Creativity

Lesson 3 : Classroom activities

Primary school teachers have to be creative in their teaching . That's where the million-dollar-question comes in..." Do you WANT to be a teacher ? " ... As i mentioned in my earlier posts , some of these trainees come to IPG because of 2 main reasons :
   1. their parents want them to be teachers
   2. teaching is their last resort
A teacher who really WANTS to be a teacher has the potential to be VERY creative . Here are two of my trainees who were not embarassed in introducing something new to the pupils .

 Teaching about how to prepare fried Kuetiaw . It's just 2 pieces of paper pasted at the ends to form a chef's top hat . At the end of the lesson , the trainee wanted to give the hat to a pupil but the rest of the class wanted it too . IT'S JUST PAPER but the pupils were willing to FIGHT for it . Why ? Because it's something new...and their teachers would not be willing to present themselves the way these trainees would.

This trainee even created a new identity once she put on the mask . " Hello ! I am Miss Kitty . Your teacher told me to tell you a story " and she started telling the story . The pupils were excitedly listening to the story and they even accepted the idea that Miss Kitty was not their teacher !! Again...Why ? Because they are CHILDREN !! They have their own world ... This teacher was able to enter this world of theirs and from there provide knowledge .

Still on Whiteboard: Dos and Don'ts

When we deal with primary school pupils , please PROOF READ your work BEFORE it reaches the board or worksheets .

                                         Grammatical mistake

This is because primary school pupils , especially from the last class , would accept whatever being told without any knowledge whether it's right or wrong . What's worse is that they will show their work to their parents . If we are teaching pupils whose parents are concerned about their children's education , we'll be in hot soup during Report Card Day .So .... beware teachers ...don't mislead your pupils .

Whiteboard : Dos and Don'ts

                                                   Pasting on the board

What's wrong with this picture ? The pupils are having fun learning English in the classroom by participating in the task given . Yes .. and NO !!
Pupils' participation is good but THIS kind of response will make the class become chaotic or out of control. What teachers can do is : Ask the pupils to come one or a group at a time .
If we look at the photo , it is clear that only a few pupils are holding the strips ... making them the only ones participating . Look at the ones at the back.... they're merely spectators trying very hard to peek at what their friends are doing .
This situation happened because the teacher wanted to see who would be the first to stick the correct punctuation on the sentences written on the board . At the count of three, ALL of them ran to the board . Please remember that these are primary pupils aged between 7 to 12 and being children , all that they know is having fun . Safety is NEVER in their minds . They would run , push and shove to be the first to finish the task given by the teacher. They don't care whether others or THEMSELVES are hurt . The younger they are , the more reckless they can be . So teachers ..BEWARE ..

Lesson 2 : The whiteboard : The Dos and Don'ts

 If you are using word cards or sentence strips , and you want to paste them on the whiteboard , please use BluTac ( sometimes they're NOT blue ). Some trainees used binding tape and some even resort to double sided tape !! You're ruining the board .

Please consider the length of your sentence strips . If your strips or word cards are quite lengthy, please put BluTac on BOTH sides of the strips and not only in the middle so that it would not fold in during lesson as in the picture above . Pupils who sit at the sides would have a hard time reading the words that're written on the strips once the strips fold in .

 This photo shows how  pupils at the back of the class see the whiteboard . Notice how the words written on the coloured papers , pasted on the whiteboard look like ? The words on the white coloured card can be read easily and so does the pink coloured paper . However , the words on the green paper proved quite a challenge to read but the blue paper.... a total lost !! We have to choose the correct colour combination when preparing teaching aids to be pasted on the whiteboard . We have to cater for ALL the pupils and not all of them have 20/20 vision . Even the teachers themselves will have a hard time reading the words from afar .

This photo was taken in the middle of a lesson. I highlighted 3 usual items that should be there but they're not.
1. The teacher writes something on the board but doesn't label them . If someone were to pass by the classroom and looked at the board , he/she could never guess what the lesson was about . so LABEL WHAT YOU DRAW ( in this case question mark and exclamation mark )
2. The teacher should write the TOPIC OF THE LESSON TAUGHT . What is it that the teacher wishes to teach so that the pupils can relate whatever being taught to them to the topic of the day . This can help pupils to understand better and quicker .
3. We have to write the date in such a way that it could contribute to the pupils' knowledge . In this case , the date was written as 16 April 2014 . It is better if the teacher writes it as 16th April 2014. The 'th' can
strengthen the pupils' knowledge in ordinal numbers besides the SPELLING of the month ( April ). Worse still if the teacher were to write 16-4-2014...What can the pupils gain besides the date of the day ?

Still on Lesson 1 : Lesson Plan Book

This was taken from one of the trainees's book . Anything wrong with the picture ? The lesson was planned, the skills were written , everything's ok , right ? WRONG !!!

Please bear in mind that a trainee is a trainee and that a trainee's lesson plan has to be PRECISE and in DETAIL . As we can see in the photo above , there are empty columns that need to be filled and the lesson plan is only one and a quarter page !!

Being a teacher who has taught for more than 20 years , I approached and told the trainee that i suspected that the plan was done in school a few hours before the lesson . The trainee said "yes" .  How did I know ?
IT WAS VERY BRIEF...the activities were short and the teaching materials used were only worksheets. These are dead giveaways . A lesson plan has to be planned a day before so that we can think and plan comfortably compared to planning a few hours before going into class .