Entry 1 Week 1: 14-18/2/2011

Reflective Journal

19/2/2011

The first week served as a great buffer of sorts before truly starting to observe and teach classes, the reason being that the school, Kwun Tong Kung Lok Government Secondary School, had its Sports Day Heats and Finals on Monday and Tuesday respectively, followed by a school holiday on Wednesday. Thursday would see a normal school day, with Friday being a teacher development day. Despite only having one normal school day, it was a meaningful week in that I was able to get a feel of what teaching in the school might be like. During the first two days I served as a helper at the high jump area. Through this experience, I was able to see how teachers, as well as the principal, communicated with their students. I could see the friendliness the principal and the teachers displayed, but I could also see how they commanded respect from the students. It seemed that many of the students enjoyed being around the principal and the teachers as well. I also had an opportunity to talk with many teachers during these couple of days. It occurred to me that whenever I mentioned the two classes that I was going to teach, 3A and 4C, the teacher(s) I was talking to would look surprised for a moment, and then tell me that teaching 4C would be a great challenge. I didnt want to make any assumptions before I even start observing, so I merely took note of what they said. However, an experienced teacher who has been teaching underprivileged children as well as students in band 3 schools such as this one for years made a very deep impression. He told me that almost all the students of 4C gave up learning English as early as when they were in form one. Therefore, their level of English has deteriorated to the point that they may know less than or as much as primary-level students. Trying to keep up with the school curriculum has got them seriously confused about many of the concepts and features of the English language because everything goes on too quickly for them. As a result they become unmotivated because there is no sense of achievement derived from learning. He said that, at this point, it is highly likely that they may not even know the basic forms of the different tenses. From his point of view, to which I agree, it is of great importance to allow the students to believe that they can succeed in doing something and that it is very possible to learn and grasp the English language. To do this, he believes that teachers should first help them to learn the forms of the different tenses so that they can identify the forms. The functions can wait until after they are clear about the forms. That way, being able to identify and write the forms out will allow the students to believe that they have achieved something concrete, in turn helping them become more motivated. This provoked much thought. In an age where schools have to abide by policies set by people who seemingly dont know what these students truly need, do these students have no choice but to simply get by without actually doing any learning? When teachers are so constrained by what is asked of them by the government, the school, and parents who believe they know what is best for their children, do they have the freedom to exercise their discretion and do what they believe they should to help students learn what they can? Also, when curricula are often so dependent on textbooks which are published by parties which aim solely at generating revenue, what can teachers to help students under the circumstance that both parents and the school request the use of these textbooks?

Entry 1

Reflective Journal

19/2/2011

In the lone normal school day this week, I had a chance to substitute in for two teachers in two different classes, 3A and 3C. Speaking to the former in English didnt prove too much of a problem as they were probably able to get the gist what I said. However, boys being boys, they were quite noisy. This told me that I still had much to learn and do in the way of keeping them attentive and earning their respect. 3C was a different story though. Even though I didnt need to teach the class in the teaching practicum, I still wanted to speak English in order to maintain my identity as an English teacher. The moment I stepped into the classroom, rowdy behavior ensued as the boys knew that the original teacher of that period was absent. Asking them to listen in English proved to be a complete failure since they couldnt understand 80% of what I had to say. This forced me to speak Cantonese in an attempt to maintain order. This experience again had me thinking. I had always been told that English lessons should always be conducted in English or else it would be meaningless. However, faced with students who can barely understand the language, how effective would an all-English instruction be? How interested can I get them to be? How much can they get from the lesson? Under such a circumstance, will the use of Cantonese be warranted? I hope I can figure everything out soon.