Assessment / Self-Introduction / Learning Journey!

Week 3 was a pretty intense week for some of us.

Ryan and I (Esther) had our lesson observed by history professor from NTNU, and teachers of 龍門國中. Personally for myself, Week 3 was the craziest! Okay maybe let me share a screenshot of how some of our week 3 went.

Ryan and myself had our lesson assessed with class 906. 

On top of that, we had several self-introductions with the grade 9 classes as we were going to join them in their post-exams learning journeys! The respective form teachers felt it was good for us to introduce ourselves to the class so that the students could be familiar with us.

(PS. The grade 9 just finished their national examinations during our period there. So they had many exciting activities lined up for them!! We were veryyyy privileged to be able to join them on these trips!! Making our IP more meaningful and interesting than it could be!)

I am going to share about these self-introductions as well as the learning journey to 和平島 (Heping Island) and 九分 (One of Taiwan's top tourist attractions). We shared about Singapore's multiculturalism, capital punishment (dk why, the students were extremely curious about this aspect of Singapore) and HDB policy. We set up stations for each category where each of us would share about the aspect in a very free-style way. We prepared what we thought would be interesting for students and allowed for any questions that they might have.

To give it a tinge of Singapore, we named our activity: KOPITIAM! 

Bryan explaining how the lesson would flow with Kopitiam!

Amongst us, only Ryan was most capable in sharing the aspect of "Capital Punishments / Death Penalty". It was sure a sensitive and heavy topic to share, but our dear Ryan did so well! 

HDB Policies? We have none other than our dear geographer -- Mindy -- to share. She was like the spokesperson of HDB, giving rationales and examples why our HDB policies are as such. 

And there's me! Sharing on Multiculturalism in Singapore. Most of the students were amazed at the diversity which Singapore has -- something I realise I also take pride in as I was doing my sharing.

Ms Rachel -- summing up our sharing in Chinese!!
Ps. Oh yes, we did our sharing in Chinese and English (mostly Chinese) (Demonstrating the diversity in language there)

Personally, it was an intriguing experience to share about Singapore to a bunch of curious kids. Their "Ohhhhhhhh" "哇, 好酷！(Wah, so cool!)” moments made all the preparations worth it!!

Highlight of Week 3: 和平島 & 九分

Beach Cleaning at Heping Island (和平島）

Form teacher giving instructions 

Before we were equipped

Fully Equipped and ready to clean the beach!

Students I was grouped with.

Students in action

Look at where we cleaned! It was a restricted area where most visitors are not allowed to enter. Felt so honored and privileged to be able to enter a restricted zone for such a meaningful post-exam activity. I was as excited as the students, just that my role was more to ensure their safety as I picked the trash haha.

It was interesting that even when it came to beach cleaning, they made sure to differentiate the perishables from the recyclables. But of course, despite their efforts the students learnt that it was impossible to ensure that the beach was rid of trash even after their visit. Some of them appeared discouraged to learn the extent of water pollution that is taking place and how it has damaged the beauty of the sea -- from this, I could tell that the students brought home valuable lessons which they will remember for life.

After a morning of hard work, we were headed to 九分！

Outdoor Education at 九分

As 九分 is a renowned tourists attraction, the teacher planned a outdoor activity where the students would interview tourists in English. I will let the photos speak! 

Tourists from Japan and England 

French Tourists

American Tourist

Romanian Tourists

This trip really taught me alot as I observed how the students approached and carried out this task. They were only required to interview 5 tourists, yet they continued to interview as they saw it as opportunities to practice their English. Their hunger for learning really encouraged me as a teacher. I felt guilty that during this trip, there were times when I wanted to stop the students from further interviewing students since "they have already finished their task". But something told me that I should not and Im glad I didn't as that would have killed their joy and passion in practicing English. It was really a valuable lesson for me :") 

Overall, this trip to 九分 and 和平島 taught me 2 things as a teacher: 

1. Knowing the dynamics of your class is very important -- it would affect how the teacher would plan an activity / excursion for the students. Through conversations with the teacher, I learnt that she was confident with this class' dynamics which gave her the courage to plan such an excursion for her class (this trip was unique only to this class). 

2. Do not let one student ruin your mood / deprive the rest of the class from having fun -- during the trip, one student was disciplined quite harshly by the teacher. Yet, what caught my attention was how the teacher did not bring her anger to the other students -- she maintained her professionalism and continued to interact as per normal with the rest of the class. She taught me the importance of being impartial so that innocent students will not have to suffer (the teacher's wrath) unnecessarily. 

All of the student teachers who went on this trip felt very grateful for this opportunity to not only interact with the students, but to also check off one of our supposed to-go places! 

Signing off, 

Esther Tan