Shalini's Reflection #5

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?

One big learning point I take away from my practicum is to never underestimate the students.

I have a whole spectrum of students, ranging from the well-behaved best secondary 2 express class to the really rowdy and take 20-minutes-to-settle-down Normal Academic class. The other two in between classes, 1 express and 1 normal academic, provide a smooth transition between these two classes. Initially, I was extremely afraid to step away from the teacher-centred classroom and from the kind of environment where I encourage students’ participation, but keeping it within the perimeters I had set. However, my CT encouraged me to move away from this despite my hesitations. So naturally, I started with the Express classes. I was really afraid that students will not participate or will not provide the right answers or will be unable to comprehend the task. However, when I conducted a debate on Romeo & Juliet, to my amazement, the students were really enthusiastic and were very eager to look at their text, find for evidence and even counter argue their peers points. I even saw students debating points within their groups. This was very encouraging as I did not expect such a vibrant debate. For the first time, I heard students moan when the bell rang to signal the end of the period! Additionally, this seemed to resonate with  the readings I had read in NIE of allowing students to take learning into their own hands and really immerse themselves into the text. What I initially thought students would not be able to do, they did beyond my expectations.

But the real realization that students should not be underestimated came from my Normal Academic Classes. When I did a tableaux activity with them, I was so afraid the students, with their complete disinterest in group work and any activity, their HATRED for literature and discipline issues, would not understand what to do, how to analyse the story or would simply not participate in the activity, resulting in the failure of the task and one big, chaotic mess! However, once again, with my CT’s encouragement (Or rather this time round she forced me into it as she insisted on observing me in the least well behaved NA class as they do this task), I embarked on it with fear. But once again, I learnt the students were capable of so much more.  Minus a few students who were really disinterested, the rest of the class seemed to take the activity seriously and really do the task. It was heart-warming to see the same group of students who had told me that they hate group work and their class cannot do group work; ask so many questions about the text and really do the task. Thus, I learnt this very valuable lesson to never judge or put a limit to what students are capable of and deny students the full learning experience based on our perceptions of their shortcomings. If my CT had not encouraged me to do it with the NA class, I would have simply gone to class and lectured them (as I had been doing) and they would have lost out on experiencing the text at a deeper level. Of course, it took quite a bit of effort to plan and more so, to discipline the kids. But herein lays the challenge.

Finally, another possible challenge I would face is differentiating the teaching of literature for the Express and NA classes. Currently, I have to cover the same content for both streams. Initially, I used the same materials for both streams. However, it is evident that the NA kids learn things at a slightly slower pace, on top of discipline issues, and so I found myself having to tweak the lessons for them. Also, across the 4 classes, I find that the students have very different learning styles. Even within the express classes, differentiation is needed. For example, the 2E1 students   were very engaged in whole class discussions whereas the 2E2 students refused to participate in whole class discussions and looked like they were going to die out of boredom. However, whenever I did group activities, they were engaged and focused on the task, even asking questions to clarify their understanding. Thus, I learnt that it is extremely crucial to know your class profile and to conduct activities that are appropriate to their learning style. This, I feel, will be the challenge we face as beginning teachers who are pressed for time and who will already have so much on our plates.