Facebook wins!

It's been 2 months since my last post and I was just reminded of this when someone asked me about my blog. No, I have not been sick or lazy. I have been working hard, too hard maybe, and I have also started a Facebook page for Learning Ventures. Since then, I've been busy posting stuff there and honestly, I found the instant feedback more gratifying than what I've been receiving on this blog. I must confess that there have been days when I considered giving up on the blog because I have felt like I was writing for myself and no one else. But every time I was the verge of throwing in the towel, someone writes to me and I am persuaded to carry on again.

I must also admit that having formed my little writing group a couple of months back, I have been busy writing my own personal stories which I store in a separate blog. That too has kept me busy and I have also volunteered to manage a Facebook page for my association, thus quadrupling my time on Facebook. So will I keep this blog?

I may. I will hold on to it for a while and see if I find the energy to write for it again. I still enjoy writing although more and more, I find that I prefer to write my own stuff if I have any spare time. Still, I won't give up yet.

In the meantime, I want to invite you to look for my Learning Ventures page on Facebook and like my page. You will find many interesting posts just for teachers.

And may I take this opportunity ( I am reminded time and again that today is 12.12.12) to wish one and  all a very restful holiday and a wonderful Christmas. Thank you for your support all these years from my newsletter to my blog and I hope to see you on Facebook soon!

Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP) Young Writers Camp 2012

Michelle working with a young writer

Sharing your writing with a peer

            

 
                 Author's Chair

Information about the BAWP Young Writers camp can be found here. Early bird registration ends on 15 October.

After the success of the first BAWP Young Writers’ Camp in 2011, I am thrilled to welcome back Michelle Hackel and Marna Blanchard to conduct our second BAWP camp from November 28- Dec 1^st.  As usual, I will be there to work with the students as will the trainers from the Adam Khoo Learning Centre, who will be hosting this event at RELC.

Writing is something that I am growing more and more passionate about and it all began with helping teachers to teach writing.  I did of course do a lot of academic writing in my past life but that was a different type of writing. Then I started writing my newsletter and later my blog and this made writing somewhat of a routine for me.  But still, I won’t say I write regularly until my experience working with Michelle and Marna at the BAWP camp last year.

At our camp, every student has to do free writing for 10 minutes every day and as a rule, all the instructors wrote with the students. I also wrote when a writing task was set and all that intensive writing made me want to write more long after the camp was over.  So I continued writing on my own and took to keeping a writing journal in addition to keeping up with writing my blog.

A few months ago, I began a small writing group with some friends and we get together once a fortnight or so to write and to share our writing.  I finally was able to get started on writing all the childhood stories that I wanted to share with the younger members of my family.

I find that writing on a regular basis gives me more insight into the act of composing and it helps me be a better teacher of writing too. But this post is not about my own writing. It’s more about those students who came to our camp and what they wrote. After the camp, I wrote about some of the camp experiences, our teaching techniques, and you can read about them here.

But I did not get around to sharing some of the writing with you. Some of the pieces of fiction that the students wrote were very long but they also wrote poetry. In fact, it’s the poetry that really impressed me.

The students were given a copy of Where I’m from by George Ella Lyon as a mentor text and they were then told to wrote a parallel poem. Here are some samples of their writing. In all cases, students were given some help initially with brainstorming ideas but they wrote the entire poem by themselves. The instructors helped with some editing.

Read these poems and remember that these are all primary school students, not quite 12 years old, and marvel at their insight into their own lives and their beautiful choice of words and images. Good writing can be taught; good writers can be nurtured.

 I Am From                 

By Angela

I am from Nancy Drew book number two,

Hardy Boys,

Serious of Unfortunate Events.

I am from the diary in my room,

From smooth edges,

Thin pages,

A purple “This is MY diary NOT yours” cover.

I am from the fresh water and saltwater fish tanks in the living room.

From one puffer fish,

Two pregnant fish,

Three clownfish!

I am from Belinda,

Taking care of three babies each day,

From Joyce, Joshua, and Joel.

I’m from Geok Choo,

Telling me every day,

“A home is where your family must take you in.”

I’m from Fried Kway Teow,

Fishcakes,

Red, small shrimp.

I’m from abalone,

Yellow noodles,

Cai sim.

I’m from the secret room I found,

No one knows where it is

Neither do you.

It’s small,

Only a dwarf could fit inside.

I keep my Angry Bird toys,

Photos of my past,

Books I like to read inside.

From the attic,

The basement,

Where boxes hold the

Faces of whom

I dream.

I am from a map

To show you where you are,

So you will never be lost in your family tree.

I am from Poem

By Haqmal

I am from a Coke Can,
from bottles and slippers
scattered on the ground.
I am from the fridge in the kitchen with
frozen hot dogs and chocolate cakes inside it.
I’m from chicken rice every week and
chili crab sometimes.
I’m from a half-eaten apple and a single long sock,
from Ben who always use the computer and a kitchen table.

I’m from a fresh orange juice and a laced sneakers,
from a bed and a soft pillow.
I am from do not play football in the house and
sometimes a MacBook,
from a Imac computer and a nice photo Album.

I am from Dahlinar who feeds her baby daughter baby food
and Widad who often washes glass and plastic plates.
I’m from a bookshelf full of nice
old books and A Diary Of A Wimpy Kid sometimes.
I am from a family who likes to spend time together and
a sweet popcorn,
from a movie and a large cinema.

I am from

By Naveen

I am from an old grandfather clock

From chicken curry has thick gravy

I am from the air hockey table (so shiny and

Smooth I scored twenty two ) I am from Annand,

my cousin who loves shooting games

He could not contain his excitement

When he held his first gun

In the army.

I am from whipped cream

From Palm trees

I am from New York winter

From the indoor soccer field the cage

I am from hand me downs

From the shoes my sister gave me

I am actually from the chilli crab.

I AM FROM…..

by Joy

I am from pots and pans

used to cook dinner for three.

I am from the little brown squirrel

Climbing up the durian tree.

I am from the old stale pork resting on the kitchen table

Surrounded by flies.

From the untouched mango pudding

Frozen in the fridge.

I am from my guinea pig, Jerry,

Squeaking us insane.

From my tortoise ,Humphry,

Who stinks like rotten steak.

I am from Mr Ong Teng Chiong

One of the presidents of Singapore.

I am from my mum and dad

An egg and a sperm.

From the dear lord Jesus

Born in a manger.

I am from the 21^st of December

The day I was born.

Why you talk like that?

                                                 Adachi Gardens, Yasugi, Japan.

More than thirty years ago, when I first step foot on Singapore soil and joined the then Institute of Education, my fellow trainee teachers and lecturers gave me hard time because of the way I spoke. They asked about my “accent” and made it clear that they did not approve of it. It was all very bewildering to me then as I had spent my youth and university days in Kuala Lumpur and nobody had said that I had an accent.  

After more than thirty years here, I sometimes still get this same reaction to my spoken English. I was reminded of this again just last week when I was working with a group of children on their writing skills. When I stopped to speak to one of the boys, he responded by speaking in what was obviously a fake American accent, and he kept adding “y’all” to all his statements. At first I thought he was a foreigner but after a few exchanges, it dawned on me that he was mocking me, or more specifically my “accent”.  But this wasn’t the first and only time. In previous encounters, boys(never girls somehow) have asked me in their own inimitable Singlish style, why I speak the way I do.  

Frankly, I wish I knew why. I can only attribute it to my Convent teachers, my Eurasian neighbours and my love, then, for everything Enid Blyton. But then again, people who think I “slang-slang” also don’t know that I speak fluent Cantonese and Malay, the latter with a more than adequate accent to allow me to pass off as an ethnic Malay or Peranakan when I am on the phone.

I personally don’t think an accent makes communication any more effective. And I don’t really think I have any kind of weird accent.  I, in fact, heartily dislike the fake accents that I hear every now and then over the radio and in public gatherings. These “accents” turn me off and I no longer hear the message that the speaker is attempting to communicate to me. So, I don’t advocate teaching our pupils to speak with any kind of accent, other than clear and correct pronunciation.

But what I don’t understand is why, with all our emphasis on English as a school language and an official and working language in Singapore, people here still take pride in speaking less than perfect English. Does doing so make one more Asian? The answer cannot be yes, for despite the way I speak English, I bet that I am more grounded in both Cantonese and Malay cultures than many people I know who only speak Singlish. What I find more unforgivable is when this attitude towards English is passed on to young children so that they prefer to speak like Lee Tock Kong in Police and Thieves instead of like the Prime Minister.

I am prompted to reflect on this issue, not only because of my encounter with the mocking boy, but also because recent reports on changes in the PSLE have led people to once again talk about the importance of oral and speaking skills. I don’t know if people, or children, can learn any language well if they think that learning to speak it properly will rob them of some part of their identity.  Don’t we all want to be able to master whatever we want to learn? Why can’t we be bothered to learn to pronounce words carefully or say them in the right way? Am I truly more Singaporean if I say LaVANder instead of LAvender?

My encounters with primary school children who are affected by my “accent” made me realise too that these same children probably hear very little proper spoken English in their everyday lives.  But then again, I myself did not come from an English speaking family. My first language is Cantonese and I learnt my English in school from my teachers. Remember too that I grew up during a time when I had to pass my second language and more in order to get on to any form of higher education. So many of us come from working class families where English is not spoken and we all learnt English well. Who taught us to speak well and to learn English well?

So I would say that schools need to do more to cultivate an environment for learning English. It seems an ironic statement given that we only have English medium schools here. Teachers too need to do something about their own spoken English. As a bilingual and bicultural person, I am all for using two languages or more to express myself and I often do.  But what I find disturbing is when English teachers constantly choose to express themselves publicly in their native languages instead of English in the school context. Who are we to ask our pupils to speak English when we don’t?

I recall too a discussion on social mobility some time ago, and how Singaporeans fear that it might be harder to move up the social ladder these days.  I understand parents’ concern about a better life for their children. As a teacher, I have worked to help my students to not only achieve academic success but to also acquire the necessary social graces that they will need in their work and social life. I teach them to take care of their personal hygiene (like their skin), their table manners, and yes, their speech, particularly their English. Every child needs a crack at that top university or that top job and academic results alone won’t cut it these days. Who wants a CEO who cannot speak good clear English?

We are a global city and we are lucky to have native speakers as teachers in our educational institutions. It is sad that our students find it hard to learn from a native speaker because they are not used to the teacher’s accent.  My American friend related this account to me of how top students in a top junior college here complained about not being able to comprehend an American teacher from California. It’s true I have not spoken to the teacher directly but I did wonder how thick an accent a Californian would have. Was it really his accent or our students’ unfamiliarity with any other accent other than the likes of Lee Tock Kong’s?

As teachers, we need to help our students understand the need to speak well and to be proud of the fact that they do. As parents, we all make sure that our children get the best and everything that is of good quality. Similarly, make sure that the language they learn, be it English or anything or any other language, is of the best quality too.  Accept nothing less.

A Fish Funeral and Helping Kids to Write

I don’t know if I can describe Junior as a good or a keen writer. Like many boys, he does not really enjoy writing but he cannot avoid it. And when he has to write, the best writing that he has done is always when he does it with conviction and when he has a clear message to communicate. Now as an adult student, I often remind him that his best writing is often accompanied by a convincing voice.

But when he was a child, I did try many ways to get him interested in writing. The most significant thing I did was to read to him and to help him develop a love for reading.  I do believe that reading is a way into writing because books are good models for young writers to see what they themselves can do. I don’t think children will know about writing or be interested in writing if they did not read themselves.

My earliest memory of writing with Junior was when he was around two years old. One fine summer day in California, we had left home for a day trip. When we got home, Junior dashed into the kitchen to check up on his pets, two goldfish named Huckle and Happy.  They lived in a fishbowl and Mum was supposed to clean it and change the water periodically. Maybe she was too busy that week and did not change the water. Maybe the day was just too hot, as Californian summers can be.  But when Junior looked into the fishbowl, Huckle and Happy were both floating upside down. Junior was of course devastated, and I felt more than a bit guilty.

Finally, I helped him organise a fish funeral. We buried both fish in the garden and placed a small rock on top to mark the grave. Junior insisted on writing their names on the rock which I did with a marker pen. It consoled him a little but before long, he was sobbing again. It was then that I hit upon the idea of writing a story about the fish. I told him that this will help him remember the fish. As we talked through the story, I wrote down the words for him. I helped Junior to see himself as a loving fish dad and recalled all the fun things he did with the fish. The truth is that I could not tell one fish from the other but perhaps Junior did.  But writing down the stories helped Junior to see that writing can do many things among which is to help us remember, to record memories and events and even to solve problems.  

In later years, I continued to help Junior write, but I did not make him write on his own. Instead, I often supported his attempts by doing dictated writing with him. This was when he made up his stories, dictated them to me and I wrote them down for him. We often wrote new versions of the books he read in school, such as “To Town” or “The Jigaree”. We had a whole series of stories based on “The Adventures of the Three Tum Tees” and about the dastardly deeds of one Captain Terror who was hell bent on destroying the world, especially Marine Parade, where we were living then.  

After a story was written, we would read the story over again and he would draw some pictures and make his story into a booklet, which he then tried to sell to his doting grandparents. He had the makings of an entrepreneur even then. We did a fair amount of writing on the computer using various programs to make books.  We wrote poetry too and here's one from his primary school days. I won’t say that it's a great poem but for a little kid, I think that it was great that he had something to say and was willing to write it down.

Junior's Collection of Poems

Often, my focus was to help him see that writing is one way to help him think and to record ideas. This sneaking mum did not hesitate to introduce writing into the most mundane activities. So Junior’s trip to the supermarket was often accompanied by a shopping list that he had to make out. And if he wanted a new toy or a special toy, he needed to write down a list of reasons to convince me to buy it for him. Unfortunately, the one list I still have was written in pencil and could not be read when scanned but here are some of his reasons:

Why I like Action Pack II

 Because it has an injured man

It has an apc and a ship

One man has a stinger missille

 It has a jeep and two planes

It has a bazooker

There is a medica man

There is a radio man

 It has a grenade

Was I then successful in initiating him into the joys of writing? I don’t know. It’s still too early to tell. But he is a prolific list maker. I myself did not enjoy writing as a youth and did not write regularly until I was in my forties.

I came across this interesting and useful article from a homeschooling mum on how she helped her child to write. She has some very firm convictions about what should be done, some of which we, as non-native speakers in English, may disagree with. Read it here and see what you think.

In the end, I believe that setting an example is important. If you want your child to be a writer, try to be one yourself. Help your child to see a reason for writing and take it beyond getting a good grade for composition. Having a personal meaning and use for writing are very essential first steps towards developing an interest in writing.

When I was a young teacher...

                                         
                                                      With my junior college colleagues

                                                            Young and innocent...

I ended last month by attending the Teachers’ Conference. It’s a privilege to listen to the keynote speakers and this year, they did not disappoint. The two speakers who resonated most with me were Professor Marilyn Cochrane-Smith and Professor Elizabeth Birr Moje.

Professor Cochrane-Smith told a compelling story about two young trainee teachers and their experiences during their first year of training. She looked at the factors which shaped their learning experiences and commented on four aspects of  successful teaching practice: deprivatisation, high expectations for all students and oneself as a teacher, taking an inquiry stance on the work of teaching and participating in multiple overlapping learning communities.

I don’t really want to discuss the technical aspects of her research but for those of you who are keen to read a bit about her work, here is a link which discusses her work into inquiry as a stance in learning: http://www.kdp.org/publications/pdf/record/Centennial/Record_Centennial.pdf

During the session, she challenged participants to recall their own learning experiences as a teacher and this brought me back some 33 years ago when I started on my professional road to becoming a teacher.  Well, before I came to join the then Institute of Education (IE), I had taught in various places in KL.  I taught History in my former secondary school where, I am ashamed to say, that I taught in the only way I knew how to - from my own History teacher- and that is to dictate or copy out copious amount of notes on various topics. Then I taught English in two different private colleges and even taught General Paper in Malay for a spell. Did I have any clue about teaching? No, but I relied heavily on my glib tongue and my rapport with the students to see me through each lesson.

My days at the IE were no better. I remember many long lectures about the psychology and the philosophy of education but nothing which prepared me for how to deal with forty girls in the classroom. Thank goodness they were good girls whom I sufficiently charmed so that they never gave me any disciplinary problems. But I taught them English and Geography and while I did pick up a few tips for teaching Geography from dear old Mrs Ng in secondary school, I was completely clueless when it came to teaching English. It didn’t help that I was supposedly trained for teaching Literature so no training in teaching English language was provided for at IE.

Nowadays, we would look to our cooperating teacher as a mentor; I don’t even remember one in my time. There were 2 other trainee teachers with me; one taught English and the other Science but competition, and maybe foolish pride, prevented us from sharing any teaching tips. But we did get together to groan and whine about our supervisors.  Needless to say, my supervisor was not impressed with my teaching. I remember after one mediocre English lesson, he told me to try and do more group work. Honestly, that didn’t mean much to me then apart from physically grouping the students into smaller units and I promptly did that when he next visited. Well, he was not pleased again because he said the group work did not serve the purpose of the lesson. Now, on hind sight, I knew what he meant but at that point in time, I remember being frustrated as I did what he wanted but he was not satisfied.  Explicit teaching was not a part of the norm then and supervisors often just talked and rarely showed.

After graduation from IE, I was posted to a junior college where I started teaching General Paper (GP), again a subject for which I had no training. In those days, junior colleges had lecture theatres where lectures were given to prepare these elite students for the real world of university studies. My first test was to give a GP lecture to the second year students and I remember lecturing on something about national languages. Don’t ask me why I chose that topic but I recall that the Head of GP then was suitably impressed, either by my knowledge of national languages or the smoothness with which I delivered the whole lecture. But beyond lecturing, I sure didn’t know anything about teaching GP although in my years at that junior college, I had a lot of success helping students to move from a low to a high grade in their exams.  Not surprisingly, after I joined NIE as a staff member, one of the first papers I ever wrote and published was on teaching GP.

We didn’t talk about how to teach then; nor did our senior colleagues give us advice on teaching. We just did our best and there was nobody to call for help, no books we knew that we could consult, and the Ministry remained a fortress on a hill that we never went to until our turn came for the fateful tea and interview. I remember too having to direct a play as a trainee teacher and to coach students for the drama festival. Yes, I was a drama student at university but that didn’t prepare me enough for these extracurricular tasks. But somehow I had to make it work.

Was teaching private then? You bet it was. Nobody knew what went on in our classes and I only remember my Head visiting my class once. Nobody thought we needed help and perhaps we didn’t think so either. 

Fast forward thirty years and what a change. Teachers now not only get all sorts of help, support and training, they attend conferences and present their ideas on how to teach! They get bonuses for good performance. An average teacher today has access to a range of services and upgrading opportunities. True, her workload seems heavier but she does not have to do this work in an uninformed way. Some sections of the Ministry are even a tad friendlier; why, you can be their Facebook friend now!  The improvements in the teaching service in the last thirty years have been most impressive and having seen the changes, I have to admit that the government has done plenty for the profession.

Thinking about these changes, I was somewhat taken aback when another expatriate friend criticised the teaching service here by describing a teacher’s negative experiences in a neighbourhood school.  True, I cannot deny that there may be still a few tyrannical principals who live to control the teachers’ every move.  I don’t deny that there is a lot of extra, out of classroom duties in the form of co-curricular activities. And yes, there is still some politicking, backbiting and backstabbing in the staffrooms of schools. But this happens everywhere, not just in schools.  I would say that by and large, our teachers work in healthy and often happier environments. I would say that the opportunities to develop themselves as teachers are plentiful and few teachers would describe themselves as oppressed.

But even so, many trainees in their first year out in schools fall through the cracks. I know of a number of my own supervisees who eventually left teaching for other jobs.  I know though that it’s not always because they hate teaching or the conditions in schools.  Professor Cochrane-Smith’s story reminds us that many factors contribute to a young professional’s transition from trainee to full time teacher, and many of these factors are related to the kind of support they receive, their attitude to and understanding of the nature of the job and the kind of socialisation process they undergo as trainees and young teachers. As experienced teachers, we can do our part to initiate young teachers into the profession. Sadly, I still hear stories about senior colleagues discouraging young teachers from staying in the profession and discrediting it with negative comments.   But the number of confident young teachers is certainly growing.

Indeed, nowadays, we don’t even speak of teacher training but of teacher education.  The education and growing of teachers is an activity that deserves the best of our resources and the best of our young talent.  Although parents have taken on much of the education of their children, it cannot be denied that children still spend a large proportion of their time in school with teachers. Harriet Martineau asked:

What office is there which involves more responsibility, which requires more qualifications, and which ought, therefore, to be more honourable than teaching?

None, I think and I am very glad I became a teacher. Indeed, I see myself teaching for a long time to come. 

Writing Fears

From the Singapore Writing Project blog:

http://writinginsingapore.blogspot.sg/

Dr Jia Jia and Singlish in Writing

Photos taken from this website: http://www.edvantage.com.sg/edvantage/features/people/1038164/They_have_1_5_million_YouTube_hits.html

So, I hear that Dr Jia Jia will be featured in the National Day rally. Hey, that's the sign that you have really arrived and made it as a national icon. Like Phua Chu Kang, Barbarella, Ah Meng and Taufik. Wow! 

I like that little guy. He's super cute and he says some outrageous things although I know his dad tells him what to say. He's our own Sophia Grace except that he does not sing...yet. And he's got his own big brother side kick too! And if you don’t know who I am talking about, Google Dr Jia Jia.

But much as I like Dr Jia Jia, I am not so sure that I am a fan of what he's doing. I find some of his jiajiaisms like “delicious” instead of dyslexia, clever and amusing. And all the Hokkien and Malay phrases are endearing- si bei pai seh, jin pai tung, jia lut, Tak boleh tahan. Trust me; at the right moment, they are just the thing to say. But I do get upset when Dr Jia Jia mangles his English grammar to make his Singlish sound cute. It’s not cute when Big Brother says “The impacts of iPhones and iPads on kids” “I sit bus to school” or “You cannot like that one”.  And it’s not cute when their tenses and sentence structures don’t sound anything like English, especially when we see them in the subtitles.

Ironically, I read that the original intention of the Dr Jia Jia’s videos was to discourage the use of Singlish (The New Paper, Monday April 2, 2012). However, I don’t see any evidence of this at all in the videos I have seen.  

I can hear all of you crying out, “Wet blanket”, “Purist!” and the like, but wait. I admit the English teacher in me can be critical sometimes, but you must also agree with me that you don’t want your children to speak and write Singlish all the time. As adults, who have mastered the language, we are at liberty to play with it and to use all the Singlish we want, because we know when to switch back to proper English. Unfortunately, for young children, especially those who do not get enough help with learning English, this may end up to be the only kind of English they will learn. And say what you like, this will eventually be a hindrance to their education and careers.  People who support Singlish, saying that it promotes our national identity, are people who either have already a good command of English and use Singlish as their fun language or are those whose English is less than stellar and don’t want to be criticised for it.

I will admit that I like Singlish phrases and use them often. My favourite words are “smoke” and “powderful” which I use every now and then, even in class.  But if I am teaching my young learners, I consider it my responsibility to teach them the correct and the standard version of the language, and not short change them with a non-standard version.  This is especially so for kids who come from non-English speaking homes. The school, the classroom and the teachers are their only sources of good English; kids gets enough Singlish from their home and play environments.  So while Dr Jia Jia looks and sounds super adorable with his Singlish utterances now, try to imagine him a young adult speaking like that still. Not so cute, right?

So is there no place for Singlish in school at all? Of course not. In essay writing, I often encourage children to add some Singlish expressions or structures into the dialogues they write in their stories. This is especially so when the characters they are writing about are Singaporean aunties and uncles or Singaporean baddies. The use of Singlish makes the characters real and gives them the distinct Singaporean identity that we want in our stories. The uncle in the wet market in not going to say,
“And would Madam like some fresh kembong today?” 
He’s more likely to say, “Aunty, today got fresh kembong. Want or not?”
And Aunty is likely to say,
“Is it? Expensive or not?” and not
“Really? Is it going to cost me an arm and a leg, my good man?”
Similarly, the bad guy who does not like the way you are looking him will probably say,
“Look what? Never see before ah?” instead of
“Who do you think you are looking at? Haven’t you seen me before?”

Dialogue, in its very nature, is meant to be casual and conversational and capturing the right voice in writing dialogues remains a challenge for all writers. So it can be quite painful to read the dialogues of local characters that are written in full sentences and in super correct English. They sound extremely stilted and completely unSingaporean.

Make no mistake. I don’t advocate using Singlish in the actual narrative, only in dialogues but I find that teachers often penalise students for doing so.  I don’t think this is right. There is a place for Singlish - in appropriate dialogues - and this should be allowed. I am often amused by how teachers pounce on examples of written Singlish but are happy to allow their students to use all manner of “broken” English in their everyday conversations.  While we don’t always write the way we speak, you cannot deny that our speaking habits often leak into our writing.

What should we do then? Don’t ban Singlish in the classroom. It won’t work. But point out its place in writing and in speaking. The occasional Singlish is fine and even desirable when we seek to be a part of the gang, but it’s important for students to know that for each Singlish phrase, there is an English equivalent for it. And when there isn’t, there is still a grammatical way to express that thought.

I don’t think we should over-correct children’s speech; being the English police is not always fun, but when certain Singlish phrases get overused or if the proper equivalents should be learnt, do highlight them for teaching and discussion.

Often, speaking carelessly is a bad habit that can be corrected; it is no reflection of one’s IQ. Teachers can do so much to help their students develop the desirable speaking habits. 

As for Dr Jia Jia and Big Brother, I trust they are learning the right habits from their respective schools.   

A teacher affects eternity...

Recently, we had a small gathering of former school mates. We were all from the same primary and secondary schools and two of us, Singaporeans, were there to meet up with our friend who was visiting from elsewhere. I haven’t spoken to this friend, P, for 40 years so it was great catching up. After a while, our conversation drifted to the topic of our former teachers, and invariably, we talked about the one teacher who left an indelible mark on our memories of school. This was our Maths teacher at secondary school, Mrs A.

I remember writing about my experiences with Mrs A before, but I did not know how my other school mates felt about her; we have never spoken about our individual experiences before. We were all from a convent where most of the girls were of working class backgrounds and a large number of these girls had fathers who worked at the huge railway workshop near our school. Indeed, in those days, most of the houses in that neighbourhood were built for the railway workers (and referred to as railway quarters) and their families although these days, it will cost you an arm and a leg to buy a place there.

The truth is I don’t remember many things about Mrs A, but a few unpleasant  incidents have been tucked away in my memory all these years.  My friend E, remembered her as a rather racist person who disliked dark skinned girls.  She recounted an incident where she saw Mrs A staring daggers at another dark-skinned classmate. “I shook with fear”, she said watching the hatred and anger in Mrs A’s face then.  It was rather dramatic and I did wonder if perhaps E’s youthful imagination went a tad into over drive then.  But I also asked myself why this one memory stayed with E after four decades.

Most of us remember Mrs A for her nightmarish Maths lessons. She would not just shout and threaten but she also slapped all of us freely. This was a woman who walked around during the exam peering into your test paper and demanding to know why you have left some sums unsolved. If your answer was not appropriate, like I don’t know how to do that sum, you were likely to get slapped.  I don’t know if I was born mathematically challenged but I am pretty sure I was terrorised into it by Mrs A. But, still E and I were the lucky ones who don’t remember getting slapped.

There were also all the different humiliating punishments she came up with when we failed Maths. Like being put out on show on the steps leading to the canteen with the test papers pinned on our uniforms. Or being led from class to class like criminals, with the offending test paper folded into a big bow on our chests.  We had to stand in a line in front of each class as examples of failures.  It is a miracle we did not all grow up to be insecure women, although some may have, like I did, develop a phobia for Maths.

So there we were, three grown professional women, sitting in the posh club of the hotel, each with a Singapore Sling in hand, recounting tales of Mrs A and shaking our heads with bewilderment. I imagined our younger selves similarly bewildered by the unnecessary cruelty and humiliation. What possessed her to do those things to us?

Mrs A has migrated to another country but several years ago, she was invited to a gathering of old girls (one that I did not go to).  My friend, P, recounted how she made a special effort during that event, to take a picture of Mrs A.

Why? I asked.

“I needed to show my children the teacher who slapped me two days in a row because I could not do the sums on profit and loss,” she replied.

Professionally, we have all come a long way since those days and we do have our teachers to thank. But that evening, we never once spoke of our favourite teachers or the teachers who helped us the most. Our thoughts, that evening, were consumed with memories of Mrs A and the helplessness and injustice we felt then. True, that was a long time ago and we should let it all go, but somehow, the effect of her actions stayed with us all through the years.   Perhaps she meant well and she just wanted us to work hard.  I’d like to think that too. But perhaps it was because she didn’t think much of us poor girls who, to her, would amount to nothing. As it turned out, we all proved to be one of the most successful batches of students the school has ever produced.  But now, even as successful senior citizens-to-be, memories of the one bad teacher still remain with us. 

Henry Brooks once said: 

A teacher affects eternity:s/he (sic) can never tell where his/her influence stops.  

In the case of Mrs A, her influence is indeed lifelong; we have never forgotten all the things she did to us. And she still remains the very model of a teacher we would never want our children to have. 

On stuff we leave behind...

I went to a sale of second hand books, DVDs and CDs a few weeks ago and came away thinking about my own mortality.

As I went through the many books, some read, some unread and the equally impressive collection of music CDs, some of popular classics, others for meditation and designed to provide relaxation, I could not help wondering about the person who has passed on and left all these behind. I understand he was a librarian before and I could see that we have some interests in common e.g. in wellness, spirituality, exercise, language learning and in travel. But the more I browsed through his things, the more questions I had about this person and his life.   Were these books and DVDs evidence of his seeking for peace of mind and for an understanding of what he was about to encounter?  Were the CDs of relaxation music used to help him sleep at night? Was he looking for peace of mind through yoga and meditation? Did he find any of this in his last days?

I felt some sadness for him and for what he left behind. Clearly, these were his precious things; he found solace and comfort in the books, in his fengshui figurines and in his collection of animals and comic characters. Now they lie desolate, without much worth and only regarded as junk obstructing the smooth handover of the house to the next owner.

As I stood outside the house looking at the intimate detritus of a life, I wondered about my own junk.  What will people make of my stuff when I am gone? Will they analyse my book titles and make judgements about my character or speak of my eccentricities? Is it worth my while leaving behind things I love for my loved ones who may not love these same things, regardless of their value? Is it not better to give the living less work by discarding them when I can and still have the time to do so? But who knows how long we will live, and can we live without the bits and pieces that define our lives and give us comfort?

Perhaps we should consider going the same way we came- empty handed. In the end, all our material goods will come to nought anyway; we can’t take them with us.

Such food for thought for me and for all of us growing old.

Do our children read in school?

I had lunch with an expatriate friend yesterday and as usual we talked about education matters since she is also an educator. She then told me about her friend (another expatriate) who recently decided to pull her son out of a well known local mission school for boys. Her reason? She said that her son did not read a single chapter book in his whole time there. I think Singaporeans will be shocked to hear this especially since getting a place in this school is like winning the lottery. Most people will think that this is a trivial reason for such a drastic decision. After lunch, I thought about this on the drive home and I had to admit that her reason was not all that frivolous.

Think about it. How can a school curriculum offer nothing solid for students to read apart from excerpts of texts which are usually not more than several hundred words long? That has been the situation with the basal texts that we have used, for example, the Primary English Thematic Series (PETS) or even the current supplementary series that I am working on, MC English.  To be fair, these basal readers have been commissioned by the Ministry; the guidelines for developing the texts were given to publishers and writers.  True, there is a place for basal readers in the curriculum and the latest series is filled with adaptations and excerpts from children’s literature. But they are still short texts and cannot qualify as real books.

Some of you may say, “But there are the STELLAR books!" Right, but honestly, how long are they? Should our eleven and twelve year olds be reading more? How do our children learn to read and write effectively without reading any chapter books of quality?

Well, many of you will say that this kind of reading is probably done at home. But most of you will also agree that this kind of reading is crucial to any child's language development. Don’t schools and MOE emphasise the importance of extensive reading all the time? Yet isn't it strange that we don't make our students read and we don't give them grades for reading extensively to motivate them to read?

I have on many occasions urged schools to give out lists of award winning books or create any list of recommended books for their students and make it compulsory for them to read at least 10 books from the list every term. I have yet to hear from any school which has done this. I know of schools which have introduced literature into the curriculum. Their students read a book a term or a book a year. And this book is always the predictable Charlotte's Web or some Roald Dahl title. Some schools even read a rather badly written series of moral stories as literature. The students who really read will finish their book in a day or a week. Those who don't care to read will have their interest killed, either by the long drawn affair with one book or by the boring moralistic tales which are badly written. What then is achieved by introducing literature?

It’s time to seriously consider introducing students to good literature and to make reading a significant component of language learning, instead of confining reading to just comprehension periods. The truth is, we all know that our students don’t do enough reading. It’s time to do something. Let’s stop paying lip service to its value. Nobody would deny that reading is a valuable aid to language learning, to writing and lifelong learning.  But why are we not doing anything to make our students read?

After listening to my friend and thinking things over, I realised too that what she has described is true but it’s a truth that we conveniently ignore. I know I often do not mince my words when I speak about what’s wrong with our education system.  But I must confess that when an outsider criticises the system, and points out the lapses, I do get quite defensive. This time though, I was truly left with nothing to say but to admit to our failing.

Whether our youth turn out to be avid readers or not depends on us, teachers and parents. How do parents feel now knowing that their children never have to read a complete chapter book in their entire primary school career? Does it make us feel confident that our children can proceed to secondary school and be ready to take on the reading tasks there? Or do we think that reading chapter books is something children should do at home and that school should just concentrate on teaching academic subjects? What do you think?

All Children Can Learn

                                                              Miss Seah Jiak Choo

It’s the end of March and for me, the end of a hectic but interesting month. The month began with the Singapore ASCD AGM and our guest speaker this time was none other than our former Director General of Education, Miss Seah Jiak Choo. I have heard her speak on one or two former occasions and each time I have been struck by her honesty, her no-nonsense approach and her genuine love for what she does. Again, she did not disappoint us this time.

My greatest take away from her talk entitled Teacher Leadership has been the fact that all teachers are leaders by virtue of the fact that they all have followers who are growing and contributing to the greater good- yes, their students. I wonder if teachers know this. She went on to say that some teachers are more successful than others as leaders and this is because some have no opportunities to develop their leadership skills.

Another significant gem from her that is related to what I wrote about in my last post is the fact that all teachers must be obsessed with the belief that all children can learn. I thought that this is such an important idea for all teachers to embrace because it is the premise upon which we function as teachers. If we no longer believe in the fact that all our children can learn, we will be no longer effective as teachers and we should then leave the profession.

This message was reinforced for me a week later when I attended the ASCD conference in Philadelphia.  Yvette Jackson spoke about a pedagogy of confidence where educators start teaching from students’ strengths instead of focusing on their weakness.  Yvette described a weakness as an undeveloped skill.  It’s not that students don’t know but it’s that they don’t know... YET! But they will get it eventually.

The secret to teaching these children is to change the input; find another way of teaching them, change the script so that they are not constantly exposed to the same script and the same input. Think of how often we insist on giving weaker children watered down materials and easy tasks. Our intention is always good and that is not to frustrate them.  But the opposite also happens.  Too many dumb down tasks will result in no learning and a loss of motivation. Remember the rich do become richer and the poor can become poorer.  Weak students need more rich input.

I compared this to fertilising plants when discussing this topic with my teachers recently. We need to spread a lot of good fertiliser around in our garden to encourage the plants to grow.  It’s true that sometimes the plants cannot take this. I know this from firsthand experience. Some plants will even die from too much richness, but most will show some growth but there will be some that will blossom and grow even faster and stronger. Teaching must be like spreading fertiliser. If the input is not rich, none of the students will benefit. If it’s very rich, some may be lost but there will be many others who will benefit.

Yvette offered seven principles for a pedagogy of confidence, and in a nutshell they are:

1. Identifying and activating strengths
2. Building relationships
3. Nurturing high intellectual performances
4. Providing enrichment
5. Incorporating prerequisites ( as in providing supporting help and materials)
6. Situating learning in the lives of students
7. Amplifying student voice

Finally, an interesting activity we did together was to develop a bubble map (semantic web) of the strengths of underachieving students. In fact, this activity is best done with students themselves. I bet they never thought deeply about the strengths they have. Once they have identified their strengths, think of how you can build upon each of these individual strengths. Begin your planning with that strength in mind and see if you can give your lesson a new twist.  Yvette’s example was that students do not understand World War 2 but they all understand conflict. Begin with conflict.

Ultimately, as teachers we need to flip the script and reframe the issues. It’s only when we are equipped with a new and more positive perspective of our underachievers that we can begin to help them to learn.  Our pedagogy can then be one of confidence.

                                   

Think Positive!

We all know that classic book by Norman Vincent Peale The Art of Positive Thinking. I must admit that I have never read it although I’ve seen it many times here and there.  I do believe in positive thinking, but like everyone else, I too succumb to negative thoughts every now and then. I have done that often enough to know that negative thoughts are not only unhelpful but are downright draining and they not just affect you but also all those around you. You are truly spreading bad vibes with negative thoughts.

I am thinking about this simply because I have been encountering a number of instances of negative thoughts in the recent months. Usually it’s after I’ve explained how to use a new or unfamiliar strategy for teaching something or a different way of approaching teaching and learning. Sometimes I get enthusiastic response; other times, there’s some doubt and scepticism. These I can deal with. What I have problems with are the people who say to me that what I’ve shown them cannot be used with their students.  They say this not because they doubt the strategy or the activity but they sincerely feel that their students will never learn it even if they repeat the lesson a hundred times. And I see in their eyes the frustration and the resignation. I see in their body language the message that such strategies to write or read better should be shared with the better kids and not theirs.

This is very sad. If anybody needs a new way to help them learn better, it’s the struggling student. Good students find their way despite the teacher. Yet, the very students who need the help are not always given it. It’s true that teachers struggle against time and a host of administrative and marking duties which take them away from focusing on their teaching.  But that does not mean we give up on the teaching. Who says that we can learn something just because we have been taught? Have we forgotten our struggle to learn how to line dance, make a lava cake, create that smoky eye look or even simply to watch our diet? Nothing is that easily learnt.

Sure, some of our students need a much longer time than the others. But in their journey, they should be given support and encouragement. They don’t need to be reminded time and again that they are failures. We do this all the time when we insist on giving them work that they cannot cope with. We do this with good intention, of course, and that is to prepare them for the PSLE. But deep down, we know they are not ready for the PSLE. Do we persist in making them do those tasks and thus having them fail week after week? What will happen to their self confidence and self esteem? Are we really preparing them for the PSLE?

Maya Angelou once said:  I’ve learnt that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you make them feel.  

Every day in our classroom, we make people feel a certain way by what we say or do. We can make our struggling students feel better about themselves by first showing some belief in them. Then we can make them feel better by helping them in the best way we can. Finally, we can help them be better by simply persisting in not giving up on them. We can’t all be Mrs Chongs, but we can all have faith in all our students.

Be positive. Be encouraging. I believe these are the first steps we can take to help our struggling students succeed. 

The Question Formulation Technique: 6 Steps to Help Students Ask Better Questions

The Question Formulation Technique: 6 Steps to Help Students Ask Better Questions: How often do we teach students how to formulate good, in-depth questions? Use these 6 steps to help boost your students’ ability to ask better questions and drive their own learning.

Reading aloud

Jim Trelease's useful book on reading aloud

There are many useful read aloud extracts in this book also by Trelease. 

                                     

On Saturday ( 14 Jan), I shared some ideas with CDAC tutors for helping students to be better readers. By better readers, I mean better at reading aloud.

Reading aloud is a key component in the oral examination, and is a skill that students can learn to master and therefore do well in. A common problem with students reading aloud is their lack of expression. I talked about some ways to help students understand the rhythm of the English language and shared some ideas with   my audience. Unfortunately, these were not in their notes, so here they are:

There are 5 main tones in English:
rise 

fall

rise-fall

fall-rise

level

Intonation can reinforce grammar: 

Wh-questions: fall
What is your name?

Conditional sentences: rise on the first clause & a fall on the second
If I give you a dollar, will you sweep the floor?

Imperatives: fall
Quiet! Sit down!

Yes/no questions: rise-fall
Is this seat taken?

Intonation can reveal attitude:

Expressing surprise: rise
I see that you are still here.

Sarcasm: rise-fall
What a beautiful skirt ; what happened to the rest of the tablecloth?

Politeness: rise ('the polite rise')
May I speak to the manager?

Doubt: fall-rise

I’m not sure you’re right, but it sounds convincing.

Teachers can do a lot to model the art of reading aloud, and one good way is to spend a few minutes each day reading aloud to your students. Here is a  video that shows you how you can do this well. 

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