Reflect
on your teaching practicum so far: What have you learned from your experience
during TP? What kinds of challenges do you foresee as you develop as a
Literature teacher in your specific school context?
After 6 weeks of practicum,
I have learnt the importance of adaptability. I teach 3 different secondary 2
classes. These classes are extremely different from one another not only in
terms of academic grades but also the 'class personality'. As such, when i
enter each class, it is a whole different ball game. During the first few weeks
of practicum, I would always stick to my single lesson plan in all 3 classes no
matter what. However, now I've learnt that these 3 classes do not learn the
same way at all. For the highest-ability class, I am able to have more student-centric
learning through group work and independent construction. However, in the lower
ability class with extremely rowdy students, the best strategy which works best
is to have teacher-directed lessons where the students copy notes as I go
through the content of the lesson. It sounds dull and I would love to have more
group work with this class, however, the profile of the students simply does
not allow me to do so. Now, I've learnt to adjust and adapt my lesson plan to
match the needs of each class. I think a lesson plan is only 30 % of the work
done, the rest is about finding what is effective in that class at that very
moment.
Challenge #1:
In my school, there is no upper secondary
literature offered. Therefore, students do not really see the point in studying
literature. They would prefer to focus on more 'important' subjects such as
math and science instead. With this attitude, students would place any literature
assignments/homework as the least important and it is a big challenge to get these students to
complete tasks. Even getting students to read the literature text is a huge
problem. Right now, I am covering short stories with the students and in order
to make sure they read the short stories, I have to give the classes 'silent
reading' time. Imagine what would happen if they are required to study an
entire novel in the future. Some students do not even see the point of buying
the literature text and it's the end of term 2 already.....
Challenge #2:
Each class has two
40-minute literature periods per week. It is difficult to cover all the content
while at the same time making lessons interesting with just 80 minutes of
lesson time. A collaborative activity like role-playing would already require
about 3-4 periods because students have to plan, write their scripts, practise
and then perform. There is simply no time for such activities because there is
the prioritised need of feeding students all the content before the
examinations.
I think these issues stem from the root problem of the school not valuing literature as a subject. If the school does not value a subject, how can we expect our students to?
Hi Geraldine, good point about adaptability and how knowing your class is an important aspect of teaching. Hopefully, when you have a chance to plan for the entire year, you will be able to plan for the more ambitious assessments. It is usually easier to plan for one big assessment when you think about it as one per semester. Allows you to run the routine on a daily basis and break the routine with an assessment that is more interesting and allows for deeper learning.
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