Bismillah, Assalamualaikum 
For the past 2 weeks, I had been quite idle. This is because I had no work given and nothing to really do except planning lessons for 3 Form 1 classes whereby there would be 2 or 3 periods only every day and I didn't know whether I should revel in that condition or otherwise. At the end of the day, I come out grateful because I want to just bask in whatever moment I get regardless whether its -ve or +ve as I should just live for the moment and do my very best at whatever comes
Now that I am teaching 2 Form 3 and 3 Form 5 classes, the pressure has trickled in and I like the challenges I get but spurn the strain from over thinking on THE VERY BEST WAY TO DEAL with these classes as their trials are coming up and I am so freaked out!
Sometimes I think to myself, why am I always putting these extra burden on myself whereas I could just mound all those PMR and SPM past years questions and enjoin for my students to do them and then we could discuss the answers together. But that's just the thing, I can't seem to want to do that because doing too many exercises and drillings would result in my students being bored, memorizing without understanding and lastly, that's just not what English is all about! However, not doing past years questions is also not the way to deal with students in the exam-oriented system. Are you confused? Well, I am
So my solution is to strike a balance. Once a week, the students have to do past years questions especially the Form 3 as PMR Trial Examination is just around the corner and they have to really start to burn the midnight oil in order to just pass and for the students who have a history of passing the English paper will have to strive to get at least a good B or target higher to achieve an A. I learnt that teachers need to be realistic and save those students that has potential whereas set a different target for those students deem not being able to make it through even a low pass.
Striking a balance between exercises and drillings as well as language activities and all those other activities I learnt back in my 6 years of study worked well so far and both I and my students look forward to teaching and learning. So far, I have managed to carry out 3 types of Journal Writing such as Personal Journal Writing (like from the movie, Freedom Writers whereby students get to write whatever they want with no word limit), Dialogue Journals (I gave students 1 question concerning a topic on their novel or the literature that they have learnt and students need to respond and I will give feedbacks once a week for this type of journal, thanks Nani for the idea at practicum!) and Persuasive Journals for the lower achievers as in this case, students should only write 1 sentence a day. So far so good and this is probably due to the fact that I got the 1st 2 classes of Form 5 and the 1st 2 classes of Form 3 so they understood instructions fairly well and they were gamed for the subject although some of them grapple and struggle with English. On the other hand, I did get the last class of Form 5 where there are 20 students but sometimes only 10 students are present in the class! Well, that's fine by me as long as there are some students willing to learn hence I would teach in whatever way I can.
Moreover, I am also doing Readers Theatre with those 4 upper classes and they seem to be very enthusiastic about practicing and performing and I can't wait either. The Form 3 will have to start after trials whereas the Form 5 will be doing so in the month of August. So far so good indeed~
As you can probably sum up, the upper classes are very responsive and I feel fine teaching them. Even if their English is not good but they want to learn and that's what matters the most. Apart from that, their attitudes make me delighted to teach them more and I almost always feel good when teaching them and when they learn from me. Alhamdulillah, it has been such a REZEKI to be teaching like this and at times, I feel like a lecturer because I get to do things that my lecturers did back in my degree studies with the amount of students and also with students' kind of personalities.
As for the last class of Form 5, I had to practically force them to learn, and even to write! Some students still want to sleep and I gave in to that after countless compelling but I do end up feeling frustrated. I had already ask the other teachers and even they said that there is not much they can do to coerce these students to learn as they are already mature (supposedly!) enough to understand what they're in school for. It bewilders me really on what I could do because after a week of coming up with ideal activities for these students, some of em still refuse to participate and learn. I said to myself that I just want to leave them be but sometimes, there's a niggling feeling that I just can't and I try to shove that feeling out! I resorted to reading but there seem to be no remedy for such cases as there is to just keep on trying. I am trying but for how long? and shouldn't I just focus on the students that do want to learn?
I pray hard and pray well that I'm just as good as I'll ever be but in the meantime, I'm not just a teacher but also a student as I am constantly learning on whatever it takes to sprinkle that miracle dust to my students not just for them to pass English but also for them to like the knowledge that I give to them~
Believe it when I say that:
Teachers do care so much and there is so much they can't control.
For the past 2 weeks, I had been quite idle. This is because I had no work given and nothing to really do except planning lessons for 3 Form 1 classes whereby there would be 2 or 3 periods only every day and I didn't know whether I should revel in that condition or otherwise. At the end of the day, I come out grateful because I want to just bask in whatever moment I get regardless whether its -ve or +ve as I should just live for the moment and do my very best at whatever comes
Now that I am teaching 2 Form 3 and 3 Form 5 classes, the pressure has trickled in and I like the challenges I get but spurn the strain from over thinking on THE VERY BEST WAY TO DEAL with these classes as their trials are coming up and I am so freaked out!
Sometimes I think to myself, why am I always putting these extra burden on myself whereas I could just mound all those PMR and SPM past years questions and enjoin for my students to do them and then we could discuss the answers together. But that's just the thing, I can't seem to want to do that because doing too many exercises and drillings would result in my students being bored, memorizing without understanding and lastly, that's just not what English is all about! However, not doing past years questions is also not the way to deal with students in the exam-oriented system. Are you confused? Well, I am
So my solution is to strike a balance. Once a week, the students have to do past years questions especially the Form 3 as PMR Trial Examination is just around the corner and they have to really start to burn the midnight oil in order to just pass and for the students who have a history of passing the English paper will have to strive to get at least a good B or target higher to achieve an A. I learnt that teachers need to be realistic and save those students that has potential whereas set a different target for those students deem not being able to make it through even a low pass.
Striking a balance between exercises and drillings as well as language activities and all those other activities I learnt back in my 6 years of study worked well so far and both I and my students look forward to teaching and learning. So far, I have managed to carry out 3 types of Journal Writing such as Personal Journal Writing (like from the movie, Freedom Writers whereby students get to write whatever they want with no word limit), Dialogue Journals (I gave students 1 question concerning a topic on their novel or the literature that they have learnt and students need to respond and I will give feedbacks once a week for this type of journal, thanks Nani for the idea at practicum!) and Persuasive Journals for the lower achievers as in this case, students should only write 1 sentence a day. So far so good and this is probably due to the fact that I got the 1st 2 classes of Form 5 and the 1st 2 classes of Form 3 so they understood instructions fairly well and they were gamed for the subject although some of them grapple and struggle with English. On the other hand, I did get the last class of Form 5 where there are 20 students but sometimes only 10 students are present in the class! Well, that's fine by me as long as there are some students willing to learn hence I would teach in whatever way I can.
Moreover, I am also doing Readers Theatre with those 4 upper classes and they seem to be very enthusiastic about practicing and performing and I can't wait either. The Form 3 will have to start after trials whereas the Form 5 will be doing so in the month of August. So far so good indeed~
As you can probably sum up, the upper classes are very responsive and I feel fine teaching them. Even if their English is not good but they want to learn and that's what matters the most. Apart from that, their attitudes make me delighted to teach them more and I almost always feel good when teaching them and when they learn from me. Alhamdulillah, it has been such a REZEKI to be teaching like this and at times, I feel like a lecturer because I get to do things that my lecturers did back in my degree studies with the amount of students and also with students' kind of personalities.
As for the last class of Form 5, I had to practically force them to learn, and even to write! Some students still want to sleep and I gave in to that after countless compelling but I do end up feeling frustrated. I had already ask the other teachers and even they said that there is not much they can do to coerce these students to learn as they are already mature (supposedly!) enough to understand what they're in school for. It bewilders me really on what I could do because after a week of coming up with ideal activities for these students, some of em still refuse to participate and learn. I said to myself that I just want to leave them be but sometimes, there's a niggling feeling that I just can't and I try to shove that feeling out! I resorted to reading but there seem to be no remedy for such cases as there is to just keep on trying. I am trying but for how long? and shouldn't I just focus on the students that do want to learn?
I pray hard and pray well that I'm just as good as I'll ever be but in the meantime, I'm not just a teacher but also a student as I am constantly learning on whatever it takes to sprinkle that miracle dust to my students not just for them to pass English but also for them to like the knowledge that I give to them~
Believe it when I say that:
Teachers do care so much and there is so much they can't control.
