An Honest Discussion... About Lost Passion

Over the last few months I have had the pleasure of joining teachers in their classrooms and shared numerous discussions about work life in general.    I thought that I would share some of a conversation I had with a teacher recently, and I hope that those of you who can relate or who share similar feelings/experiences will post a comment or engage your mentor in further discussion.  I have decided not to mention any names, so that no one is embarrassed.

Motivation

"I have been a teacher for many years and I have no interest in being an administrator.  The problem is that I have seemed to have lost my passion.  I miss being excited to go into the classroom.  How can I get that back?"   ~TELL2 MTP

I really appreciate the honesty of this individual.  They are not a bad teacher... FAR FROM IT!  They are going through something that we all encounter at some point in any career.  My answer to this teacher is in 3 parts:     1)  Planning,  2)  Experimentation,  and  3) Making classes fun FOR YOU too!!!

Planning:

As time goes by we become more and more comfortable with our classes, our lesson plans, and our materials.  Often, the longer we teach a subject the less time we take in planning what we will do.  This gives us all more time to enjoy our colleagues in the canteen or focus on getting our extra-work done, but it steals from us the excitement of having a goal for the class or trying a new idea, teaching method, or activity.  By taking more time to plan each lesson we are better prepared to try new things and really retrieve better enthusiasm from the students.  This in turn causes us to feel more successful and thereby enjoy a higher sense of accomplishment.

Experimentation
All of us are required to attend meetings, seminars, workshops, and online modules for our jobs.  These are often dry and boring, or full of information that we know or just doesn't really seem to be of any help to us.  But how much of it have we actually applied in the classroom?  Trying new things is exciting, because the results are uncertain.  My advice is to take the time to plan and implement the ideas that you have.  Finding out what works (or sometimes doesn't work) only leads to new ideas on how to make things better.  The more invested we get in the outcomes of our lessons and our methods the more we will increase the excitement and challenge of each visit to the classroom.

Make Classes Fun... FOR YOU too!!!

We are always saying to "Make classes fun," but that doesn't just mean for the students.  Each of us bring unique interests, skills, and talents to the table.  Don't hesitate to incorporate those into the lessons.  Whether it is football, or baking, or cars, or collecting seashells... all of it can be utilized to aid in the classroom.  It has the added benefit of taking the students out of their world and into yours.  It demonstrates how English can be used to discuss things that are fun.  Beyond the book or the exam, involving our interests shows how English can be useful to communicate things in any topic.  It also makes room for discussion and opinion.  "Do you agree?"  The more we are bringing ourselves and our interests into the classroom, the more fun we will have.  The more fun we are having the more fun the children will have and vice-versa.


I again want to thank all of my teachers for their honest sharing and discussions.  As we all go through low points in our motivation, I hope that these short recommendations will be of help to your rekindling the fires.  There is an old proverb, "Better than a thousand days of diligent study, is one day with a great teacher."  If you find yourself lacking the drive to be that "great teacher" at times try improving your planning, experimentation, and making classes more fun ... for you.  Who knows... it could change your outlook overnight.

~Joshua Simon    ELP Jerantut Cluster

Vvvvvvvvv ... van

Haptic Phonics: taking the TPD back to the classroom

Haptic is a word shared by educationalists and touch screen developers; it means the same as 'tactile' or 'kinesthetic'.  

The day after the March TPD workshop, I was at SK Pulau Mansok and teacher Noriza Bt Ibrahim told me that she enjoyed the phonics workshop that the SK Bukit Nikmat mentor, Melissa, and teacher Norakesumawati Bt Yusof led to show us the value of attaching phonic sounds to both meaning and gesture:

• Sound: the pure sound of the phoneme
• Gesture: a hand or body movement that accompanies the sound
• Meaning: the association between the sound and the meanning (e.g. Vvvv is the first sound of 'van' so pupils mimic a steering wheel action when they sound 'v')

Teacher Noriza wanted to teach her Year 3 class the phonic sounds and gestures, and she asked me if I could remember all the gestures. I couldn't remember all the gestures, but I did remember that Mel said that if you couldn't remember a particular gesture, just make up a new one. Teacher Noriza and I decided to let the class choose all their own gestures.

We spent time practising the sounds of the pure phonemes (no 'uh' sounds after consonants e.g. B'uh, D'uh, K'uh etc are NOT pure sounds of /b/, /d/ and /k/) before we introduced the idea of accompanying gestures. The pupils took to it like fish to water, and we had a lot of fun playing with the meanings between the sounds and movements.

Lll ... look!

Vvv ... van

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Junior Mentors in the Making

Early stages in the Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) 

process at SK Pulau Mansok - Junior Mentors

Teacher Noriza Bt Ibrahim and I are in the early stages of a Junior Mentor Programme with the Year 5 pupils at SK Pulau Mansok. We want the Year 5 pupils to take the lead in a crafts-in-English assisted learning project with the Year 3 pupils.

The old dice cubes are looking a bit tired and sad, so it is time for some new ones. This time we will make cubes with the theme of occupations. The finished cubes will represent different occupations that the students study in Years 1 and 2. This craft project will create a useful classroom resource for Year 1 and 2 pupils as well as give a good language review opportunity for the Year 3 and 5 pupils.

But, as with any project, the first step can be the most difficult. We have organised some time with the Year 5 pupils in between all the other school activities that are keeping the teachers and pupils busy lately, and we have made a start on our Junior Mentoring project at SK Pulau Mansok.

And it was a good start, too.

Some of the pupils had difficulty with the final assembly technique, but overall the class produced a sturdy bunch of boxes. The next step will be to reinforce the cube-making process and identify tasks and task leaders for when we introduce the activity to the Year 3 pupils.

Do you want to do something like this with your classes? Talk to your mentor! 

 

Everyone kept on task

After nearly 3 years, the old cubes
are ready for retirement

The finished Product

Someone took notes!

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Teacher Professional Development (more than just blah-blah-blah)

Teachers taking ideas, and running with them!

In February's TPD I showed teachers how to make large, sturdy paper cubes as a warm-up activity while we waited for everyone to arrive. This month, the teachers from SJKT Jerantut, Zahidah Bt Mauludin and Rukumani A/P Amir Singh took the cubes to another level.

Zahidah explained how they have been using cubes at SJKT Jerantut as letter dice (one for vowels and one for consonants) for a categories game where players fill in names for items beginning with the rolled letter on their game-sheet. Categories included things like places, furniture, food and animals. Once we understood the rules, Zahidah and Rukumani put us into teams and we played the game ourselves. If it is fun for us, it is probably fun for the pupils as well!

It is very encouraging for mentors when teachers take ideas we have shared at professional development workshops and make them their own, The teachers in the Jerantut cluster have lots of good ideas, and we have been very lucky in our professional development workshops that so many of our participating teachers have been able to present their own favourite classroom tips and activities during our monthly TPD workshops.

Thanks, everyone, for not being shy and sharing your ideas!

The things you can do with paper cubes!

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Peer Assisted Learning at SJKJT Jerantut!

Learning Together

SJKJT Jerantut decided to hold classes Wednesday before Chinese New Year and asked if the TELL2 mentors would join in.  We agreed and decided to organize a Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) event. Our goal was to get the students learning together and then teaching each other what they had learned.  We separated the entire school into 9 groups with students from all years in each team.  

Taking Notes

Next, we gave the students dry erase boards and markers so that they could take notes.  Each mentor gave a Powerpoint presentation on a topic of personal interest.  After each presentation was finished we replayed the slides, but this time called upon the students to share what they had learned and written in their notes.

After all three presentations we wrapped up with an interactive Q&A "Bomb!" Game.  Special attention was placed on the students only being allowed to answer once.  As such, they were constantly sharing notes and helping each other.  In the end, lots and lots of English was learned and used by the students.  I think it is fair to say that we all really had a great time!

~Joshua Simon
    ELP Jerantut Cluster

Silent Segmenting

Fun and Effective Phonics Class

Teacher Noor Aziatul Akma at SK Kuala Tembeling prepared a simple set of phonic words and letter cards for the pupils to practice segmenting and blending the sounds p  a  t  s .   

Everyone got one card, and every card had a word or a letter from the p  a  t  s range. Everyone practised sounding their letter or segmenting their word, and teacher Akma also asked the students to say the segmented sounds silently. The silent segmenting really forced the students to make the correct mouth shapes for the sound - and it worked very well.

Instead of re-shuffling the sound cards, the pupils left their cards on the desk and ran around musical chairs-style while teacher Akma played music on her phone; when the music stopped, the pupils would stop running and practise with the word card at the new desk.

Silent segmenting

Enjoying learning

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

READING ESL (for teachers)

Easy Online Reading!

Last year we had the Traveling Library - a box of books in the mentor's car boot! The books were all easy readers and covered a range of topics and genres. Some of the most popular books were children's books that teachers took home to read to their own children.

I still have the books this year, if anyone is interested, and I also have a collection of Readers' Digest books and some ESL magazines to add to the mix. So, look out for the Traveling Library 2015!

As well as the Traveling Library I also have an easy reading web site that you can access through your phone or home / work computer. I have re-written some interesting magazine or news articles into very easy to read English. As well as the easy version of the story, I have also provided a link to the original article with a vocabulary list of the less common English words used by the original author.

Here is the latest story:READING ESL: oh my goat!

Here is the archive: READING ESL: archive

I hope you enjoy reading!

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)