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There goes the last lesson.... I left the centre with mixed feelings.... For one, I was really happy, and very proud. It has been such a joy teaching the children, and understanding them. Hearing them out, guiding them, laughing with them, even playing with them. Every time we went for lesson, I would be rather reluctant and worried before the lesson, in fear that we are not readily prepared. But once the lessons started, I couldn't help but enjoy them. =) And when i smiled during the lessons, they were true smiles, even those exaggerated =D smiles were from the bottom of my heart. It has been such a pleasure to teach them. =)

Also, I couldn't help but be so proud. Proud of them, and proud of ourselves. Proud of them, for having tried their best for all that we have done. Proud that Boy X from Jon-Hann's post was able to do his work and talk about it well too. =) So proud that they all left with a smile, carrying their certificate and art-folios.
Also, I am so proud of you guys! Rattanin for his great contributions, especially in the arts aspect. The first few lessons, the marking of work, and the super nice certificate! Thanks dude! Jon-Hann for doing up the powerpoint presentations, dealing with the worksheets and sorting their work, and of course, bringing your projector. Most importantly, you always keep the mood light! =D Thanks buddy! Shaun for getting to the point, increasing our work efficiency, and well, your smoking skills helped too! =D Thanks man. And Shi Jian for bringing your laptop, and always doing what i assign to you, although you may put up an 'I don't care' front. The effort and the heart just touched me. Thanks for giving it your best dude. And thanks to Mrs Lim who helped use print the many many worksheets and certificates and providing us with our needed resources. Thank you all. =D
And lastly, I must say I am really proud of myself too. To be able to make a difference, however small, in the children's life. Being friends with the children, and helping them to speak up, interacting with them, motivating them, learning with them. I tried my best, and I am really glad it all worked out well. I have never really had such an opportunity before, and this one will definitely leave a lasting impression. I never thought RE could be so fun, so satisfying, and so great! =D I am glad I made this choice to come for RESL. And once again, thanks everyone for making this journey possible.
Although we most probably would not get to see those children again, which breaks my heart, but i hope that we have somehow or another help them and touched their lives. Leaving all those happy faces, curious minds and pure hearts gives me great regrets for having only 8 lessons, but well, all good things come to an end, and at least it ended with a happy note. Personally, this journey has made me know more about everyone. Our group members, Mrs Lim, Mrs Tan, the children, and even the teachers and staff there. I have learnt a great deal, and I really hopw that in the future, we would be able to embark on a similar journey together too. What do you say? =D
Perhaps I would reflect deeper on what I have learnt, and how I could have done better in the future, but as for now, I think we all deserve a little break, don't we? =D Haha. It has really been a great pleasure working with you bunch, so thanks again, and enjoy your break. =)

For the previous lesson, we worked on trying to get the children to use their 5 senses to describe objects around them. For this lesson, we decided to bring it a step further and get them to talk about the emotions of the object that they are talking about as well as their characteristics (we didn't use this phrase, broke it down to simpler terms). During planning, it actually sounded like quite good an idea, and I thought that it was already a very good change from our previous idea which was way too complicated. However, when we went down there, though we did sufficient preparations, I still felt that we were rather careless in tying up the loose ends and making sure that we knew EXACTLY what we wanted to do.


Actually, the concept of our lesson was quite straightforward, and is actually quite practical- it should have been simple enough for them to understand, yet it would be tough enough for them to feel challenged when doing it. Most of them were quite responsive and enthusiastic and tried their best to keep up with our lesson. But I felt that we were still spoon-feeding them with the information, and that they required too much prompting before they could answer. And I think some of them were still unwilling to speak up in class, though we were trying to be as friendly as possible to create a more conducive environment for free-and-easy classroom discussions.

And so because of this, we had to waste unnecessary time trying to get them to answer some of the questions, which we already had gone through and did before. Also, I think that the crux of the problem is that they are unable to do phonics, so spelling of words are mostly done by us, even though we had already helped them and prompted them quite a deal. Even so, I believe most of the words that are in the sentence are like 'given' to us in a sense. e.g. I asked what is the boy like, then they do not reply, then i have to change it such that it goes is the boy tall or short? so in a sense, I would be indirectly pointing it out to them...

It is a little worrying, especially when our next lesson is targeted at asking the kids to talk about their favorite animal, write it out and drawing it. I'm not so worried about the drawing part, but rather it is the writing that concerns me. Today, each one of us took a group of children, and as it was, it was rather tough to convey what we wanted them to write. And it was actually already quite simple because we were all teaching them to write about the same things. In fact, some of them do not really understand the rationale of writing things a certain way, because when I made a mistake unwittingly, they copied blindly. So we have to be really precise with what we write to show them.

So as for the next lesson, I am really not sure which direction in which we should head towards. I am worried and quite confused as to which direction we should be taking ... :( hopefully we could try to meet up during the weekends or something...

Oh and a last thing, I think I might have been a little hard on one of the boys today. Let's call him boy X. All the while, we knew that this boy has been rather playful and has a short attention span. But I know for a fact that this boy is actually quite good, but he just has a very bad learning attitude. He gives up before he even tries. So today, I said, "boy X, today promise me that you try ah, don't say you cannot do." he pinkie promised me. And he broke it. While I was explaining, he just refused to listen and said oh i can't do it. too tough. We were running out of time and so if he was not interested, I just chose to teach the others. Once we finished writing out all the sentences, he realized that he was way behind and tried to copy all that I wrote, but he did it all wrong! And we were already dragging the lesson 10 mins past time. So I was extremely disappointed in him and kind of said, you see, refused to listen so serves you right. Then he got really quiet and seemed kind of down. May have been the tone, but I was really upset about it. I just really hope that boy X doesn't go home to complain to his parents or because of this incident, not want to come for the rest of the classes. And I really feel bad about it...

So I'll promise not to go down that hard on him again and to try to control my temper with these kids for the remaining lessons, no matter how testing the situations may be.

It was the style, really, the change in the plan. After we finally decided to go with the idea of guiding them instead of telling them, we had yet another great lesson! I am so happy that we managed such a fruitful lesson, and kudos to Ping Chong for conducting the lesson. I guess this lesson will go a long way in helping us conduct future lessons. I have to apologise here to everyone for not conducting this lesson, though i was scheduled from it. So sorry! ;)I must say that there were some difficulties, which i will not mention here for fear of embarrassing myself.
I guess this goes to show how we should not focus on the content of what we are to teach, but more of what we can do to help the children learn themselves. So that means less meetings and discussion and planning (jk,jk), and more just having fun, being comfortable with the children. I think I must enforce here that we are not teachers, our role and purpose is to teach the children at Little Wings, but teaching them is not the way to go about it. I know this is may sound contradictory, but we must as Ping Chong puts it, "facilitate their learning". As they work, we guide them towards what we want them to learn. Then only will they be more receptive to what we have installed for them.
A major setback in our project was that we overestimated the children's ability. So now, we will have to focus more on the oral aspects, developing what they know instead of teaching them how to spell and write. Yes, people, read and understand the reason behind not teaching them to write.
Firstly, we should leave the teaching to the teachers. We are not trained professionals, so no point trying to teach them phonics or something only to mess it up for their young little brains. Our purpose is to have a 'lesson' that they enjoy, something they look forward to, and not something the children will be and can learn from school or even by themselves. That would really just be the easy way out, cheapening the RESL process for ourselves as well. How much easier would it be for me to just stand up there lesson after lesson slowing writing out the letters of the words only for them to copy and not understand? Moreover, we don't have the benefit of time, which the teachers do and need to for them to reinforce the intricacies of language. Language cannot be learnt in a day (as with the building of Rome, in all its splendor), and we should instead focus on what they know and try to build up on that while letting them enjoy themselves. Therefore, I propose that we do drama, and improvisation, falling under both art and language. Details to be explained on my 50,000 word write-up on my upcoming lessons thesis. More on that later...
To conclude, I feel that we should not work on Public Holidays as we should rest ourselves mentally for next RE for more energized activity, and it is a public holiday for a reason :) (I don't know...like erm...Vesak Day anyone? Any takers? no? - its the coming tuesday btw...ring any bells). And to all those who get to celebrate Vesak Day but resting at home, (which would not include any of you) a very merry Vesak Day to you! Not forgetting Mother's Day which passed recently, all you wonderful moms out there! :):):)haha

It was the style, really, the change in the plan. After we finally decided to go with the idea of guiding them instead of telling them, we had yet another great lesson! I am so happy that we managed such a fruitful lesson, and kudos to Ping Chong for conducting the lesson. I guess this lesson will go a long way in helping us conduct future lessons. I have to apologise here to everyone for not conducting this lesson, though i was scheduled from it. So sorry! ;)I must say that there were some difficulties, which i will not mention here for fear of embarrassing myself.


I guess this goes to show how we should not focus on the content of what we are to teach, but more of what we can do to help the children learn themselves. So that means less meetings and discussion and planning (jk,jk), and more just having fun, being comfortable with the children. I think I must enforce here that we are not teachers, our role and purpose is to teach the children at Little Wings, but teaching them is not the way to go about it. I know this is may sound contradictory, but we must as Ping Chong puts it, "facilitate their learning". As they work, we guide them towards what we want them to learn. Then only will they be more receptive to what we have installed for them. A major setback in our project was that we overestimated the children's ability.

So now, we will have to focus more on the oral aspects, developing what they know instead of teaching them how to spell and write. Yes, people, read and understand the reason behind not teaching them to write. Firstly, we should leave the teaching to the teachers. We are not trained professionals, so no point trying to teach them phonics or something only to mess it up for their young little brains. Our purpose is to have a 'lesson' that they enjoy, something they look forward to, and not something the children will be and can learn from school or even by themselves. That would really just be the easy way out, cheapening the RESL process for ourselves as well. How much easier would it be for me to just stand up there lesson after lesson slowing writing out the letters of the words only for them to copy and not understand? Moreover, we don't have the benefit of time, which the teachers do and need to for them to reinforce the intricacies of language.

Language cannot be learnt in a day (as with the building of Rome, in all its splendor), and we should instead focus on what they know and try to build up on that while letting them enjoy themselves. Therefore, I propose that we do drama, and improvisation, falling under both art and language. Details to be explained on my 50,000 word write-up on my upcoming lessons thesis. More on that later...

To conclude, I feel that we should not work on Public Holidays as we should rest ourselves mentally for next RE for more energized activity, and it is a public holiday for a reason :) (I don't know...like erm...Vesak Day anyone? Any takers? no? - its the coming tuesday btw...ring any bells). And to all those who get to celebrate Vesak Day but resting at home, (which would not include any of you) a very merry Vesak Day to you! Not forgetting Mother's Day which passed recently, all you wonderful moms out there! :):):)haha

We had, in my opinion, the best lesson so far at Little Wings! =D And I am so proud that we managed to conduct this lesson so well in spite of the MYCTs! Good job guys! More importantly, I think it was really the way the lesson was conducted that made it such a huge success. We spent minimum time on the technical things, recapping and emphasizing, and spent the bulk of the time facilitating them in their work. The powerpoint slides could only capture their attention for the first10-20mins, but after that, they would tend to lose focus. So I think it was much more effective that way, as working in smaller groups allowed us to help and teach them better.

However, we need to take note of how we help them when they are doing their work. Firstly, we have to prompt them. The children have a wild imagination so we have to constant;y prompt them so that they remember to relate back to what we have taught. For example, you ask them, "How do you draw this? What shapes do your see?" So you prompt them to use shapes to draw. Or "How do you draw the tree trunks? Do you remember which letter looks like the tree trunk?" Always prompt them to relate their work to what have been taught, and do so with questions.
Secondly, I personally felt this lesson was a success for me, as i got to know the kids better. Now i know most of their names and i remember their faces. Most importantly, I got closer to them, especially one child, whose name I shall not say here. She was very quiet in the past few lessons and therefore i did not really notice her. However, as i was facilitating her during the lesson, I realised that she was actually a very smart and neat child. After a little prompting, she was able to accomplish the work assigned and she was also to open up more to me. She started opening her mouth and talking more often, and expressed herself well. For that, I am very proud. Therefore, I urge you guys to get to know each of them more personally, because in that way, not only would it be easier for us to teach, i am sure they would benefit more from the lesson too.
As for certain more active or mischievous kids, I think we have to spend more time with them, and patience is the key. As you get to be their friend, I am sure messages would get through much easier. However, having said all this, we would not be having any buddying system due to the uncertainty of the attendance. Just split up the partnering reasonably for each lesson, and if you can, go back to the same group so that you can get them to know them better and vice versa.
Having said so much, I think we are doing well, but let's strive to do even better for this RESL experience. =D

Ping Chong

After a break of 3 weeks, we finally return to the Little Wings center for our 3rd lesson. Honestly, I think we were rather prepared for this lesson, at least more prepared than the previous 2 lessons, and the content that we planned to cover was simple. Much preparation was done and I was confident that it was going to be a good lesson...

Entering the classroom somehow lifted our spirits, and we had tons of time, since we were 30 minutes early (thanks to the fast cab!), and we took our time to prepare for lesson. Then when the kids finally settled down, we started lessons. To be honest, I was quite worried as Shaun was going to deliver the lessons. No offense but I felt he wasn't too familiar with the new edited slides. Or what if the kids could not understand him? But after the first 10 minutes of lesson, I just couldn't help but sit back and smile in relief at how Shaun delivered the lesson. The way he interacted with the kids was brilliant! He was able to capture the kid's attention and deliver the content with ease. For that, I really admired his performance today. Well done, Shaun!
However, things just had to go haywire at the second part of the lesson... With 40 minutes to spare, we have gladly proceeded on the the worksheet, which we estimated would take 15- 20 minutes. But it took the rest of the 40 minutes and we barely managed to do 2 out of the 3 parts of the worksheet...
We had overestimated the children's English standard. This is, however, a fault of our own, as it shows the lack of prior research and even a test to know the children's standard of English and drawing. And with this, the rest of our lesson plans will have to be abandoned....
This is a lesson that we have to learn. To do our prior research and not jump into building on unjustified assumptions. Here, we assumed that the children's standard of English was of a certain level that allowed them to write out their own little story. Why didn't we find out the English standards of the children beforehand? Why were we so sure the children would be able to complete the task we give them? I think we should reflect deeply on this, and make sure that it would never happen again...
However, this is not the end of our RESL journey! (Of course not...) Now, the most important thing is to re-craft our lesson plans for all the subsequent lessons and decide on what is it that we want the children to be able to produce after all the lessons at the finale. This calls for yet another long RE-meeting... However, the Mid-year Common Test are just around the corner, so let us just draft up lesson 4 plan, and leave the rest till after Mid-years. Okay?
I think today was not really a setback, and I think we did reasonably well! So, let's not be disheartened by the realization of our mistake, but try our best to work around it and deliver the rest of the lessons just as well. WE CAN DO IT!!! =D

Ping Chong

As we all know, lesson 2 was a disaster. It was not well done at all, and we made many mistakes. This is completely unacceptable, especially since we already made the same mistakes last week. This is the fault of the entire group, and definitely not of any individual. We all should have chipped in more extr effort and time to do up the lesson for the children. And I think we all owe Rattanin and apology for pushing all the work on art to him for the previous 2 lessons. I feel like crying, it's so sad, so tragic.


How now?


Well, we definitely have to pull up our socks and work harder. I think we have already scrutinised our lesson and found out its innumerable mistakes, so i will not go on the expound on them further. But looking ahead, I think the most important thing is to have sat down to have a rehearsal of our lesson, which we will do countless of for the next lesson to ensure that we have hope of doing better. I want everyone to know that we can do it, but many sacrifices have to be made.


I remember when I signed up for RESL, they asked us to explain what Service-Learning meant to us. And looking back, I now see how much sense this made, and that the more we serve, the more we learn. I think what we need to do now is to look ahead, at what we can and should do. What I mean by this is that we plan our next move. This is for the children, and their parents, and the kindergarden, and it is serious. We cannot afford to waste a minute of their time by having a lousy lesson, as this is would be instead, a disservice. This would in fact harm the young children, and they would then have been better of without us. Since we are already here, in RESL, why not give our best, our very best, our all.


And we must. If we do not perform well for the next lesson, we will have to evaluate ourselves, is there a heart issue that we have to do with? And are we ready for the responsibility and duty of teaching children? The burden is heavy; the price, costly. If not then, why continue this meaningless activity. I am sure Mrs. Lim will not hesitate to remove us from SL, fail us, and let us be retained for another year. Why waste the children's time, their parents' time, the school's time, and our own time? Why continue such a disservice?


There is work to be done...


Like the old saying, "don't cry over spilt milk", we cannot let our previous lesson crush us any longer. We must come out victorious. Do we cry when we can work on it? No, obviously. What failed, failed. Let us look ahead, and work. This is not about redemption, or trying to improvre, this is about doing what should have been from the start. Starting now.

I guess only the next lesson will show us whether we are ready. And if we are proven unsuited, then there is great still a price that we must pay.

About this blog

RE-SL Group 39
Mentor by :
Mrs Lim Yoke Tong
• Yeo Ping Chong (Leader)
• Yeo Jon-Hann
• Rattanin Siripornpitak
• Yang Shi Jian
• Shaun Ming Choo

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