Term 1 Week 4

This week is a short week due to CNY. Thank God for holidays such as these! But after this CNY hols, it’s gonna be a holiday draught until the March break. *sob sob*

I’ve been talking much about my Music lessons and have been leaving my English lessons out of the picture. Think I should start the ball rolling…

My EL class is 1N2. Until now I do not know all their names even though I see them almost everyday.

Currently the class is seated in groups and thus not all of them are facing the front all the time. This gets very irritating when you are teaching as you have no idea what they are doing. It’s worse for those whose backs are facing you. These people just don’t have the decency to turn their chairs to face the front. They have to be constantly told and reminded and rereminded again and again. It’s really exasperating I would say.  I think this arrangement is only ideal for group work sessions, definitely not all the time, and especially not when you are teaching (i.e. chalk-and-talk). I do not understand how some teachers can do that. I have yet to find anyone who can give me a logical explanation to this problem.  I am tempted to get them to move back to pairs during my lessons but am afraid this would waste time and generate unconstructive noise.

As such, I find that what I have been teaching for the past 4 weeks have been rather ineffective. Speaking objectively, I think the lessons I have prepared on Writing Effective Introductions for Narratives have been good so far. In terms of content,  resources and activities, they would be effective meeting the targetted result. The only issue now is the conducting of actual lessons. Sad to say, I can only say that only some of them have benefited fully from these.

Thus, I gave individual piece of work after a series of group work activities, to assess the learning. (AFL…jackpot!) I would say I was pleasantly surprised that most were able to write pretty good introductions. Apart from the widespread of grammatical errors, students were generally able to apply the various writing techniques taught. Now my only wish is for them to retain what has been taught, especially for the exams. The sickening thing about teaching language is that retention rate is often very low.

SO, the big question mark still remains – How should I deal with the sitting arrangement? It irks me to the core..

Term 1 Week 3

I have started lessons officially this week. Got into the flow of lessons and all that humdrum.

This week at the Sec 1’s GM lesson, I introduced the song ”When You Believe” (from movie “Prince of Egypt”) as the song they will be learning to play on the xylophone and eventually on the piano. What amazed me was when I started to play the simple tune on the piano, these students wowed with eyes wide-open and a few mouths gasping. I’m not being modest here but the melody I played was really a simple one; not even both hands; just the right hand. Some more spontaneous classes even clapped after I finished playing the tune.

I knew these responses were not to patronise me; they were from the hearts of very green young people. I’m really not sure why there was such a response but the only reason I can think of is that they are so lack of exposure to music or even the arts, and this can explain why any simple performace can sweep them off their feet.

I can only imagine if the same demonstration was done on the piano by me in another reputable school where young brats are driven by their chauffeurs in one of the many 7-series cars at home, I would not only get silence at the end, but perhaps be repaid by blank faces that say nothing more than “I can do better than you”.  

It is therefore my resolve and my duty as a music teacher (in a neighbourhood school) to give them as much exposure to various types of music as possible. Instead of just sticking to the limited list of songs in the original sow, I would need to start thinking about getting the students to listen and learn more types of songs. The only limitation and probably will always be is their lack of background and foundation in music. It’s strange music education begins in primary schools but till now in secondary schools, many students still cannot read music. Well that would be another bigger issue about theys syllabus and exams and stuff which opens up another can of worms.

As for now, I will be looking out for more possible songs which I think students will be able to learn to play. Hope this will open up more windows for them into the incredible world of music.

Testing…

This is a test blog. Tried blogging many years ago but didn’t sustain. This time I don’t have much of a choice but to make sure I keep this going. Cos it’s for WORK!! Hahaa… Well, I’m suppose to be a good teacher and do my reflection here. So this is a start!

Feels good to be back at work, and yes in school again.  Besides dreading the deadly alarm at 5.30am, I enjoy returning to the classroom, or rather the music room. It reminds me of my reason for teaching – to empower students to further their pursuits in music. (sounds cheesy I know. My hair stood too!) I feel very strongly about this as many young people do not have the means to be able to do so. Education in music is one of the way I guess, paves the way for them to further their interests in music. I’m so glad S’pore is doing much to support people who are not interested in the “Math & Sciences”. The opening of YST Conservatory and recently the Arts School. How I wish I had more options when I was a student.

Anyway, back to work reflection, it’s been almost 2 weeks of school. Started my Sec 3 O Level Music class 2 weeks back. For the first time, I have such a big class that I actually had a class list with index nos. OMG! There were about 20 pupils from all over, including our own. On on hand there will be more admin stuff to be done especially after the exams and even coordinating a common exam date. But I’m excited to be able to try out more strategies in the classroom with such a number. In the past it was never more than 15, often below 10 in fact. Having such a small class does limit certain group activities, peer support and coaching. As a result I often stick to the chalk-and-talk method which I know was plain torture to the pupils. Can you imagine for 3hrs? I can’t. I think 20 is a very ideal class size for many activities. Not too big or small. I’m making the extra effort to modify my lessons so that I can tap on the class dynamics for more effective learning. For eg. when I was teaching the concept of “polyphony”, having a size of 20 allowed me to have a S-A-B vocal ensemble where students could sing and hear for themselves the layers of music. This was rather difficult when I had less than 10 people.

Also after the AFL first session of training, I learnt several things. 1 thing that I remember very well was that students do have prior knowledge that we often do not tap into. Having more students in the class means there’s MORE prior knowledge to be shared and thus LESS to teach. Woohoo!!! I’m going to try this out when I teach the Orchestra next week. Will update and see how things go. *Fingers crossed*