Teaching Tips from QCR520 Microteaching

Here's some teaching tips and activities that I was exposed to during QCR520 Aims and Approaches to Teaching Literature. It has been a rather eye-opening experience and invaluable to my development as a future literature teacher. 

1.      Linking physical actions with  a lesson on discrimination (Andrea)

This particular activity which Andrea carried was interesting to me as it allowed me to understand how kinesthetic learning can be carried out. Andrea’s division of students according to the areas where they stayed at—which in turn determined who was able to remain seated on chairs or had to be relegated to the floor—was such a simple but powerful activity. Even now, I still remember vividly the notion of discrimination that she was teaching.

This is due to the fact that the content she was teaching was directly related to a physical action and motion. Her use of tying a lesson to a physical action was the impetus that got me thinking of physical actions and motions that I could incorporate into my own lesson as well. I think there is a lot of value to be had from linking lessons and physical actions in the classroom together. Students might not be able to understand concepts just from reading it on paper. But simple physical practical activities that get them off their seats and onto their feet (or in Andrea’s case off their feet and onto their butts) might serve to teach a particular concept a lot more effectively than just teaching from pen and paper.

Obviously a lot of thought must go into creating a physical activity that is simple enough to carry out in the confines of the classroom but will at the same time concretize the essence of message that the lesson is attempting to communicate.

2.      Taking the time to explain, clarify and solidify students’ concerns and questions (Kit and Jiamin)

I found Kit’s and Jiamin’s use of detailed and clear instructions, of interest to myself, as a developing and learning teacher. Kit placed a lot of emphasis and time explaining and laying the proper guidelines for her lesson before she launched into the main activity itself. But her continual return to the material that had been generated earlier ensured a constant flow that made use of existing material while at the same time ensuring students’ knowledge foundations were sturdy and concrete. (This is in reference to the rather detailed mindmap that she came up with at the start of her microteaching session).

This was true as well for Jiamin who taught—what I thought was a rather hefty subject of metaphysics—a very difficult concept but distilled into very manageable and learnable nuggets of wisdom. This goes back to Mark’s lesson earlier today and the use of terms such as “dichotomies” and “social stratification”. While I do agree that there is a place for the use of such terms in the classroom, I think that it should be the other way around. Just as Jiamin taught the concept of metaphysics by first relating it to more mundane and prosaic examples before introducing the term of metaphysics itself, so too do I think that we should first introduce the examples of how a more difficult concept can be construed in more mundane events and ideas before the actual technical term itself is introduced to students. This way, students will not be daunted by grandiose, un-understandable words but will instead be firmly acquainted with the use of the concept before they find out the word itself. After all, I do believe that students do understand the meanings of dichotomies, binaries and social stratification. It is just that they do not use technical terms to understand those concepts.

So I think it is crucial here to provide the necessary scaffolding (ugh I finally used that dirty word) to ensure a student’s understanding of various concepts so that when the term is finally introduced to them, they will not be intimidated by those terms.

3.      Role division amongst students (Shu May)

Another useful tip which I attempted to implement into my own microteaching session was Shu May’s use of role division that she carried out in her own lesson. I thought the use of dividing students into various roles was especially clever and innovative. I can see a lot of applications for this sort of task and role division. It could even be possible to make this a constant classroom activity where students must constantly switch roles and fit in to different roles of speakers, presenters, researchers, noise managers and time keepers. This will not only keep the lessons fresh and engaging, it will also allow students to develop different skills (public speaking, presentation skills, getting out of their comfort zones and so on) while at the same time accomplishing the lesson goals and objectives.

This is such a great technique to tackle a number of issues at once and inculcate a more holistic development in our students as we engage and develop not only their academic subject content mastery but soft skills such as leadership, self-discipline and public speaking.

4.      Dramatization (Jodee, Pepper and Liz)

Yes I’m well aware the stipulation for this task was for 3 tips but I found the use of dramatization another technique that warranted mention as well. While I still think students must first know the text intimately, once they do, dramatization is very effective to get students to be more critical and reflective about the way they understand the text.

As readers they may be just passive recipients and consumers of the text but when students are forced to dramatize and perform the play, they must make more critical choices about how to perform and dramatize the various texts.

As Jodee, Pepper and Liz microteaching sessions illustrated, by getting students to engage with the text and physically dramatize it, they were able to make their respective texts more relevant and immediate to us as learners. For example, it was only when Pepper got myself, Jodee and Jason to act out the orange peeling scene from Fasting, Feasting that I realized the potential for satire and social commentary that Desai had infused into her text. I think this goes back to the earlier explanation of Andrea’s linkage between lesson content and physical activity.

While you may understand a text theoretically, it is only when you act it out physically that you adopt a more reflective, critical mindset to dissect and understand a text more exhaustively.

QLK 520 E-Learning 2 Reflective Blog

Question: To what extent do you think you will be able to apply what you have learned in this course to your future teaching career?

The Communication Skills for Teachers module does have a number of fairly useful lessons and classes that will enable me to be better prepared as a teacher for when I finally step into a classroom. Of particular relevance and usefulness to me as a teacher was the class on Vocal Health and Voice Production. It was useful to learn the various hints and tips needed to preserve my voice and ensure that my vocal ability is not impaired. This is crucial because once I start out in school, I cannot afford to lose my voice as this would seriously hinder my lessons and I would be doing a disservice to my students as well. I have been attempting to practice speaking from the diaphragm and projecting my voice further so as to utilize the strategies suggested by the course material.

Some of the lessons which I did not find as useful might be the class on Classroom communication. I felt that it was perhaps a little too idealized and I would have liked if there were more real-world context and scenarios as opposed to the slightly artificial examples put up on Moodle.

I found the written communication module interesting but the test itself did not really aid in my development as a teacher. While identifying the various types of questioning techniques and strategies was useful, I am unsure that writing a text depicting classroom conversations is the best way to prepare for an actual classroom lesson.

I found the use of the blended approach to CST interesting as it was still able to teach CST concepts which I felt were only applicable to physical classroom teaching. This might offer some information as to how (if I were to do so) I could implement online and F2F lessons in my own classrooms in the future.

All in all, I find the CST module useful, but I would appreciate it if there were more real-world applicability built into the various lessons courses. 

It's not your language or my language, it's everyone's language!

I saw this video awhile back in Professor Tamas Kiss' Grammar class but I still find it as relevant and interesting now. Stephen Fry puts it a lot more eloquently but the gist is that English isn't the property of any one individual or entity. It belongs to everyone and is unique to everyone. So stop being such a grammar snob already!

10 Rights and 1 Warning

Something I was introduced to today: every reader should have these rights!

From sand witches to sandwiches (A reading bibliography)

Professor Loh Chin Ee in the QCR 520 aims and approaches to Literature asked us to write out our reading bibliography. It was interesting enough that I went on for a lot longer than I expected. The books I have read have a direct bearing on the thoughts and mental processes that have come to shape my mind and my life so I've shared what I wrote in this blog as well because it is interesting to chart the evolution of myself through the different types of texts that I have come into contact with.

As a child growing up, I was not a very fond reader. In fact my command of English was rather abysmal. At one point I was confusing sandwiches and sand witches and the only way I could spell Singapore was through humming that tune of S-I-N-G-A-P-O-R-E. Shameful really. My teacher, Mrs Menon (funny how easily I can dredge my memory and come up with her name while the memory of lunch two week’s ago lies as forgotten as yesterday’s lunch) was the one who suggested I start reading and so I did.

From then on, I spent my days accompanied by a plethora of books but I fondly recall curling up to read most of the Enid Blyton collection: Willow Farm (All 3 books in that trilogy), Malory Towers, Far Away Tree (Wonderfully fascinating and otherworldly), Famous Five, The Secret Series and on and on.

As secondary student, I gradually found myself meandering more toward the Three Investigators, The Hardy Boys and even a little bit of Nancy Drew. Then I got into Christopher Pike’s various series of horror/thriller, and moved into Sidney Sheldon (I think I possibly read all of his works that were published at the time) and read books ranging from fantasy to a variety of other genres.

I moved onto to Polytechnic and my tastes did not so much change as mature slightly. I’d finished C.S. Lewis’s seven books on Narnia, read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings once (I’d eventually read it a second time with much the same results of incomprehension, frustration and tedium), dabbled a bit with Terry Pratchett (I’ve read all 37 books of Discworld so far as I know) and finally got to David Gemmell. Ah Gemmell. He is an author I particularly love. It is not so much the sparseness of his wordcraft nor is it the grim reality I find omnipresent in his works, I can’t say if it boils down to his use of the blackest of humour which makes its startling appearances on the pages of his books. Perhaps it might be easier to say it is a sum greater than the whole of its parts. To sum the entirety of his oeuvre in so little words seems difficult, perhaps this quote best encapsulates his authorial concerns: “If there is one sound that follows the march of humanity, it is the scream” (David Gemmell).

After poly, I made my way into the shaved hair ranks of my fellow national servicemen and my time for reading was a lot harder to come by. In fact, I could even say it pattered, then trickled, and eventually ground to a halt completely in that first year. After that I started reading again but I did not find any books particularly memorable.

So you can imagine my shock when I enrolled in NTU’s English department and was faced with a mountain of words, novels, plays, dramas and poems. DH Lawrence, Samuel Beckett (there is something about Beckett that I’ve always wished to capture, perhaps I found echoes of the sparseness, brevity and bleakness of Gemmell in Beckett that calls out to me somehow). There was also Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood and a whole host of other texts too numerous to name. More significantly I was introduced to the various literary theories (some call it a bane, for myself they were a boon so I have no complaints about them).

While I am able to carry out close readings to an extent, the introduction of literary theories allowed me to view a text far more critically and I was able to use the theories to bolster my arguments about a text (though at times I found myself wondering if I used them more as a crutch than an actual complement to my textual analyses).

It was through a great professor that I started reading about Salman Rushdie (Shame, Midnight’s Children), Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things, JM Coetzee’s Foe, Waiting for the Barbarians and Disgrace from there I started to explore on my own and began to read about Jhumpa Lahiri and other such Postcolonial writers. I was introduced to the intricate and multifaceted dialogical imagination of Mikhail Bakhtin and this eventually led me to coming into contact with Jean Marie Gustav Le Clézio.

I would eventually write my undergraduate final year project about Le Clézio and later his works would form the crux of my Masters thesis. Le Clézio is perhaps not the most riveting of writers (his style encompasses vast natural landscapes and slow gradual developments of his characters’ psyche) but there is something in his works that is, for want of a better word, beautiful.

But it is not just beauty that I detect in his novels but something more as well, a sort of drive towards a social and cultural responsibility. I find that I too now read through a Postcolonial lens. While I do recognize that texts can (and should) be read for the pure aesthetic pleasures of it—certainly Night Circus—springs to mind quite readily I find that when I write of texts, I must find some sort of meaning and purpose to it. When a text lacks such a purpose, I find such a text while interesting visually and aesthetically, lacking in change making.

Now that I’ve come full circle and now I’m in the position to influence my students’ reading habits, one thing I hope to achieve is to instil the love of reading in them. Sure I think that Postcolonialism does offer a plethora of possibilities and analytical perspectives but I only arrived at this point after starting from decidedly unpolitical texts.

So the most important thing of all for me is for a student to first love reading. It is after that that academic concerns and other such things can take precedence after.

Who am I?

Today during the class "Educational Psychology" we did a little exercise titled: Who am I? It was a very simple exercise. We had only to answer a short question that was  three words long. Surprisingly though, I found myself stumped about what to say. There were so many things to say after all.

I decided though after some reflection that who I was, and who I defined myself to be was determined by the setting in which I asked myself this question.

At home with my family, I am the eldest son to my parents and big brother to my 2 younger siblings. I have a responsibility to provide and care for my family to the best of my abilities.

At NIE with my classmates, I am a student teacher attempting to learn the rights and wrongs of teaching and agreeing with a lot (but disagreeing with some) of the philosophies and ideas that I have been introduced to in the classes and courses that I have been attending.

At school as a teacher to learners and students dependent on me, I am a professional who sees my role as one who has a duty to teach and pass something on to them that is of worth. I hope it is something which will  be relevant to my students not only when they take their various tests and exams (and other such knowledge assessments) but also when they go out into the world to walk the world as I have and tread upon paths that might just be beyond the places where I have been. I see myself as one, who as a teacher, has a iron code of conduct and morals that must be adhered to. For if I do not teach by example, then I can teach nothing of worth.