I'm in a bit of a dilemma here. I'm sure you've noticed by now that I'm naming all blogposts regarding my teaching practice as "The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day So-and-so". My problem is I'm not sure how to count the days. I know that might sound strange, but hear me out for a bit. First off, do I count every day as a day? As in I include Saturdays and Sundays too? Or do I just count the days that I go to school, as in Monday to Friday is Days 1 to 5, and the following Monday is Day 6? And if I only count the days that I go to school, do I also count the days that I don't go to school, and... Well. Wait a minute. I'm beginning to feel a little confused. I guess I'll just count whichever way I wanna count. As for now, so far I'm counting only Mondays to Fridays. I think I better stop all this. I'm feeling really confused now.
I had to go to school again today. Yesterday was spent distributing questionnaires to whichever students we spotted (we completed some of the questionnaires ourselves to, er, speed things up), and today was spent attempting to analyze those questionnaires. Well, at least my friends analyzed those questionnaires. Me, I started writing out the actual report. It's been a relatively long time since I last had to work on a written report, so I'll admit that I've gotten pretty rusty. The good old brain isn't working as fast or as efficient as it's supposed to. Anyway, when we got there this morning, the staff room wasn't even open at all, so we went to the library. We were 'chased away' at approximately 1 pm because of opening hours and so on. So we decided to go home. We split up the workload and agreed to meet next Thursday to compile everything together before we actually print it out. And then it hit me while I was driving home. Why not just do everything online? Just compile everything and email each other back and forth. That way we didn't need to go to school at all! I really do enjoy this little eureka moments. So we did a little handphone-conferencing between ourselves, and we agreed to not go to school and waste even more time. So we'll be working on the project online. Don't you just love this age of the Internet? Muahahahaha!
Anyway, I'm still eagerly counting down to the 4th of July. Does anyone else find it ironic that our so-called release from TP coincides with Independence Day, albeit version USA? So ironic. I also find it extremely funny that we're so eager to go back to university. Suddenly, all we can do is wistfully reminisce about those good old days of poring over thick reference books and rushing through countless assignments day after day. Nothing like a little TP torture to make university life seem like pleasure.
So that's it. No more swotting in school while everyone else enjoy their holidays. We deserve to have a holiday too. And we're taking it from here till next week. Muahahahaha!
Cheers!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 18
Yeah, believe it or not, we still have to go to school during the holidays. I nearly screamed when I found out we were 'required' to be in school during office hours, read: 8 to 5. So far, we've been to school twice these past two days, and have we been keeping to the strict office hours? Here's a secret: No.
On Monday, we actually reached school grounds at approximately 9 am (we were able to negotiate the time down to a 9-to-around-4 schedule). We walked miserably over to the staff room, and drum roll please... The staff room was locked. We couldn't enter. So we went over to the office and asked around, and apparently they can't give us the key, so we ended up in the dusty, stuffy old library. The aim of this 2-week torture during the school holidays is for us to complete/get started on our 'school project'. I ended up catching up on my Reflections (yeah, we have to keep some sort of journal-like record of all our doings every day) and a lesson plan that I didn't manage to prepare. Then I spent the rest of the time playing Minesweeper (on that note, I actually broke my previous record - now it's 133 seconds on Expert level). Then we were informed that the staff room was now open, and that we could go there now. That was about 11 am. So we went down, heavy laptop bags and all, and went into the staff room. We sat there until about 12.30 pm. Then it was time for lunch (Malaysian lunch hours are from 11 am to 3 pm, so we're actually pretty good to last till 12.30 pm), and we drove over to the Singapore Chicken Rice branch (one of my favourite places to eat, I'm sure I'll blog about it one day in the near future) near the Sunday Market area and I had my usual salad chicken rice and ice lemon tea. We reached back to school at about 1.30 pm (see how diligent we are, not following the 'real' Malaysian lunch hour time at all). We managed to surf the Internet on one of their computers there, trying to research our school project (we've decided to do something on students' perceptions on the importance of extracurricular activities) and suddenly, the impression that we were really wasting our time over there finally reached its peak. We decided to go home. So we packed up and left the school at about 2.45 pm. I reached back home around 3.15 pm. I was really so happy just to have that extra 45 minutes of time.
Then yesterday (Tuesday), we set feet on school grounds at 10.30 am. I know most of you are wondering "Hey! I thought they're supposed to be there at 9 am?", but please try to understand our predicament. We felt on Monday that since the staff room only opens at 11 something, might as well just go there around that time too, instead of waiting around for 2 hours doing nothing. So we were there at 10.30 am. We entered the staff room, I played a few rounds of Minesweeper, and suddenly someone came up to us and said they were closing up the staff room, could we please find somewhere else to do our project? So we took our stuff (heavy laptops and all) and trudged all the way up to the same old dusty, stuffy old library. We worked on the questionnaires that we were going to distribute, and after completing that, we decided it was time for lunch. This was at around noon time. So we went to the same old SCR restaurant (I told you it's really one of my favourite places) and I had the exact same thing I had yesterday, and then we decided to go home. Yeah, that's right. We decided that was it, enough of wasting time, we might as well go home and be happy. So we did, and yes, we were very happy.
So here I am, it's 9.22 am on a beautiful Wednesday morning, and I'm just about to get ready to go off to school for another boring day. Today, we've decided to hand out the questionnaires and leave the school by noon. See how dedicated and hardworking we teachers-of-the-future are?
Cheers!
On Monday, we actually reached school grounds at approximately 9 am (we were able to negotiate the time down to a 9-to-around-4 schedule). We walked miserably over to the staff room, and drum roll please... The staff room was locked. We couldn't enter. So we went over to the office and asked around, and apparently they can't give us the key, so we ended up in the dusty, stuffy old library. The aim of this 2-week torture during the school holidays is for us to complete/get started on our 'school project'. I ended up catching up on my Reflections (yeah, we have to keep some sort of journal-like record of all our doings every day) and a lesson plan that I didn't manage to prepare. Then I spent the rest of the time playing Minesweeper (on that note, I actually broke my previous record - now it's 133 seconds on Expert level). Then we were informed that the staff room was now open, and that we could go there now. That was about 11 am. So we went down, heavy laptop bags and all, and went into the staff room. We sat there until about 12.30 pm. Then it was time for lunch (Malaysian lunch hours are from 11 am to 3 pm, so we're actually pretty good to last till 12.30 pm), and we drove over to the Singapore Chicken Rice branch (one of my favourite places to eat, I'm sure I'll blog about it one day in the near future) near the Sunday Market area and I had my usual salad chicken rice and ice lemon tea. We reached back to school at about 1.30 pm (see how diligent we are, not following the 'real' Malaysian lunch hour time at all). We managed to surf the Internet on one of their computers there, trying to research our school project (we've decided to do something on students' perceptions on the importance of extracurricular activities) and suddenly, the impression that we were really wasting our time over there finally reached its peak. We decided to go home. So we packed up and left the school at about 2.45 pm. I reached back home around 3.15 pm. I was really so happy just to have that extra 45 minutes of time.
Then yesterday (Tuesday), we set feet on school grounds at 10.30 am. I know most of you are wondering "Hey! I thought they're supposed to be there at 9 am?", but please try to understand our predicament. We felt on Monday that since the staff room only opens at 11 something, might as well just go there around that time too, instead of waiting around for 2 hours doing nothing. So we were there at 10.30 am. We entered the staff room, I played a few rounds of Minesweeper, and suddenly someone came up to us and said they were closing up the staff room, could we please find somewhere else to do our project? So we took our stuff (heavy laptops and all) and trudged all the way up to the same old dusty, stuffy old library. We worked on the questionnaires that we were going to distribute, and after completing that, we decided it was time for lunch. This was at around noon time. So we went to the same old SCR restaurant (I told you it's really one of my favourite places) and I had the exact same thing I had yesterday, and then we decided to go home. Yeah, that's right. We decided that was it, enough of wasting time, we might as well go home and be happy. So we did, and yes, we were very happy.
So here I am, it's 9.22 am on a beautiful Wednesday morning, and I'm just about to get ready to go off to school for another boring day. Today, we've decided to hand out the questionnaires and leave the school by noon. See how dedicated and hardworking we teachers-of-the-future are?
Cheers!
Friday, May 09, 2008
The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 5
Well, it's been 4 days since my last post (and my first day of The Great 9-Week Experiment). You guys probably have no idea how happy and relieved I am that it's the weekend. It's been a total disaster, these past few days. I don't even know where to start. Maybe I should start from the very beginning. On second thoughts, maybe not. I don't want to scare you all.
I taught my first class yesterday. We had the school assembly in the morning, and halfway through I had a very terrible stomach ache so I had to escape for a while. I returned just in time for the prize-giving ceremony for the cleanest classes in the school, and the whole assembly ended at about 8 o'clock. So I rushed to my first class, and man, all I remember of that is the amount of shouting, pointing, scolding and threatening I had to do. It was only the first time I taught that class and already I had to do all that? See me shake my head in despair. How private is my blog anyway? If I mention names, will they show up on the search engines "by accident"? I should check that before mentioning any names. Teehee. But anyway, that was the first class of yesterday, and I went back to the staff room in frustration. Then it was time for my second class, and man, I really didn't think it could get any worse than the first class, but dear friends, I was greatly mistaken. They were total hooligans! Gangster-wannabes, all of them! I tried being friendly, it didn't work. I even tried being firm and strict, and it worked for a while, and then it failed. Unlike the first class, this second class of mine are really proficient in the English language. And man, can they ask questions. It's one thing if the questions have something to do with the lesson, but their questions were everything under the sun, minus anything to do with the actual lesson. They were quite uncontrollable too. I really had to do a lot of shouting.
This morning was no better. The first class was the one with students who couldn't really speak English. I taught the literal meaning of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, this morning, and I was trying to get the students to actually listen to me. I got so fed up with how unruly they were that I finally said something along the lines of: "SIT DOWN! SHUT UP! Kalau you tak nak belajar, tak apa. Tidur! Jangan bising! TIDUR! Yang lain, kalau nak belajar, duduk kat depan. OI! YOU! TIDUR SEKARANG! Letak kepala atas meja! JANGAN BISING! TIDUR!" or something along those lines. Half of the class literally cheered in glee when I told them I really didn't care if they didn't learn, as long as they kept quiet. The front row of kids were better. At least they were quiet/brought their books/paid whatever little attention they could spare. Towards the end of the lesson, some of the boys from the back actually moved to the second row. I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt and pretend they did that so that they could hear what I was trying to teach. I left the class, so worked up and annoyed that I was sweating all the way back to the staff room.
The second class was much better. They were really noisy, but at least they were doing some work at the same time. Since they were the more proficient class, I thought I could leave them to construct posters on the themes of the same poem. I told them to collect their manila cards, and there was a squabble over which group got what colour manila card. I handed out marker pens, and there was a debate over which colour marker pens would 'match' which colour manila cards. I pre-assigned them various themes in yesterday's class, and today the entire class voted (oh yes, we're really very democratic you know) to select their own themes. I walked around the class to 'monitor seatwork', and they asked me even more interesting questions than yesterday. But for all the arguments, commotion, and near-fights (there was one yesterday), I think this class is actually easier to teach (and definitely more likeable) than the first class. At least in this class, they're naughty, but you can see they're still quite nice at the bottom of all that show of bravado (you've actually got to dig quite deep to see it). I wanted them to present their posters during the second period, but they couldn't finish their posters, so I said we'll present it next week lah. Aiyoh. Why like this one?
I really dread the next 8 weeks. It's gonna be 8 long weeks of sleepless nights, early mornings, and shouting. Can I quit my teaching practice now? Talking about quitting, my supervisor came this morning (yeah I can't see what quitting's got to do with my supervisor too). He observed my other two friends' classes, but he didn't observe my class. Some of my students in the better class actually asked me where he was. They even told me they spotted him, and I'm beginning to think maybe they were more excited and nervous than I was. Some students asked me yesterday (after I told them my supervisor would be coming to observe my class) whether I wanted them to 'act'. It took almost everything to not burst out laughing right there and then.
Well, I'm stopping here for today. Enough blogging about depressing topics. I'll try to blog soon.
I taught my first class yesterday. We had the school assembly in the morning, and halfway through I had a very terrible stomach ache so I had to escape for a while. I returned just in time for the prize-giving ceremony for the cleanest classes in the school, and the whole assembly ended at about 8 o'clock. So I rushed to my first class, and man, all I remember of that is the amount of shouting, pointing, scolding and threatening I had to do. It was only the first time I taught that class and already I had to do all that? See me shake my head in despair. How private is my blog anyway? If I mention names, will they show up on the search engines "by accident"? I should check that before mentioning any names. Teehee. But anyway, that was the first class of yesterday, and I went back to the staff room in frustration. Then it was time for my second class, and man, I really didn't think it could get any worse than the first class, but dear friends, I was greatly mistaken. They were total hooligans! Gangster-wannabes, all of them! I tried being friendly, it didn't work. I even tried being firm and strict, and it worked for a while, and then it failed. Unlike the first class, this second class of mine are really proficient in the English language. And man, can they ask questions. It's one thing if the questions have something to do with the lesson, but their questions were everything under the sun, minus anything to do with the actual lesson. They were quite uncontrollable too. I really had to do a lot of shouting.
This morning was no better. The first class was the one with students who couldn't really speak English. I taught the literal meaning of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken, this morning, and I was trying to get the students to actually listen to me. I got so fed up with how unruly they were that I finally said something along the lines of: "SIT DOWN! SHUT UP! Kalau you tak nak belajar, tak apa. Tidur! Jangan bising! TIDUR! Yang lain, kalau nak belajar, duduk kat depan. OI! YOU! TIDUR SEKARANG! Letak kepala atas meja! JANGAN BISING! TIDUR!" or something along those lines. Half of the class literally cheered in glee when I told them I really didn't care if they didn't learn, as long as they kept quiet. The front row of kids were better. At least they were quiet/brought their books/paid whatever little attention they could spare. Towards the end of the lesson, some of the boys from the back actually moved to the second row. I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt and pretend they did that so that they could hear what I was trying to teach. I left the class, so worked up and annoyed that I was sweating all the way back to the staff room.
The second class was much better. They were really noisy, but at least they were doing some work at the same time. Since they were the more proficient class, I thought I could leave them to construct posters on the themes of the same poem. I told them to collect their manila cards, and there was a squabble over which group got what colour manila card. I handed out marker pens, and there was a debate over which colour marker pens would 'match' which colour manila cards. I pre-assigned them various themes in yesterday's class, and today the entire class voted (oh yes, we're really very democratic you know) to select their own themes. I walked around the class to 'monitor seatwork', and they asked me even more interesting questions than yesterday. But for all the arguments, commotion, and near-fights (there was one yesterday), I think this class is actually easier to teach (and definitely more likeable) than the first class. At least in this class, they're naughty, but you can see they're still quite nice at the bottom of all that show of bravado (you've actually got to dig quite deep to see it). I wanted them to present their posters during the second period, but they couldn't finish their posters, so I said we'll present it next week lah. Aiyoh. Why like this one?
I really dread the next 8 weeks. It's gonna be 8 long weeks of sleepless nights, early mornings, and shouting. Can I quit my teaching practice now? Talking about quitting, my supervisor came this morning (yeah I can't see what quitting's got to do with my supervisor too). He observed my other two friends' classes, but he didn't observe my class. Some of my students in the better class actually asked me where he was. They even told me they spotted him, and I'm beginning to think maybe they were more excited and nervous than I was. Some students asked me yesterday (after I told them my supervisor would be coming to observe my class) whether I wanted them to 'act'. It took almost everything to not burst out laughing right there and then.
Well, I'm stopping here for today. Enough blogging about depressing topics. I'll try to blog soon.
Monday, May 05, 2008
The Great 9-Week Experiment - Day 1
That's what I said I'd call the teaching practice thingy, remember? So anyway, today was the first day of my teaching practice. I was so nervous and excited, I think I was only able to get, like, 3 hours of sleep last night. Apparently my fellow trainees-in-torture were also nervous and excited, because I asked them and they said they didn't get much sleep either. What a way to begin The Great 9-Week Experiment.
I woke up at 5.50 am this morning. I don't think I've ever voluntarily woken up this early for something academic-related. Even getting me to wake up at 10 am for breakfast is difficult. So try, if you can, to imagine how hard it was to wake up. Actually, come to think of it, it wasn't very hard. I was so nervous and excited, I jumped at the first ring of my handphone cum alarm clock. So I rushed rushed rushed and left the house at about 6.30 am, and I picked up one of the trainees on the way to the school. The other trainee was already waiting for us at the school, and we finally reached the school gates at about 6.45 am.
I want to say that I had a fun and exciting day, but in reality it was quite monotonous. I remember counting down the hours ("5 more hours to go!") with my fellow TESLian trainee. We're just supposed to observe this first week, no actual teaching yet, so you can imagine what it was like to be stuck in a staff room from 7 till 1, with no story books, no magazines, no laptop, absolutely nothing to entertain us but deliberating whether to smile whenever a teacher or student walked through the staff room. But I must say that I really like the staff room. You would too, if you were a terrible sweater and the entire place is air-conditioned. It was so comfortably cold that my friend and I have decided to bring our jackets tomorrow. We visited the school canteen too, where I had some chicken rice and a can of Excel (what, don't they serve Coca-Cola?) which brought it to a total of RM4. Pretty cheap, considering various factors. When we got back from our break, we discovered that there would be a Sports Day. Horror of horrors! Me and sports don't really make a good team (unless, of course, you count watching and reading Slam Dunk a sport, in which case I'm the number one athlete in the country). Me and my TESLian friend worried that they would force us to participate in one of those student versus teacher kinda games, like the traditional tarik tali or gunny-sack jumping and all.
We were allowed to leave at approximately 12.20 pm. Apparently we can leave if we don't have any classes or sit-ins in the last period. Yippee. I got home and literally logged off for three hours straight (sleep like a log, get it?), I was that tired. So, like, I've kinda decided. Teaching is a great job, but I don't think it's for me.
Oh, and by the way, I'm limiting my blog to only a select few. Obviously, this is to safeguard my privacy, seeing how I'm now in the so-called public spotlight as a teacher trainee and all. Wouldn't be very nice for my colleagues or students to stumble onto this here page and read all sorts of stuff. So this blog is for special people only! Wait. That doesn't sound very nice. But hey, I'm sure you know what I mean. I'll probably set it back to public viewing once The Great 9-Week Experiment is safely over.
Cheers you all! Stay tuned for more interesting anecdotes!
I woke up at 5.50 am this morning. I don't think I've ever voluntarily woken up this early for something academic-related. Even getting me to wake up at 10 am for breakfast is difficult. So try, if you can, to imagine how hard it was to wake up. Actually, come to think of it, it wasn't very hard. I was so nervous and excited, I jumped at the first ring of my handphone cum alarm clock. So I rushed rushed rushed and left the house at about 6.30 am, and I picked up one of the trainees on the way to the school. The other trainee was already waiting for us at the school, and we finally reached the school gates at about 6.45 am.
I want to say that I had a fun and exciting day, but in reality it was quite monotonous. I remember counting down the hours ("5 more hours to go!") with my fellow TESLian trainee. We're just supposed to observe this first week, no actual teaching yet, so you can imagine what it was like to be stuck in a staff room from 7 till 1, with no story books, no magazines, no laptop, absolutely nothing to entertain us but deliberating whether to smile whenever a teacher or student walked through the staff room. But I must say that I really like the staff room. You would too, if you were a terrible sweater and the entire place is air-conditioned. It was so comfortably cold that my friend and I have decided to bring our jackets tomorrow. We visited the school canteen too, where I had some chicken rice and a can of Excel (what, don't they serve Coca-Cola?) which brought it to a total of RM4. Pretty cheap, considering various factors. When we got back from our break, we discovered that there would be a Sports Day. Horror of horrors! Me and sports don't really make a good team (unless, of course, you count watching and reading Slam Dunk a sport, in which case I'm the number one athlete in the country). Me and my TESLian friend worried that they would force us to participate in one of those student versus teacher kinda games, like the traditional tarik tali or gunny-sack jumping and all.
We were allowed to leave at approximately 12.20 pm. Apparently we can leave if we don't have any classes or sit-ins in the last period. Yippee. I got home and literally logged off for three hours straight (sleep like a log, get it?), I was that tired. So, like, I've kinda decided. Teaching is a great job, but I don't think it's for me.
Oh, and by the way, I'm limiting my blog to only a select few. Obviously, this is to safeguard my privacy, seeing how I'm now in the so-called public spotlight as a teacher trainee and all. Wouldn't be very nice for my colleagues or students to stumble onto this here page and read all sorts of stuff. So this blog is for special people only! Wait. That doesn't sound very nice. But hey, I'm sure you know what I mean. I'll probably set it back to public viewing once The Great 9-Week Experiment is safely over.
Cheers you all! Stay tuned for more interesting anecdotes!
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