2 things from final practicum

My absence from the blog this time round not too long ago was exceptionally long (or at least slightly longer than all the previous 'fake hiatuses' that I've tried to put in place) due to my final teaching practice that was just over on Friday.

Now that the whole 10 weeks is over, I can't be any more glad to announce that I'm finally a beginning teacher! 

It's been an utmost period of trying and learning in the past 10 weeks. What I've learnt about being a teacher in this seemingly short 10 weeks seemed to have easily outweigh all that textbook knowledge that the uni's been trying to drill into our minds for the past 4 years.

I've experienced stress like I've not gone through in a very long while when the practice had just begun. While it was mainly individual responsibility (or group ones at most) back in pulau ntu, I now have to be responsible for the learning of so many little kiddos, whose minds are just like sponges, absorbing and picking up whatever information that is lying around, without going through much of a 'filtering process'. The thought of imparting the wrong grammatical, mathematical or even scientific concepts to the kids terrifies me. I would repeat a theory 10 times if that would help them remember a concept better, but what if the language I had used somehow caused some misinterpretation somewhere along the line? And what if that error stays in their minds for the subsequent 9 years, or worst, for the rest of their lives? How can I ever make it up to a kid who grows up thinking that one-tenth is greater than one-half? I can't! It's not possible to 're-write' the information on their minds like a DVD-RW.

It may be a little hard to imagine me in such a stressed mode since I'm usually too darned well-known for being lazy laid-back, but honestly, the pressure of having to do such detailed lesson plans on a frequent basis and preparation of lesson resources made it impossible not to feel the stress. On hindsight, I guess some of it was really self-imposed though.

So, blabbing aside, here's just a very quick summary of 2 of the more important things that kind of stuck:

1. You must fail before you can succeed

It really was a tough act (still is), trying to juggle lesson plans, classroom management and collection of homework. When I thought I had one of these three balls well under my thumb, something had to go wrong with the other two balls, somehow. It was so common that I would get one piece of positive feedback but two negative ones in return and that made my heart crumble a little each time. It was demoralizing, and I was disheartened, to say the least. I probably wouldn't have been that bothered though, if I hadn't been making adjustments to make things better, based on feedback from different sources and that made things a lot worse - it was still no avail despite already having act upon feedback - it could only mean that I really suck at this whole teaching business. Or like what I came to realize later on, maybe I'm not the only one who faces this problem. Sometimes, it takes more than one feeble try to get things right... this overused cliche's been repeated to death, but people will not fully grasp the meaning of it until he/she's experienced countless failures before finally seeing the first glimmers of success. I'm really glad to announce that I'm finally seeing the first signs of light - looking forward to the time when I will finally become an awesome juggler.

The Power of Affirmation

By virtue of my major at university, teaching English should have been the most enjoyable, if not easy of the three subjects that I took while on practicum. But it wasn't the case, not in the first few weeks at least. I'd never imagined that I would enjoy teaching Math and Science so much more than English. At one point, I felt so horrible that my kids did not understand the simple grammatical concepts and activities that I'd tried to conduct during lessons (mainly because I did not fully understand what the class ability was yet) that I began dreading going for English lessons altogether; feedback from my mentor was bad - whatever I tried to do was truly beyond the children's comprehension and they simply didn't see the rationale of things. Finally, I broke down in front of my mentor one afternoon, who must've really been taken aback at my supposed fragility. In contrast to the negative feedback that I'd been getting for English lessons, I discovered the powerful influence of affirmative words from other mentors for my other subjects. In short, it was an instant ego boost. It felt good to see personal efforts being recognized and paying off and that gave me some motivation to want to improve on my delivery for English as well. With some words of encouragement from Jenny and tips on how to improve my lessons, I later went on to enjoy the teaching of English again so much more. The learning point of this would be for me to remember what a little affirmation can do to boost oneself - Dear Ms Chang, please don't ever forget to praise your kids to affirm their commendable behaviour!

Apart from learning the 2 important lessons that I've just mentioned, I've also learnt to become (very) good friends with the risograph and photocopier; actually began having daily conversations with them so as to coax them into working well.

So yes, 10 weeks of learning, and more to go.
Let's go Ms Chang!

the end of something good

After living what seemed like the new Dolce Vita for the longest time, my last vacation as a student finally came to an end two days ago. Looking ahead, I'm quite certain that my next prolonged period of idling won't be here anytime soon. 

And so, I'm feeling quite thankful that I'd been able to busy myself in the past few weeks with lots of catching up (with the same dear old people, of course), checking out ulu cafes, taking long walks around places that I never really got to stopping by previously, etc. Instead of having to meet deadlines or fulfill other academic obligations like we've been doing the entire semester, I was granted the luxury of learning to take things slow. Really slow. 

A slice of Antoinette ($9++) at Antoinette's

I learnt to take sips instead of gulps, nibbles instead of gobbles (of course, my Kindle made it a lot easier to do that), and pictures instead of mere snapshots. I made sure that nothing was too serious for me to fuss over, had plenty of time to mull over some issues in my life and it turned out to be such a wonderful time. 

Milk chocolate mousse cake infused with earl grey, topped with a bubble that oozes of tangy raspberry coulis when burst. The unusual sweet and sour combination worked quite well for me; both flavours balancing each other evenly. 

(I still think the bubble looks like a giant nipple though)

Oh, and this year, I finally learnt how to wrap bak zhangs at Grandma's place.

Wrapping's the easiest part of the entire process; preparation of the ingredients and cooking of the dumplings after they've been wrapped is so much more tedious. With quite a lot of difficulty, I finally managed to make mine decent-looking when tied; Aunt mentioned that the ones I'd wrapped look really tiny, just like the ones Mum used to wrap when she'd first started.

There were a little leftover ingredients so Aunt suggested that I bring them home so that Mum could do some wrapping too. I helped out with the preparation of the ingredients early morning (e.g. cleaning and shelling of salted eggs, chopping of mushroom, garlic and onion) and managed to wrap a few more bak zhangs before scooting off to NIE for a meeting with my practicum supervisor.

I thought my last weekend of the vacation was kind of ruined when I did something regrettable Saturday morning; spent the afternoon kicking myself in bed when I should really have been out windsurfing or making more out of the precious weekend. 

Thankfully, I reminded myself that I have the power to turn things round (it's all in the mind!) and things got so much better in the evening. Post-tuition, I met up with a smaller-than-usual KTOWY (everyone will be coming home soon though :D) at Zhen's for a barbecue dinner. The food items bought and prepared by Zhen and her family were marinated and grilled to BBQ perfection; Boss' meat joystick was a big hit (ok, sounds slightly inappropriate), Ah Long's beancurd tarts were delish, and the bak zhangs I brought were just to make numbers lol. Good food is often paired with awesome company and we had much of both that evening. Boss provided us girls with a breakdown of the different types of guys we're likely to come across (generally) in life and I suppose my favourite's the "gong dua dai" kinda guy - sounds cute, no? Don't judge me for picking a favourite based on what it sounds like please. We played In-Between too, for lack of better games, and my luck was unbelievably horrible. I make a mental note whenever I start cursing or saying swear words (raising self-awareness ahem), and records show that frequency is highest when I meet horrible drivers on the road, followed by times when I drop my sail while windsurfing, and finally, when I play In-Between wtf.

Sunday was great too even though we didn't have the best of winds; I had a really enjoyable time surfing and it's also partly because of the trash-picking that we did before that. 

Ended the evening with a cousin's wedding dinner and here are some snaps:

with Mumsy

YF

and Yihao! Like he mentioned on Facebook, it's been the longest time since the 3 of us took a picture together.

with the 'little melons'.

Mum and Dad :)

Weddings usually leave me going "Awwww... they're going to spend the rest of their lives together now. How sweet is that..." in my mind, but this one made me have cynical thoughts; maybe I've been thinking too much about the impermanence of life, love, and such of late.

And that marks the happy closure of my final vacation as a student.

Final practicum's finally started on Monday; things have yet to get busy (very soon though, I'm sure), and I'm really happy to be here - I hope I'm not speaking too soon since it's just the 2nd day so far. It feels wonderful to have my own workstation (finally!) and have superiors acknowledge my presence on the first day of work. Not to mention I have really nice CTs too; one of whom gave me a 'welcome gift' on my first day:

I'm feeling really blessed right now.

To show my appreciation for all that I've been bestowed upon,

I should really stop paying just lip service and start working hard! :)

Wuyi Mountains: an action-packed day

Following Xiamen (B on map), our next stop was 武夷山, or the Wuyi Mountains (C on map). 

We arrived at the train station of 武夷山, Wu Yi Shan (yes, there's a train station thus named) in the evening after a 4-6 hours train ride from Xiamen. Located at the northern border of the Fujian Province, Wu Yi Shan is considered to be slightly further inland than where we originally were (Xiamen).

This place is known for its impressive mountain range, and is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site for both its natural and cultural heritage (mainly tea cultivation and appreciation).

Unlike Xiamen, there weren't too many people tourists around during the time we were there. We learnt from our hired driver that the peak season would begin in 1-2 months' time; I thought we were fairly lucky to have the quiet mountains to ourselves during our 2-night stay here.

We retired to our beds early on the first night since it was already dark when our driver finally managed to find the secluded motel that we made a reservation with.

It was going to be a long day after we rose next morning.

We kickstarted the next day with breakfast at a dumpling store after telling our driver to bring us to where the locals would eat their breakfasts.

He was more than happy to oblige to our request.

Dumplings it was for breakfast.

And some soya milk to wash the dumplings down.

The dumplings were made on the spot; the kneading, folding and filling of dough skin with meat-filling took place at the back while the frying of dumplings in a shallow pan took place at the front of the shop; everything done in clear view of the patrons.

It was a simple but satisfying meal.

I later came to learn that the cuisine in this part of China focuses on the freshness of ingredients used rather than additional enhancing of flavours. Our driver/guide explained to us over lunch that ingredients used in the cooking here are constantly changing with the seasons so as to ensure optimum flavours and freshness when it's finally presented on diners' plates. 

Post-breakfast, our driver/guide brought us to see some waterfalls at a nature reserve.

A fair bit of walking was involved here; though not exactly strenuous, I found myself breaking out in sweat after a good 15 minutes of walking on inclined grounds, despite the shady and cool relief provided by all that trees in there.
(but then again, I need to disclaim that I start perspiring rather easily)


The first of a few waterfalls we'd come to see.

And here are my partners in crime pictured:

Aud, Stella and Sharri

Sights on the way to the top (lots of water and greenery):

Stella requested for a picture at this little 'hut', and of course I was more than happy to oblige:

Definitely one of the cutest, and most helpful and most innocent person I had the chance to know while in HK last year.

After going upwards for about 45 minutes, we arrived at the designated top-most area for visitors. Apart from two middle-aged ladies peddling tea and small souvenir items, there wasn't really anything much else (e.g. spectacular landscape views!).

Though mildly disappointed at the lack of mind-blowing lowland views, I did enjoy the little break we took up there; marveling at our lush surroundings and being grateful for the calmness offered.

View of the top:

Water curtains.

Coming down was much faster and less tiring than going up. 

The idyllic view that greeted us when we got back to the entrance of the nature reserve where our driver was waiting.

We passed by countless tea cultivation grounds; the views of the numerous but neat rows of tea plants were simply beautiful.

Our driver made us get a ticket each that included admission to a few spots and some activities; one of which was the flying fox (at another nature reserve). To get to the flying fox start point, we had to take a 20-minute uphill walk, again. I learnt that it's called 滑索 in Chinese.

Must be one of the most scenic flying foxes I've been on in my life.

If memory doesn't fail me, this was the place where we did the flying fox...
and some scary bungee thing that you'll see in the following few pictures.

It looks pretty harmless from the pictures you see here; judging from my clueless smile in the first picture, but in all honesty, that has got to be one of the scariest experiences of my life.

In order to catapult the unknowing 'victim' into the air, a man would hold on to straps dangling from the safety harness the victim's wearing, jump on the trampoline a few times before pulling you downwards as hard as possible and finally releasing his grip on those harness straps.

Not exactly for the weak-hearted.

What the 'ordeal' felt like:
I felt my heart coming up to my mouth as I screamed my lungs out.
As I was launched into the sky, it felt like the safety ropes snapped and the metal structure holding the ropes and me down got uprooted somehow. It's amazing the amount of thoughts that go through one's mind at moments of impending death. In that few milli-seconds where I was traveling upwards at the speed of light, I cursed myself for agreeing to go on this bungee thing despite a serious lack of safety considerations, got emotional when I thought about how lucky I have been in my life, before pleading silently to be spared from death at such a young age.

Thank goodness the whole thing didn't last for more than 2-3 seconds; the upward launch, that is.

Can't help but be so grateful to be alive when I was finally making my way back down phew.

Thank you but I think I'll stick to the flying fox for now.

A mini waterfall we passed by on the way to the second flying fox venue.

Another scenic ride down.

After all the heart-pumping action, we went water-rafting in the mountainous streams.
It was safe/easy enough for us to launch and manoeuvre our own tubes with an oar each; and the entire experience lasted for about 30 minutes or so.

To calm our nerves from the flurry of activities that afternoon, our driver finally brought us to take a look at the famous peaks of Wuyi Mountains (but not before a claustrophobic walk to see a famous crack in some big rocks that reveal a sliver of the sky - appropriately named 一線天):

霸王峰, or Tyrant's Peak.
(I think)

And this is 玉女峰, or Jade Maiden Peak. Wuyi Mountains' most iconic peak.

The scene was quite difficult to capture with the sun setting just behind those peaks.

Can't really be seen here but there were some families on holiday taking leisure walks on those stones by the river, as well as a couple taking bridal shots.

Our driver told us some interesting myths/fairytales related to the few peaks but I can't really recall them now anymore.

We ended our day by getting some smoked goose (a local specialty) for dinner, and also some yummy tea biscuits to bring back to our friends in Hong Kong. Our driver agreed to send us to the train station the next morning so that we could catch our train to Fuzhou, our transit stop on the way to Beijing.

I really enjoyed our short stay here at 武夷山.
The air's great, and the people hospitable; I miss hearing our driver call us 小姑娘 (as opposed to just 姑娘 in other cities in China that we had been to) - that somehow adds a degree of innocence to the way the locals here perceive people and life in general.

I remember having a conversation with our driver about costs of living in the different places we were from and he was appalled at how costly it is to reside in Singapore; expressing content for the simplicity that he's experienced here for all his life.
That was a nice moment.

Anyhow, we arrived in Fuzhou (福州) after some hours of traveling on the train.
Stella arranged for us to meet up with some of her high school friends, before Sharri and I made our ways to Beijing, and Aud and her head back to HK.

Taking a walk along 南後街 in Fuzhou, a shopping street that still retains traditional architecture from a great many centuries back (yes we were walking on the same streets as the ancient Chinese!) despite the modern goods that are being sold here. There was a very Chinese-looking Starbucks on the left side of the street.

Stella and her wonderful high-school friends.

A visit to Fuzhou (福州) would not be complete without trying the famous Fuzhou fishballs.

This meat-filling was very well-seasoned and that was the best Fuzhou fishball I had in my 23 years of living (well, comparing to the bland-tasting ones we have here in Singapore...).

yummy way to get started on the topic of pie charts

Looked through the photos in my phone earlier and came across this; it was taken in the last or second last maths tutorial for this semester and I'd almost forgotten bout it till today and it's a little incomplete actually.

Guess the main trouble you'll face is preventing your kids from eating those M&Ms before the pie charts are constructed and calculations are done.

Useful in revisiting Percentage too!

anew

The semester's almost coming to an end (the last submission will be in a week's time) and like what's been said forever, every ending has a new beginning. It'll mark the start of my final holidays as a student, before I head out for practicum end June.

Reckoned it's time to change the blog layout after using the previous one for such a long time.
I know it's still simple as can be (I've just become aware of my fondness for simplicity) but hey look, some colour finally! In a bid to encourage myself to blog more, I've been reducing my tweets (the last one was about 3 weeks ago) so that I don't run out of things to say when I arrive at blogger's dashboard - working okay so far, me thinks. So, I've taken away the twitter widget from the sidebar.

So, to more blog entries very soon!

better late than never

It took me 4 years to realize this, but you know what they say, it's always better late than never. 

The pork ribs noodles sold by the noodle stall in NIE's canteen is delicious! *slurp slurp* 

The combination of the 'prawny' broth (meant for prawn noodles) and tender, savoury near fall-off-the-bone pork ribs make such a wonderful and yummy eating experience.

Can't believe I've been sticking to ba chor mee, lor mee and missing out on the other good stuff all this while.

Yet another joy of school before my life as a student officially ends.

joy of reluctant mornings

I'm not exactly known to be a morning person (night owl 100 percent yes), but one of my favourite things to do in the mornings is driving into NIE from the Jalan Bahar entrance, taking the same route as bus 199 does.

I love that little long, straight stretch of road that comes up after Halls 9 and 10. Trees line either side of the road, and their slender branches extend overhead; reaching for opposite sides thus, creating a thin and sparse canopy of leaves. The well-spaced but overlapping branches allow light to filter through generously, and reveal brillant blue and golden hues of the morning sky.

It's beautiful,
and it helps start my day on a happy note.

Probably one of the many reasons that add to the joy of (me) coming to school.

alternative view of what being lucky is

Before I forget...

A tutor who took me for one of my math modules last semester said something that struck me as sort of interesting. She said that she was "lucky to be one of the few people who do not need to have a mobile line to get by in life". I thought about it and I suppose she's right in some sense; we've been getting busy trying to connect with the rest of the world, and now, we're way too dependent on some of our telecommunication devices that it makes us look like slaves to our gadgets sometimes.

I tried to imagine a life without my mobile when my tutor shared her thoughts with us, and I concluded that even though I'd love to live a life without a mobile phone too, it's probably not for now hur.

闭馆修炼

No more Facebook games or trolling on the hwz forums for the next few days.

That's for procrastinating so much this entire recess week.

On a side note, I finally booked lessons for a groupon voucher that I got sometime back. Headed down to ECP for an instructors' recruitment talk today - if things go well and I don't drop out halfway for whatever reason or fail my powerboat tests too many times, I should be a certified instructor by this time next year. Having a lot of thoughts about my windsurfing journey right now, but I'll come back to talk about it again next time round.

Just something random that I suddenly remember from a few nights back. I shared with K over dinner (when he was in Sg) about how I would like to experience working life overseas after I'm done with my bond. He responded with "If you want something to happen, it will happen", in the most as-a-matter-of-factly manner. Words that I'll have to keep in mind. 加油AJ :)

Maths these days

Maths tutorials have been a whole lot of fun so far; my tutors have been most willing to share their experiences. We learnt many new teaching methods/strategies to introduce the same old math topics to students in more engaging ways and I'm really looking forward to putting all these strategies to use soon.

Before I go any further, I just want to say that the learning of mathematics these days is vastly different from what we were exposed to in the past; instead of focusing as much on rote memorization (that was very much how we learnt about maths back then, wasn't it?), the focus is now on the development of students' process skills which will come in useful in problem-solving. Instead of learning mathematics in an isolated contexts, students are now exposed to problems that are more relatable to their daily lives so that learning will become much more meaningful for them.

Also, instead of diving head-first into abstract representations of mathematical concepts these days, teachers let students play and explore with 'concrete' math-learning materials (that's where the fun begins) before using pictures to represent them and finally moving on to the abstract representation.

Here are some of the 'concrete' materials that we've been learning to make use of in our tutorials:

DIY unit-cube and cuboids that I used for one of my micro-teaching sessions; making 2D representations of 3D-models on isometric dot paper (P5).

Tangram pieces in the shape of a crane; something that we were required to fold when Grandfather Tang's story was being read (P2). 

Tangram square. 

Coloured counters to reveal patterns when counting.

Coloured wooden blocks; surface area.

3 corners from the same triangle; proof that interior angles of a triangle add up to 180degrees.

Geometric strips; teaching properties of figures (e.g. parallelogram, rhombus, etc)

There are more, but I think the ones that I've shown up there are enough to prove my point.

The other point of this entry is really for me to rant.

I'm getting increasingly irritable by some of the comments that people make about primary school mathematics like "maths problems are getting too difficult these days, I only learnt this in primary (insert appropriate level) back then", or "workbooks like to make things complicated for simple calculations; e.g. add in redundant steps, it's so confusing!", or "don't know if the kids are being tested on their English abilities or mathematical understanding"; people who have not been pedagogically-trained but think they know better.

Debunking these comments:

"maths problems are getting too difficult these days, I only learnt this in primary (insert appropriate level) back then"

以前警察穿短裤.

I'm sorry that you think math problems are getting tougher (it's true, at least for people like me who've gone through the older ways of learning) these days but times have changed (and so has the syllabus; not all though) and we need to keep up with these changes - that's the politically correct thing to say, of course. In order to keep up with the global pace and develop our students into critical and creative young people able to generate alternative solutions for an old problem instead of following the previous solution blindly (i.e. do for the sake of doing, without understanding), we cannot continue with the old rote memorization way of learning where students just do drill-and-practice sums all the time. 

These 'difficult' problems have been identified by many education researchers as useful in helping young students develop essential thinking and processing skills that will greatly aid them in problem-solving, and have not been presented to students just because teachers enjoy watching students (and parents too, for this matter) stumble on them.

"workbooks like to make things complicated for simple calculations; e.g. add in redundant steps, it's so confusing!"

Build the foundation/basis for more advanced thinking in children. Over the course of our education, we have come to become so good with the basics (or at least we think we are) and have absolutely no problems with simple operations (e.g. addition, subtraction, etc). Process of learning/acquisition may seem to have come very naturally to us, but I can assure you otherwise; it came along together with the countless drill-and-practice exercises that we've completed back then. Forget that students thinking and our thinking (as adults) are at very different levels/stages, in terms of processing capabilities, and we assume that they think the same way as we do. But that is not the case. They need lots of scaffolding (step-by-step instructions/guide) to progress from one level to the next. We see redundant steps in workbooks, children see a step-by-step guide. 

Why not simply use the rote memorization method, it worked okay for us, so it must work okay for the kids these days too, you may say. Because in the past, it was mainly just doing without understanding. Example, can you explain why must we 'bring' the '3' up to '7' when we do our working for 76 X 6? Are you thinking something along the line of "because that's how I've always been doing it" or "because that was what I was taught?" Not understanding, blindly following. The answer that I was looking for should actually be related to the concept of Place Values and Regrouping. 

Spend more time now to spend less time in future.

The steps are not redundant; can present to students alternative ways of deriving a solution, and over time, students will learn to judge for themselves which are the most efficient/effective ones.

"don't know if the kids are being tested on their English abilities or mathematical understanding"

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I definitely agree that language used in problems posed to students should be within their language competencies so that they are able to understand what the question/problem is talking about. On the other, I do not seem any harm in stretching our students slightly beyond their abilities across the curriculum because learning should not take place in isolation, i.e. what is learnt in English class should not just be relevant during English lessons, but should come in useful in subjects across the curriculum. It really does make a good opportunity for teachers to teach students new vocabulary. That said, I absolutely do not agree with using language in maths problems to 'trick' students; or using it to have the same effect for other subjects within the curriculum. 

The worst thing parents/tutors can do is to tell children that "these steps are stupid/useless" and insist on your way of doing things. Here we are, trying so hard to build up positive attitudes towards mathematics in children and by saying the negative things you do about math teaching and learning, you've just successfully destroyed whatever we've tried to construct. 

And yes, it makes me very upset :(

End of rant.