson itself. The class, which had a reputation for being boisterous, was extremely cooperative and focused when the subject content was being introduced via PowerPoint slide presentations, YouTube videos as well as a few pages of handouts which I obtained from a library book on sharks.

My optimism however received a reality check when the students were required to submit their essay outlines. Most of the submitted work was quite simply, atrocious. This was again shown when they submitted their essays which were based on their lacklustre essay outlines. Only five out of the 39 students passed when the essays were finally marked.

This exercise made me aware all too painfully of the poor standard of English in that particular class, and the school in general. It dawned on me that the responsibility of the English teacher comprises not only in educating the students in terms of grammar but also the need to expose them to general knowledge to beef up the content that they would need for their essays.

I must admit though, that because the school was in a holding location (due to the original grounds undergoing renovation and upgrading) it probably affected their ability to pay attention. The classes were small and the buildings old and not as modern and conducive to learning as their classes in the original school building. The profiles of the students also contributed to the learning environment of the class. Since the school was a mission school, one of the school’s principles was to take in students with learning disorders or the fact that the school was willing to continue providing an education to students who may display frequent tendencies of misbehavior. As a result, lessons, especially English lessons, tend to be easily disrupted and as a result, the teachers had to consistently work hard, and fast, to ensure their English classes were not left behind with regards to the planned syllabus for that level.

At NIE, I hope to learn as much as I can with regards to the technical knowledge needed to teach the language like grammar and vocabulary. This can be useful not only when I am teaching the students the content of the lesson but it would also instill in them respect for the teacher if I am able to answer most of their questions easily, if the knowledge were to be at my fingertips. Finally, I would also like to learn a lot of class management techniques because I think it would be very much needed in English class which may have the tendency to spiral into a boring lesson particularly when the teacher needs to teach grammar to secondary school students.