During my teaching stint and ESE, I have a chance to interact with NT students. Through these interactions, I realized that the main issue with NT students lies with their short attention span. Initial attempts to teach were met with setbacks as students were not able to focus and tend to fall asleep. As such, I have deployed certain techniques revolving around the SOW as well as some additional plans for the class.
Firstly, I attempted to bridge class management together with the English language. I made it a point that students who violated my ground rules were asked to write at least one paragraph with reference to why she violated the rule. While one paragraph is not a lot, it serves as a start for students to write and in doing so I am able to determine the standard of the students. As such, the I believe that the ability to bridge class management together with the English Language would be of benefit to the students.
I noticed that during initial class assignments, the students have the tendency to write down their answers in a haphazard manner if they do not understand the passage. In addition, the students tend to lose interest in their work over a period of time if the work handed to them is in a repetitive manner. As such, I decided to marry the concept of role-playing with assignments as well as to teach students how to look for contextual clues in order to help them check their own answers. An example of a lesson the I did was to use a menu of an actual restaurant as an assignment. Students assumed the roles of beginning waitresses and would need to have proficient knowledge of the menu in order to answer questions in the worksheet. I taught the concept of looking for contextual clues and all students were armed with a highlighter to help them spot the clues. The particular menu was used because certain culinary and gourmet terms were not commonly seen and students were unaware of their meanings. In order to complete their assignment, students need to depend on the contextual clues in the menu and the worksheet. I realized that the class was more engaged and focused in their work. Students attempt to look for contextual clues when they do not know the answers instead of writing down an answer haphazardly.
An initiative that I implemented with permission from the HOD was the use of Information Technology and blogging. I went through a short tutorial teaching the students how to create their own websites using an online blogging platform called Weebly. The students were each given a specific web address for tracking purposes. The online blogging system allows students to pen down their thoughts. A new theme is given every week, pertaining to assignments the students have done. In the case of the food menu from the above paragraph, the students were tasked to do a short write up on their respective websites regarding their favorite food and how they would promote it from a waitress’s point of view.
Link to the Main website - http://stc2010ong.weebly.com/
However, due to the school’s extensive involvement in the YOG’s closing ceremony, the online blogging assignment took a hiatus for 3 weeks before it resumed. I however did observed issues regarding this online assignment. Certain students tend to practice plagiarism and attempt to copy and paste resources from websites. As the students were tasked to do these assignments out of class, there are possibilities that the students are not the actual writers behind the blogs as seen evidently from their use of language during and out of lessons. I feel that the platform of blogging has the potential to help students gain interest in the subject and also cultivate the healthy habit of penning down their thoughts. However, I also feel that as a pilot project, there are many aspects that need to be improved.
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