TIP Day 1

Hello!

Here to share insights on my first day reporting as a teacher. I think it went pretty well, after hearing some bad stories from friends in other schools. Basically our induction programme for today and tmr is supposed to be slack and stress-free. Ample time for breakfast, breaks and lunch, and our official day ended at 1pm. The other interns left before 2pm, but as i was preparing to leave, my sup asked if i wanted to try observing her tutorials later in the day (though we were only expected to do so starting Wed). I agreed, and sure learnt something. I saw the difference between a more motivated class and a less motivated one. Which kind of reminds me of my tuition kids. Right now i'm pondering on how to motivate them. Pri school tuition kids are easy, but JC level? Hmm...

I must talk about my sup/mentor! She is everything i thought she would be! Except that she can get fiercer and sterner to the kids who have not completed their work. At the same time, she really is a mentor to me because she also speaks to me about career prospects and all. She challenged me to take a lecture on Arthur Yap's poems,which i accepted. So now i have to do research to prepare for my lecture. I hope i'm up to it! Apart from that, i've been given 2 novels, one of which they are finishing up now. The lectures of the 2nd novel will start after school re-opens, and i'm expected to play a part too. I've started reading the first, it's quite interesting!

Anw, H2 Literature is alot more difficult than what i did for A Level Literature! It's like University standard since they revised the marking criteria. In JC we used to just focus on the texts right? For now, no! Alot more research has to be done to provide context of the theories. Imagine, they are going to study Arthur Yap as post-colonial literature! Even if it's a force-fit, they have to write about his works using post-colonial theory lenses.

Overall, i'm happy to be given lots of chances to learn and test my ability. Though for these 2 weeks i'm only supposed to observe lessons and orientate myself to the school, my sup encourages me to speak up and shoot questions to the students in class. So i'm not expected to just sit there and shut up, but be like a teacher. So the class will have 2 teachers. Awesome stuff. =)

The VP gave us this pep-talk, smth along the lines of "we'll treat you as teachers, the teachers will treat u as colleagues," which kinda ties in with the fact that the teachers expect us to call them by their names instead of "Ms *insert surname*". This one, i need getting used to. I keep having to remind myself that i am not a student for these 3 months.

OKay i have to go do up the worksheets for tmr's tuition after school and then gather whatever i can about Arthur Yap. With tuition and internship demands, i sure hope i can juggle and do both well.

Boo!