Tuesday, August 14, 2007

4/4- Bane of my teaching career

4/4 IS REALLY DRIVING ME CRAZY THESE DAYS! (Of course, not all of them, but unfortunately only a small handful of them are cooperative: Teck Lee, Wei Fah, Danial, Yin Han, maybe Haikarl, Fazlun and friends. That's about all. :<) Jun Xian's big group of supporters is really getting on my nerves. They insisted on sticking together and yet refused to pay attention to my explanation. They still talked to each other as if there was no teacher present! When I asked them whether there was any relief teacher for yesterday's English lesson as I was absent, Jun Xian even remarked that it made no difference whether I was here for lesson or not. I was simply infuriated! Even Liying and Jeslyn are becoming less focused although Liying claimed that she did her corrections. I normally trusted Liying and rarely monitored her but I had to ask her today whether she wrote the correct answers.

Towards the last 10 minutes, all the pupils went back to their seats to put down their notes and THEY DECLARED END OF LESSON before I could even say anything. Some of them even attempted to walk out of the classroom before the bell rang. I was going to briefly go through one more complaint model letter but did you guys give me any chance to say so? Absolutely NO! Your body language preceded everything I intended to do! Is that the right kind of attitude you have just before your prelims? I plunged into utter despair!

I loathed myself for treating 4/4 'nicely' initially and giving them certain privileges. Now, they are taking advantage of me, just because I was not as firm as other teachers. BUT 4/4, DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE USING YOUR PRELIMS AND EVEN 'N' LEVEL ENGLISH RESULTS AS YOUR STAKE FOR MISBEHAVING or going against me? You are the ones to give up on yourself first through your misbehaviour and I'm getting weary of handling you...

After leaving 4/4, my temper inevitably rose again as I walked along the corridor of the 3N classrooms, chasing each 'stray' 3/3 pupil back into the classroom, quite a usual routine for me actually, but I couldn't keep my emotions in control and subconsciously raised my voice in an attempt to COMMAND THEM TO GO IN!

3/3, pardon me for being suddenly so fierce! I know Syafiqah noticed me suddenly flaring up today without no seemingly valid reason. Part of the reason why I scolded Eileen so harshly for changing pictures for the class oral task also began with my self-resentment in my treatment to 4/4. I really can't stop fearing that 3/3 might one day turn out to be another 4/4: rude, disrespectful, contemptuous and unmotivated in your studies TO THAT EXTENT!

Sometimes, I wonder am I fit to be a teacher? Currently, there's nothing in my teaching job that I can be proud of... I'm weakening... I'm losing hope...

Friday, August 10, 2007

Homeroom on 8 Aug


On 8 Aug, during Homeroom period, I decided to play My Teacher is a Gangster 2 episode 4. I really feel greatly inspired each time I watch this drama series and the show always rekindles my passion to be a teacher, especially to be a teacher of NA pupils.

Through this episode, I hope to make my pupils realize that every one of them has a bright future ahead of them even though they might not have any ambition right now, therefore they shouldn't give up on themselves.

The VCD that I have only contains Chinese subtitles, so I attempted to overcome this problem by trying to translate the main parts of the plot and the important learning points to English in order to enable the non-Chinese pupils to at least have a slight idea of the show. I hope my translation has been useful.

I was glad that quite a number of my pupils seemed to be enthralled (captivated) by the show, especially Teng Wee, Kevin, Jackson, Xiu Guang, Kuang Sheng, Agnes Lim and even Syafiq. Syafiq even shifted from the last row to the second last row. Although Jasmeet said something hurtful in the middle of my translation that really annoyed me, under Hui Xiang's encouragement, I continued to explain the show after scolding Jasmeet. Thank you, Hui Xiang, for showing great interest in the show and even trying to promote this show to his other friends who were standing outside the classroom.

I wonder how many of you have been touched by this show…