Best EL Lesson (Clarence Lee)

The best EL lesson I conducted was on narrative writing.

My pupils were very poor in English, and were at the tail end of the Sec 3 Express classes in a neighbourhood school. Nevertheless, they were intelligent and exuberant and generally interested in English lessons.

Using a combination of process and product writing, they were to produce a narrative essay on the topic of an impulsive decision by the end of 2 lessons.

In the first lesson, I played them a youtube video of a public awareness advertisement from the UK featuring teenage anti-social behaviour. The class became very excited and we talked about how things were similar or different in Singapore.

We then discussed impulsive decisions. We unpacked the question and established the demands of the question, which helped the students with a weaker command of the language. I asked them to think about what impulsive decisions we could write about, and we compiled a list of possible topics.

I then divided them into groups of 4 and told them to plan a story featuring an impulsive decision. They used a graphic organiser that helped them divide their story into paragraphs and plot the introduction, rising action, climax and conclusion. The better groups were given the chance to present the ideas to the class.

As homework they would produce the first draft of their essay individually. In the second lesson they would practice peer editing and a final draft would be ready by the next week. Due to their standard of English, many mistakes would not be found during peer editing, but it certainly was not a case of the blind leading the blind. Every student was able to at least make some corrections to another student's draft. I was happy to see that even low-ability students were enthusiastic enough to submit 6 page essays.

According to my CT, this combination of process and product writing produced essays far better than simply assigning a piece of writing as homework, with the very first draft to be submitted. Not only was the final product better but students tended to retain awareness of their mistakes and improve as they edited their own essays and those of their peers.

Marking in EL (Clarence Lee)

My marking experience in EL could be split into two categories: comprehension exercises and essays.

Comprehension exercises were easier to mark as we practiced peer marking in the classroom. I explained every answer to them to ensure that they understood why the answer was what it was. I nevertheless asked the students to submit their comprehension exercises to me so that I could check their corrections and mark the summary exercises.

Essays were much more difficult to mark by their very nature. Not only are they longer but marking is much more subjective. It did not help that the rubric for marking essays at the O-levels is vague and leaves plenty of room for the marker’s interpretation, which can be a good or bad thing. As I was only marking essays from one class and it was not formal assessment, this was not an issue and benchmarking was not practiced.

I told students that I would be grading them according to a sec 4 standard. The CT had long begun preparing the class for the rigours of the O-levels. Although the numerical grades were marked according to the O-level marking rubric, I wrote plenty of comments in the margins and praised them for their efforts. I pointed out the students’ strengths and weaknesses and the bulk of the comments focused on praising the good parts of their essays. For example, a student might score 14/30, but I would praise him for his logical use of plot structure.

Perhaps the biggest controversy in marking essays is whether to mark for what was taught in the lesson or to mark for grammar and other elements of writing as well. Although marking for what was taught in the lesson would have been much easier, my CT believed in marking every single grammatical error in the text and I followed this pedagogy and adhered to a consistent set of demands for the class. Nevertheless, my comments focused on what was taught in the lesson and praised them if they had achieved it. Although their scripts would be covered in green ink, I tried to mitigate the sting of this with praise for their efforts written in the margins.

15.3 Marking and dealing with errors in EL (Goh Wan Ru)

Marking compositions is rather tedious and time consuming, especially since I have a tendency to go back to the marked ones to check for consistency etc. After some trial and error I managed to come up with system that worked for me. First I will go through each question, writing down what the questions requires and some possible answers that I think students might provide. Following this, I will then take six student’s scripts that I know falls under the good, acceptable and poor category. After marking these six scripts, and providing a grade for them, I will then use it as a basis for my marking for the entire class. This is in order to standardise and allow for marking consistency with minimum biasness and errors on my part.
The students would have a marking rubric that they know I base my marking on, showing the breakdown of marks for both language and content. The student’s rubrics is based on the marking rubric that was provided by the school, but it was further broken down by myself and approved by my cooperating mentor, in order for the students to easily understand what is expected and required in their free writing. The rubric follows the O’level requirements closely, in order to train the students to be aware and look out for not only their content but more importantly their language since they would be weakest at this point in that.
Free writing marking is one of the most fun and yet hair raising activity and this is especially so for my normal academic students who are very creative and can provide the most amazing and some fantastical story line. That, combined with their poor grammar and vocabulary makes for hilarious yet stressful reads. Although it was mentioned above that a set of rubrics was provided for the students, it is also one that it largely helpful for the teacher, since in my case, I have a tendency to rationalise to myself whether or not the student deserves the particular grade awarded to them, or do they merit a few extra points for effort etc. Before I made use of sampling marking, I went through every set of scripts at least 4 times, and each time scrutinising and rationalising, and also correcting inconsistencies that I had indulged in. An easily understood set of rubrics also allows the student’s to have a clearer understanding of what they should look out for in their free writing component.

15.3 Marking and Dealing with Errors in EL (Francis Lee)

The nature of the assignment and the expectations that are spelt out for the students are two key considerations that determine my EL marking process.

For example, in my practicum school, there is a graded component (part of their final year mark) known as "News in Class". Students watch a clip produced by Channel News Asia that looks at a topical issue and they have to write a reflective piece based on the topic. Five questions are provided to the students and from these, they pick one to expound on. All five questions are crafted to resemble either an argumentative or discussion question.

If this was a free writing assignment, I would stick closely to guidelines contained in the marking rubrics issued by the MOE, and pay close attention to the presentation style and linguistic features of the essay when I am marking. But I am reminded of the fact that the intention behind this "News in Class" was to increase students' awareness and knowledge of current affairs. The idea is to get them to put their thoughts or opinions on paper. As the marker, I am more interested in what they have to say or think regarding the issue. I focus more on the level of maturity and quality of their ideas or insights.

When marking regular assignments, particularly composition, I always have the marking rubrics right by my side as I view it as my trusty guide in directing my marking. I first familiarized myself with the requirements laid out in each banding before I proceed with the marking. Personal experience and advice from more experienced teachers have taught me to trust in that inner teacher's voice that utters, "This student's work places him/her in the 15-18 banding". From there, the final mark is determined by scanning the paper one more time, and glancing over the amount of 'red' strewn all over the paper. With enough practice, by the time I arrive at the last sentence of a student's work, I have a strong inkling of the student's current standard.

I love writing my teacher's comments at the end of every paper because my feeling is that students generally appreciate the gesture, and look to the teacher's feedback to improve their writing the next time round. But I am usually drained and exhausted after marking out the nitty-gritty and linguistic errors (or strengths) of stacks of students' work. Long-term wise, I am not sure if I would have the time and energy to invest in this. Does anyone else have a quicker or different method of providing feedback to their students?

15.3 Marking and dealing with errors in EL (Sharalee)

The Secondary 3 Express students that I taught didn’t exhibit many glaring errors in spoken EL. During the debates which constituted a significant chunk of their CA2 grades almost all spoken fluently and with confidence.

It therefore came as a bit of a surprise to me that when grading their written work, which I first encountered in the form of argumentative writing, a significant proportion of the class was prone to (in some cases rather serious) errors in run-on sentences, unwieldy expression, and an inability to construct written paragraphs in the basic format of Point, Elaboration, Evidence and Reiteration.

Since the class struggled with the format of argumentative writing, my approach was to break one essay topic into segments (i.e. introduction, counter-point and rebuttal, supporting points, conclusion) and have students tackle each segment one at a time, over a series of lessons. During each lesson, after a short period of explicit teaching and discussion of the structure and content required in each segment, students were allowed to craft their paragraphs in class, and submit these for review. I could then collect them, and assess their writing (which came in small, easy to digest chunks instead of complete essays). Because the writing was short, it allowed me to provide each student with detailed written comments and feedbacks. During the marking process, I found it useful to keep a running list of the errors that the pupils were most prone to making. A pattern almost always emerges after awhile, and I used these to help decide which areas to revisit during the next class.

At the start of the next lesson, students would have their writing returned to them, and time allocated for them to go over the comments and feedback provided, ask questions related to these and clarify any doubts. As a class we would then review the most common areas for improvement by looking at anonymous samples of writing, taken from among the class. This is a useful trick because the students that I taught were fascinated with the opportunity of being given carte blanche to critique and learn from each others’ work. I would refer to samples that exhibited the error we were focusing on (e.g. weak reiteration at the end of a paragraph), as well as model samples taken from exceptionally well-written student work. Each sample could be dissected and discussed as a class, and students were then given time to rewrite their own segment of text, before progressing on to writing the next segment and so on. By breaking the sample written texts into small chunks, the pupils were more likely to be able to spot the errors or good examples that they could emulate.

This approach was viable while on teaching practice, because I had just one class of EL to teach. For full-fledged teachers, the amount of time required for marking might not be as readily available (several classes of bite-sized writing can still lead to enough to choke a teacher). Teachers could instead work on capitalizing on students’ tendencies to pay attention to the work produced by their peers when seeking to correct errors produced in EL writing.

Best Lesson

My best lesson conducted would actually be the simplest and most bite sized one, which was conducted with my Sec 3NA's. They had failed their common test which was based on a summary..... and I mean the whole class failed.. I kid you not! Upon taking over the class from the relief teacher, I found out that they do not read the question, as in there may be 3 parts to the question instead of just assuming that its one question, so they must be asking me for one part. So with regards to content factor that was the problem that had to be addressed. Language wise, there is little ability to rewrite sentences or points in their own words.

So I had to break down the summmary into 3 main parts. Firstly, one lesson on content, drilling the need to identify how many parts there are in a question, and thus what points are relevant. This had to be done slowly, with a spiral progression ranging from whats the point in a single sentence, to a small paragraph, and then to a harder paragraph. Slowly, they started to get the hang of it.

The second was on language. There is no way these kids were going to write fantastic summaries based on their own language ability. And previously, the highest in the class for language, was 3-5 marks. So I thought them to 'cheat', of course after checking with my HOD on whether this was allowed.

EG: The blue cow jumped high and over the moon.... becomes The cow jumped over the moon.

Simple cutting and rewriting. It may not score them fantastic marks on the language aspect, but at least they would get better or might even pass if they can edit and produce something in their own words.

Apparently, the last test conducted, half the class has been passing, and a few more just missing the passing grade, unless of course its some ego boosting story my HOD told me. Well, for now, better pass than fail.

15.1: Best Lesson Conducted (Kian Tiong)

One of the best lessons I conducted during TP was for a group of international students in their second year of the Integrated Programme, which is equivalent to Secondary Four in mainstream schools. This class was created as an extra pullout language enrichment lesson for these students (a mixture of Vietnamese and Chinese international scholars). These students came over to Singapore, joining as Secondary Three students only last year. Hence they have not encountered the English standard required by our local schools until recently. Their English language proficiency is similar to or lower than the NA stream in our mainstream schools. Hence they have much difficulty passing the essay writing assessments (which focus solely on the genre of argumentative essays). A major problem is incoherence in their writing due to the lack of organisation of ideas in their writing compounded by their weakness in the language. However, students are motivated to learn, asking questions whenever they were uncertain about something taught. In fact, they provided useful feedback that they would like to have more practise in the genre of argumentative writing (partly due to fear of failing GP as well). Based on their feedback, I decided to begin by helping them improve their essay organisation through focusing on the writing of individual paragraphs in an argumentative essay so as to first improve their coherence in writing.

In one of these lessons, students were first shown a PowerPoint which explicitly taught them about the components required in the introductory paragraph i.e. general statement, specific statement, definitions, thesis statement and main points of discussion. This was guided by what we learnt from Mrs. Josephine Phang that if students are uncertain or do not have prior knowledge, we need to teach them the basics before moving on to more challenging activities. After the deductive, explicit teaching exercise, a handout with four different introductory paragraphs was then given to students (adapted from authentic students’ essays with additional modification by me to improve coherence). They were then required to identify the different components of an introductory paragraph that they notice in each of these samples and explain the reasons for their choices. This exercise was guided by a mixture of the genre approach (students learn about language components specific to the argumentative essay) and also the inductive approach (as students were exposed to authentic examples of writing and then they were required to notice the language components used and explain their choices by themselves). After this exercise, students were given another handout, this time with four different introductory paragraphs again. However, these were adapted and modified from weak student essays that were relatively incoherent. In these samples, I had edited the grammatical errors in these paragraphs but left the flow of ideas intact in order to show students how incoherent organisation results in a weak argument. Students were then required to reorganise and rewrite these introductory paragraphs, trying to make their version as coherent and persuasive as possible. This exercise was guided by the strategy of process writing to ensure that students focus on a certain portion of the writing and work on improving it rather than conducting a full writing exercise where they make the same mistakes repeatedly (and the teacher has to mark the same mistakes repeatedly as well).

I consider this lesson successful because students demonstrated that they were able to correctly identify the different language components in the positive examples of introductory paragraphs and provide their own explanations for identifying these components, thus helping me to ascertain their understanding of the lesson. Also, after marking students’ rewriting of the weak sample paragraphs, I found that they were mostly able to improve the coherence and organisation of the original (despite the presence of grammatical errors). Hence the lesson’s objectives were met. At the end of the lesson, students also expressed that they now had a clearer idea of what was required when writing an introductory paragraph in an argumentative essay. This was possibly due to the way the worksheets were laid out in a table format so that students could easily write down their ideas and compare with the original paragraphs provided.

Best EL Lesson (Weina)

My EL class during practicum was the second best class in the Secondary 3 level, based on their sciences combination for the Olevels examinations. Hence, the students in the class were generally very motivated to learn, but not particularly vocal.

Before I started on summary writing, I actually spoke to my EL HOD to get a clearer idea of the summary writing skills the students have been taught in their EL lessons since Sec 1. The HOD told me that they had actually learnt summary writing skills in lower secondary level. However, they would require a good dose of revision before attempting to do a full piece on summary writing.

So I decided to start off the lesson with a Mr Brown podcast on H1N1 (with a Nobody song twist to it), followed by a parody video using the same song in Mr Brown’s podcast. This listening and viewing activity was accompanied with an activity worksheet that required the students to pick up the important advice that the public had to know related to H1N1. So the use of the song & video could appeal to the audio & visual learners, and engage the students in interesting materials they would enjoy. The students thoroughly loved the trigger activity, as seen by their enthusiastic response as they volunteered the various advice found through the lyrics of Mr Brown’s parody song. Using the song as an example, we discussed in class the important and not-so-important bits of information – and we compared it to that of a comprehension, picking up the important information that answered the questions, and ignoring the examples and elaborations.

With that planted in the students’ minds, we went on to do a very brief recap of the 5 golden rules to summary writing as taught to them during their lower secondary days. Mere recap was not enough, so we completed steps 1 – 3 together in class. After each and every step, I would get students to volunteer their answers to assess that they were on the correct path. When it came to the step of identifying the points in the selected text, I sat down in front of the visualiser, showed the text on the screen and went through the text line by line, to explain to the class why certain points were selected, and why certain points were not. During this process, I picked students out to share their viewpoints with the class. With such guidance in class, I could see that the students felt more comfortable in voicing their questions. The results were obvious in later lessons as the students did not have much problems pulling out the required points from slightly more challenging ones.

15.3 Marking Process in EL (Hui Min)

The first marking I did for EL was on expository essay. The marking process that my CT shared with me was to underline the words and write the error type above it, like Sp, SS, WW etc. To make marking easier and faster, we did not have to write the correct words. Instead, teachers would have a feedback session with the class by showing a few extracts of students’ work and pinpoint the common errors, especially tense mistakes where students should link tense to situation. The end of the feedback session would be a fifteen minutes time slot where students can ask teachers for further clarification.

The marking time was shortened but I did not feel that the students have learned from their mistakes during the feedback session. They would do corrections for mistakes that they know how to correct, but did not attempt to ask teachers for those that they did not know how to correct.

Therefore, when I did marking for the second essay, I wrote all the correct words so that they would know the correct tense, sentence structure etc. In addition, I wrote as many comments as possible for students to know their strengths and weaknesses in content and grammar. I conducted a feedback session, but this time round, I showed extracts of well-written essays to let students know essays of higher bands look like.

I felt that although correcting all the mistakes for the students is time-consuming (average 30 minutes), the students learnt a great deal. They started to look at what I corrected and asked why I wrote those, under what circumstances should they do the same, how to expand vocabulary and so on. The students lose motivation in questioning when they see only SS, WW, T etc on their work. Through giving them the right words, they would then be motivated to look for mistakes.

In their third essay, there was a marked improvement in the language component, with less errors in tense and sentence structure. I was particularly happy when I marked an essay from one of my Chinese foreign students. I had a deep impression of her because in her previous essays, there would be mistakes in every line, marking her essay probably took an hour. However in this third essay, there were only a few mistakes in each paragraph.

I think perhaps the start of marking and correcting essays for students would be agonizing in the beginning, but subsequently, as students learn from the mistakes, it would become easier for teachers to mark. Therefore, instead of just indicating the type of error in the essay, I would write down the correction for their mistakes. I believe this is a more effective way of letting students learn from their mistakes.

Weblinks: EL Teaching & Learning Resources (Meera)

The Differentiator
This is an extremely useful tool for student and beginning teachers as it allows us to be clear on the objectives of any lesson that we set for our students. It also uses Bloom’s taxonomy as a framework and ensures that our objectives are specific and clearly set. It is also very easy to use and requires only a few clicks.



Awesome Stories
Say goodbye to hours spent combing the World Wide Web for appropriate stories! This site has stories arranged according to topics and themes and is an excellent resource for comprehension pieces or even reading activities. Better still, teachers can use the stories to teach grammar.



English Online
This is just an additional site that I thought teachers might find useful. It has lesson plans on various topics, including LangLit and Language Arts. We might choose to adapt some of the activities for our own students as some are rather engaging.

15.3 Marking and Dealing with errors in EL (Meera)

When marking comprehension pieces that were set for the entire level by the department, the teachers would get together before marking to do a standardization process, even though there might be an answer scheme. To prevent any disparity, we would all mark the same set of three random scripts and discuss our answers thereafter. This was extremely useful as it clarified the standard that the department sets for its students.

As the teachers expected a fairly high standard from its students, we were rather strict when it came to errors made in the vocabulary section. Even if a synonym was give for a word, it had to be acceptable in the context of the passage. For example, “closed fingers tightly” was not awarded any marks for “clenched”. It had to be “closed fingers tightly in anger/frustration”. The same applied to summary writing. Lifting was heavily penalised. This stringent marking also ensured that students would learn the importance of contextualisation.

As for free-writing compositions, it was slightly trickier as I had to assess content and language. For example, correcting every single grammar and spelling mistake would be extremely time consuming. What I did instead was to set a code with my students. If there was a spelling error, I would circle the word and write an “SP” on top and if it was an error in tense, I would write “T”. However, if I was focusing on grammar, I would correct it and write the acceptable word.

The key takeaways from my brief marking experience is that firstly, beginning teachers must always check the standards with the department and request for a rubric if one has not been given yet. Secondly, we should also prioritise what we are looking to assess and make that known to the students. It would also be very helpful to give students a simple rubric as well.

15.2 EL Teaching Issues (Meera)

One of the issues that I encountered during TP was that students did not find their recommended texts engaging. This was an important issue because we had a LangLit programme in our school. One of the stories revolved around a South African woman and a journey in her car. Because the context was as far-reaching as it could possibly be and they could not appreciate the nuances of the text, they could not relate to the text nor were motivated to learn.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, one of their tasks was to write an autobiography. The sample assigned to them was an autobiography of a woman in her 30s, looking back at her life. I could not possibly imagine how a classroom of 40 teenaged boys could relate to that. I scoured the web for other more fitting examples that would also serve the objectives of the lesson but I failed to find any. Eventually, I wrote a narrative from scratch about a University student who is recollecting his days in Primary and Secondary school and reminiscing on how he had to balance sports and school. The students took to it and enjoyed discussing it in class. It also worked because the school I taught in had a strong affiliation with rugby.

Another issue was a lack of multimodal texts available to the students. This meant I had to once again rake the internet. Eventually, I settled on clips from V for Vendetta which the students absolutely loved. I used a speech as a starter activity and the next lesson, I found a student trying to read a library copy of the graphic novel, V for Vendetta. I started to wring the clips for all it was worth to teach vocabulary, adjectives and the bonus points that provocative statements make in persuasive writing! I also used a clip from “Stranger than Fiction” for the same purposes.

I would definitely add audiovisual materials into the mix during lessons. For me, the importance of selecting materials that ensure Learner-centeredness and Contextualisation are some of the key takeaways I received from these lessons.

15.1 Best Lesson Conducted (Meera)

I was teaching EL to a Secondary Two Express class. Even though they belonged to the express stream, they were one of the weakest classes in the level. They were also infamous for being restless, noisy and unmotivated. They did not take too well to grammatical rules and structures and got bored very easily. The texts available to them also made them switch off they could not relate to the South African context and found it difficult to pick up the nuances of the piece.

The objective for this particular lesson was to teach the chronological aspect of autobiographical writing. I remembered the EL games that we learned from QCE520 and conducted the Jigsaw game. I cut up an autobiographical narrative into different paragraphs and jumbled them up. Students were then to arrange them according to the structure they deem best. Because they could not relate to the stories that were assigned to them, I wrote an autobiography from the POV of a boy who tries to juggle soccer and school. The students could relate to it and the activity was carried out smoothly. I added some excitement by telling students that I was keen to see who would be able to finish organizing the passage first. A dose of competition always seemed to motivate these boys!

I only mentioned that they were going to learn one aspect of autobiographical writing. However, at the end of the activity, they knew they were going to learn chronology. I liked this because they discovered the teaching point on their own.

After this starter, they used graphic organizers (something else I learned from QCE520) that required them to fill in information according to chronological order from the unscrambled passage. This allowed them to further examine the passage. And in the next lesson, they had to fill up the same worksheet but with their own information for their own autobiography. At the end of the Unit, (i.e. 3 lessons) students were to hand in an autobiography for their CA assessment. Fortunately, I could tell that students learned the importance of chronology during marking because of their (mostly) well-structured essays!

15.3 Marking and dealing with errors in EL (Angeline Ng)

Throughout Teaching Practice, there were many markings to be done. They include situational writing, descriptive essays and even comprehension exercises. My criterion for marking will differ for the different types of exercises based on their objectives.

I remembered the tutor from the Grammar upgrading course in the first semester in NIE. He shared with us the way he assesses and marks students’ work. He told us that he will look out for what he expects the students to accomplish in that exercise. For example, if he were to mark an exercise for prepositions, he will look out for preposition-related errors and overlook most of the other errors. He explained that this is to help the students focus on learning the intended content. After that session, I am a firm believer in what he shared with us. Therefore, I will always make the effort to mark only the intended content rather than pin-pointing each and every error – which will result in the students’ work to be filled with red ink.

There was a week in my Teaching Practice when I was teaching Formal Letter to prepare the students for the upcoming class test. When I was marking that particular exercise, I placed the focus of marking on the format of the letter, the tone of the letter, as well as the choice of word. In the process, I overlooked some other grammatical errors that did not affect the tone and formality of the letter. For example, I overlook some of the spelling errors. I did not penalize spelling errors that did not alter the overall meaning of the content. Also, I did not circle and point out errors in punctuation that did not affect the main sentence structures. I will point out serious spelling mistakes and problems with sentence structure that affect the tone of the letter.

However, this is not the same for marking examination scripts. In examination context, I will be marking out the different kinds of grammatical mistakes, spelling errors and usage of words, and the awarding of language marks will be based on the overall impression and the rubric given.

15.1 Best Lesson Conducted (Jean - pardon the length)

I conducted a form of Writers Circle activity for a fairly motivated Sec 3 Express class in a neighbourhood school. There were two objectives to the 1-period lesson, that

1. Students will be doing collective, organised brainstorming and planning for their info report, and
2. Students will produce material for their written assignment from the first objective.

Students were introduced to an info report scenario, taken from the 1999 November ‘O’ Level paper. I went through the task requirements (producing an info sheet for a school excursion) and highlighted four specific categories for students to brainstorm over. Each group then collected a set of handouts– each set with four handouts of different categories, along with guiding questions and instructions. They were then charged to take a sheet each and take 3 minutes to ‘dump’ as much info, vocabulary and phrases on that category as possible (e.g. educational value of the excursion site). before swopping their papers round, like in the game of ‘Heart Attack’. The process continues every 3 minutes, and by the end of approximately 12 minutes all four sheets are filled with points and information for their homework assignment.

This activity is a directed form of Writers Circle; only instead of verbal discussion, students compile their ideas in a written stack of notes to which they will refer when writing their situational essay. Process Writing is what underpins this activity. It is, in essence, collaborative brainstorming and planning; both of which are integral to the process writing model.

Students responded well to this activity because instructions were clear, management routines were well-delineated, and the task was manageable with sufficient scaffolding and explicit guiding questions. Yet, the activity also gave students freedom to generate their own points, with each member being able to contribute varyingly to different segments. The activity was therefore student-centered and students were largely independent. Students took ownership of the project and were very much motivated and on-task.

By the end of the lesson, students were tasked to transfer all notes onto an individual graphic organizer, which they then fasten together with the final report. The graphic organizer handout is therefore the final product of the lesson, and the largest indicator of whether the lesson has been successful.

15.1 Teaching Inferential Skills [Nurhayati Khan]

My class consisted of 39 Secondary 3 Express students. They are the top Express class and expected to deliver top scores for the 'O' Levels next year. The students are very dynamic and responsive and while most are weak in the language, they make up for it with their motivation and enthusiasm to engage in classroom activities. They are also able to concentrate for extended periods of time.

The skills that I intended to impart to the students were identification of contextual clues in the given texts (through guided inquiry) and the subsequent inference of meaning using their prior knowledge and bank of personal experience.

For this lesson, I employed the use of texts from various media to trigger the students' inferential skills. On planning this activity, I assumed that most students were comfortable inferring meaning from familiar text types like television commercials and comic strips but were not explicitly aware of the transference of such skills to their comprehension passages.

For the first 10 minutes, I explicitly instructed the students on what was expected of them during the rest of the lesson. I also devised a mnemonic for them to be more aware of their inferential process: R-I-P [Recognise topic- Identify clues- Pen inference].

To test their understanding of what was expected of them, I provided a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip and guided their thinking process by posing questions using R-I-P. The use of the visual text was deliberate and intended to stimulate interest in the lesson. Students very easily decoded the visual text and were able to effectively infer the meaning of the comic strip. However, they faced difficulties in identifying clues and articulating their explanations to support their inference.

To tackle the challenge of explaining their answer, I presented them with a short television commercial which featured a personified Macintosh and Microsoft computer. Students were very receptive to both the medium and the topic. Their challenge this time was not to come up with the meaning of the text, but to explain it by identifying clues. They quickly picked up on the visual clues such as dressing, demeanour, language and content.

Assuming that the students were now more comfortable in explaining their inferences, I moved on to the final texts: 2 Petronas television commercials by the late Yasmin Ahmad. Instead of showing them the commercials, I wanted to ease them to reading written texts for clues. Students faced a lot of difficulties identifying clues in the written text. However, some stronger students were able to tentatively point out at some possible clues and I was able to add in my own explicit instruction during the activity to help them to focus.

The major learning indicator was my observations as I monitored their progress during this final activity. While many students faced difficulties in identifying clues, with the help of their peers, I was able to guide them to 'read' the texts critically for clues instead of just absorbing the information.

2 students were picked to share their answers on the board while the rest completed their handouts. Some questions were raised about possible alternative interpretations which signalled that they were engaging their prior knowledge.

In the next lesson, they were also able to recall R-I-P and the skills learnt and effectively applied them to shorter written texts.

15.3 Marking and dealing with errors in EL (Karen Chua)

I would like to share on marking essays (free-writing portion). The main problem marking essays is the extent which I would want to point out all errors in the piece of work.

For tests, I would mark out all errors (especially grammatical errors) – and mark out the type of mistakes (using abbreviations) in the left margin of the paper. I thought this may be useful to students so that they can notice the types of errors they are prone too. By marking out the frequency of these mistakes on the script, I could also get an overview of the weakness of the class and plan my lessons accordingly. In addition, I would also generally re-write a sentence with incorrect structure or make recommendations to improve on word-usage in the test script. The exception is scripts which are totally incomprehensible (especially from foreign students), where hardly any corrections could be marked out for the student, as this would amount to rewriting the entire script for him/her. This resulted in a student asking me why she had so little corrections on her script yet scored lower than a classmate with more corrections – something that had to be explained to her verbally as the marking would not be reflective of her shortcomings.

As such a marking process is extremely time-consuming, I have marked other pieces of essay based on certain criteria (made known to the student prior to the exercise) – for instance, use of connectors or grammar.

Even for comprehension passages, grammar is always an important criterion for me, as I personally feel that good grammar is an important factor for writing. However, when giving a grade to the essay, I may exercise some subjective judgment based on the effort put in by the student for motivational purpose.

15.1 Best Lesson Conducted (Selin)

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Initially, I was rather apprehensive about teaching Exposition because I feel inadequate with writing argumentative essays. After a discussion with my CT, she suggested an activity which the whole level will be implementing – a food tasting session for the class.

For my case, it was actually a series of lessons conducted to teach one topic. This topic stretched across almost 2 weeks due to its experiential nature.

The students, a class of 40, were divided into 10 groups of 4. All the groups took turns to serve their “customers” over 2 days. On the day of serving, the “customers” observed the overall ambience, the attitude and service, as well as the taste and appeal of the food served and gave them their critiques.

In the next lesson, a question related to dining experience was given to them. The students related their real-life experiences as well as those on the food tasting days on a piece of mahjong paper in their own groups by taking a stand.

Following which, I explained that what they have done in their group work may consist of points which can be for or against the question asked before teaching them the structure of an expository essay. An example of an exposition essay was also given. The purpose is to let them have an idea of what an argumentative essay looks like.

The students then attempted to write a piece of individual essay on the given topic, same as that given during their group work.I like the way how students involved themselves actively before being taught the theories. This allowed the students to find joy in learning instead of just throwing the theories and exercises to them. This experiential learning journey helped the students to be immersed in the situation and made them think. Although the trigger activity was pretty long, it helped them to better understand the purpose of the activities given and how to go about writing the argumentative essay. The students will be taught this topic in more detail in Secondary 3.

QCE521LTE_Tgrp04_Intro_Msg

Dear STs,
1. Welcome back to NIE and to QCE 521 LTE.

2. I have set up a simple t/grp blog.
2.1. The main purpose of this blog is to:
- provide STs blog space to reflect on the TP experience and respond to the experiences of other colleagues
- provide a space to evaluate and share EL resources

3. To be completed by STs:
E-tutorials (x3/ 6hrs)
· After tutorial 1, blog a reflection on the t/grp blog.
· Your reflection onto the class blog must be on one of the following:
15.1 The best lesson which you conducted during TP
In your reflection, describe the lesson i.e. learning outcomes, lesson objectives, level of students and pupil profile. Talk about the skills and strategies which from QCE 520 which you enacted and how your pupils responded to them and why you think they responded in this manner. Talk about the indicators of learning. Share on why you consider it one of your best lessons etc.
15.2 EL teaching or assessment issues what you encountered during TP
In your reflection, describe the issues/ area of concern e.g. classroom management, engagement of learners or enacting principles of EL teaching and learning. Talk about how you managed to cope with the issue of concern. What key takeaways did you get from having dealt with the issue of concern? Share on whether you would do it the same way again, if you encounter the same issue and your suggestions on how to even better manage these issues in future.
15.3 Marking and dealing with errors in EL
In your reflection, share on the marking process or how you dealt with the errors in spoken and written EL made by your pupils. Talk about how you went about correcting. Talk about the key learning points and take-aways from having dealt with marking and correction
· Please note that the reflection must be in prose from and to be completed in about 300 words.
· To be done on the class blog. Deadline: 30 Sept 2009. I will set up the class blog as soon as I receive the contact list for the t/grp. Without the contact list, I cannot invite you into the blog etc.). The blog will be up by end this week.
· It is also compulsory for STs to respond to one another’s reflection from their peers in the T/grp.

· Search, contribute and collate 2 EL teaching and learning resources, write a 4 line commentary for each the resource i.e. why you are recommending it etc of and post them onto the t/grp blog. Deadline: 3 Nov 2009.

4. Thank you

regards
Caroline Chan (Ms)
NIE 2009