Path more travelled

Hi Louis,

Please be advised that we are agreeable to you teaching at Sec level with CS1: English Language and CS2: Physics and will soon arrange you to go for PGDE (Sec).

So it's confirmed, I won't be doing the Primary school path anymore. Whee!

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

Seem to have often taken the one less travelled. But if I keep taking the one less travelled, sooner or later I'm going to end up in Timbuktu.

So I'm taking a module on psychology in education, and against my expectations (a large part of it seems to revolve around administering psychometric tests and interpreting the data) I find myself oddly intrigued by the job.

Teaching at the primary level would probably be advantageous in gaining experience with instances of early learning difficulty, and I don't particularly mind it now (at upper primary level, anyway) after my school attachment. On the other hand, if I want to stay long-term in the teaching line, my preference would still be the secondary level.

My scholarship officer suggested that since it was possible to do educational psychology even with secondary teaching experience (and it is easier to switch from teaching secondary to primary than vice versa), I should just pick whichever level I prefer teaching at. I've asked and I need to make a firm decision (they learn different things at NIE) by mid-May.

How now? Primary or secondary? Primary or secondary?

...two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

Northlight School

Spoke with Jia-yan briefly about Northlight School earlier. I'd first heard about it at my school attachment briefing earlier this month - it sounds like a wonderful thing, this new vocational school, and it heartens me to know that our system is finally doing more to ensure students at the lowest end of the spectrum are not left behind.

I toyed with the idea of teaching there in the future, but frankly I don't know if I'm equipped (with the skills and personality) for it. I suppose I'll have to wait till I'm in to see where I'll be able to best make a difference.

Ey so fast

Time sure flies when you've got stuff to do. My school attachment's really been a big learning experience so far, though we kinda neglected our project (it's changed from the one originally proposed, incidentally, I'm now working on some 'Habits of Mind' thing with the other two scholars) and weren't on the right track initially, so we've been rushing it the last couple of days, and probably the next few days as well.

It's been pretty nice socially as well, I've been meeting up with friends and stuff, though it's really quite annoying having to go back early to sleep since I need to wake pretty early the next day.

The flip side to this wonderfully eventful schedule is that I have yet to start on my 3000-word TEFL essay, which accounts for a whopping 4.05% of my total degree mark. You might think it's not all that much, but a mere 4% can really make or break a grade (think 67% vs 71%).

Of course I'm largely to blame for procrastinating so much (this blog entry is further evidence of that), but hey, I'm sure I'll be further ahead already if I didn't have to wake at 6am every weekday!

Techy goodness

Here's an article I just read about a browser plugin.

I've just installed it, and it works pretty well! I rather like it. It's fast and also way less intrusive than the Snap preview thing, which I've decided to deactivate (for all site) via their FAQ page.
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I've recently been exposed to the job roles of various personnel in schools, and the job of HOD IT actually sounds quite fun! Aside from ensuring that students learn computer literacy, the HOD is also in charge of the school's network infrastructure and IT resources, among other things. It seems a lot more fun (and varied) than the other HODs, who have to bother with things like staff appraisals for their department, lesson policies, and various things like that.

Shockingly frentic teaching life

Primary school teaching is nowhere as idyllic as I'd made it out to be.

Today was primarily just talks and discussions, so I haven't actually observed what happens on the ground yet, but the primary education scene is so much different from back in my own primary school years in the early 90s. There're a lot more programmes and enrichment classes available now, and it all seems mostly good (from the student's point of view).

Of course this all translates into more work for the teachers, and if there's one thing that hasn't changed much from the 90s, it's staff size. I've always heard about the legendary 'administrative stuff' that teachers find themselves busy with a lot of the time, and I guess I'm about to find out in greater detail what exactly all this entails.

It seems that in Guangyang Primary, teachers usually go home later than 5. Well, supposedly it's possible to do your bare minimum and go home shortly after lessons end, but I think you can forget about job advancement if you do that. Which might be fine for some, I guess, but probably not for me.

There's still three weeks to go, and really a lot to learn, but right now I think that unlike what I'd thought four years ago, teaching at the primary level is actually both a challenging and rewarding experience.

Attachment

I've been assigned to Guangyang Primary for my school attachment. It's really near Bishan MRT, so maybe I'll be meeting up with you north-dwellers more often in July then... (Then again I'll probably knock off earlier than the average worker. Oh well =P)

Hmm. Maybe I'll even cycle to school daily. Ey wait, I think my mum got rid of the bike already. Dang.

My project title seems quite interesting, as in it's something I'm very interested in actually doing, but right now quite frankly I don't know where to start. Like I have a few vague ideas in my head, but how do I know if they're viable at all? I've got very little experience leh. Haiyah.

Improving the PSLE English Language Results – A modular approach to teaching and learning

The school has not been able to achieve PSLE English Language Results that is above national average for the past 2 years. Upon the mid year review conducted at the end of semester 1 of 2007, teachers gave the feedback that a lot of time in class has been proportioned towards the completion of tasks assigned in the workbooks. Teachers have very little time to teach pupils the strategies towards tackling examinable components in which they can score best example Grammar and Editing, let alone revise those components that they are weak in namely, the Comprehension Cloze, Synthesis and Transformation and Comprehension OE.

The scholar can review the results of the current P4 pupils to see how best the modular system / approach to the teaching and learning of English Language can be implemented for 2008-2009 to prepare these pupils for their PSLE in 2009.

Careers Day

I'm not sure why exactly I sat through every single talk at the Careers Day event today - I suppose I just wanted to know what the options were for a Psychology graduate. Just in case. It was good, though, because it made me feel more certain about my choice of the education ministry. The other jobs mentioned just didn't interest me that much.

Also, I have actually become more interested in the prospect of a career in Educational Psychology. I'll have to do a little more research on the options available, but perhaps someday I'll be going for that doctorate after all...

CIP in schools

I just read this entry at Trisha Reloaded.

While I know (in theory) of the existence of such conditions, I have never seen them before with my very own eyes, and quite frankly I am afraid to do so.

I remember back in secondary school, my CIP activities consisted of visiting old folks' homes and tutoring kids in Jamiyah homes... the shock value was nowhere as high as what was described. It's not that these are unworthy causes, but somehow I think that the time would have been better spent being exposed to the conditions of people in situations even more dire.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that with the widening income gap between the privileged and the unprivileged, it is the elite uncaring faces who most require exposure to such cases.
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As a sidenote, my YSIS stint starts this Wednesday. Somewhat nervous about it. Haha. Oh well. Hopefully those kids won't be lynching me. Gulp.

More overseas studies!

Overseas Study Award for Selected Post-graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) Trainees

46. To enhance the pedagogy of selected teachers, the Committee proposes a three-month study award for selected PGDE trainees who have shown outstanding performance in their course of study. The overseas stint could be at reputable overseas teacher training institutes or schools in EL-speaking countries such as New Zealand and Australia. The three-month stint in a different language learning context will provide the opportunity for these trainee teachers to expand their repertoire of pedagogical approaches.

Ooh. Something to work toward during NIE. No idea if I'll be able to get it, but oh well, it's still a long time from now, anyway.

Increased hours

However, less than half of all English teachers in secondary schools actually studied English language or English literature at university.

So, from January next year, trainee teachers in the one-year postgraduate diploma in education will undergo 216 extra hours of training on the technicalities of the language and how to teach it.

I'm hoping to be one of these non-degree secondary-level English teachers, and although I've always been rather worried about my lack of qualifications for the task, I look at this piece of news with some mixed sentiment.

While it's great that there'll be more training to bridge this gap, on a personal level I do hope there's some sort of compensation for the extra hours...

Educators all

It was a bit strange seeing so many of the MOE people in the same place again, for the first time in so very long.

Was it already a year ago that we'd gone for OBS together, that we'd collectively yawned our way through the pre-departure courses, that we'd worked together to produce that embarrassing excuse of an item for the pre-departure ceremony?

I suppose that yes, yes it has been that long already, and truth be told, I haven't really bothered keeping in touch with most of them, not even the ones I thought I'd got along with pretty well. Which is sad, really, but I suppose that's the way it works.

It was heartening, however, that we still do have things to talk about, and that it wasn't really all that awkward amongst the lot of us. I suppose that even though we might not really know a lot about each others' personal lives, at the end of the day, we are all (well, mostly anyway) similar in one way at least, and that there is something unifying in that one common aspect, somehow.