When a Student Turns into a Teacher

I have learnt so much from my teaching experience in the past week. 

I am interning as a teacher at ACS Jakarta for a month before starting my master's study in October. I actually started in mid June to teach the foundation class in chemistry and maths for the new grade 10 students, who moved from local schools on the scholarship programme. The students are very bright, they were able to learn new materials rather quickly. Moreover, they are very attentive in class. It's an ideal kind of students from a teacher's perspective. ^_^ Anyway, the programme lasted for two weeks, which I hope prepared them well enough for the actual class.

First and Foremost...

The new school year started on 27 July for everyone. Teachers had to come to school on 23-25 July for briefings and meetings. I found out on the 23rd that I would be teaching Additional Maths for grade 10 IGCSE as well as assisting with Maths HL for grade 12 IB. Note the choice of words "teaching" and "assisting". Yes I have to teach the gr10 because the class is divided into two classrooms, and one of it is handled by Mr Ng, the school executive principal, so I will be accompanying him. In gr12 I just need to observe the teacher and assist the students when they don't understand or need help with the exercise. 

On the two and a half day meetings, I was introduced to all the teachers and caught up with my teachers back when I studied here. Yes I graduated from this school in 2012 and yes there are only a few teachers from back then who are still here now. I was actually quite sad when I found out many of my favourite teachers had moved and I actually really miss them. :( During the Mathematics and ICT Department meeting I realised that I only know one teacher and the subject head in the department (which consists of 8 people excluding me). However, it didn't take me more than a weekend to make friends with the other teachers. They are all very nice and friendly, which I am pleasantly surprised with as I am very young (in terms of experience and age) and I was afraid they would look down on me and would not want to be friends with me. Wrong. :) They are all really cool and I could learn a lot just from talking to them. Gotta make the most out of it right?

The Monday marked the start of the orientation programme which lasted for three days. I was not involved with the orientation, instead I had some work to do such as preparing the lesson, notes, exercise sheets, and some administrative things such as the scheme of work which outlines the teaching plan for the whole year, and the list of students. I also learned other stuff like photocopying, which surprisingly takes a lot of patience, especially when creating a booklet; and how to prepare for a lesson. 

Those three days were quite busy for me as I had to learn how to do all these preparation which takes a lot of thinking and discussions. And I actually had one more difficult task: making friends. The first few days of moving to a new environment is very important (or so in my opinion) because once you make an impression, it is very likely that others will remember it and you may be judged based on it! As an introvert I found it as a huge challenge, not to mention the age gap. In the attempt to make friends, I always eat in the common room and try to chat with other teachers. Fortunately I think I have made some friends, at least enough friends to fill my days and my social needs. Of course there are also my teachers who are very kind to me. :) 

Starting to Actually "Teach"

Comes Thursday, the first day of teaching which starts with the topic Functions for the gr10. I was really scared and nervous because it is still scary no matter how much I had prepared. First time actually teaching a big class of 24 students. Whew. I just didn't know how to explain all these concepts in a way that students could understand. I didn't even remember how my teacher taught me these back then. Where do I start? How do I explain the difference between this and that? Whoa there. 

I started off the class the way I prepared it. The students were all very quiet because Mr Ng was there in the class. I simply took it as a sign that they understood. Well no surprise, I was wrong. Mr Ng took over the class and explained everything all over again. I saw the look in the students' eyes. I too was mesmerised and realised my mistakes. I didn't explain clearly enough, I needed to talk more and repeat some of the important concepts. Students take some time to understand a new concept, and that's what I didn't see. Obviously there are also some other mistakes I made that I have not realised yet. :) So if anyone in my class is reading this please leave me your feedback! Would greatly appreciate it. 

It really hit me hard that time. I felt that I had horribly failed in my first class and Mr Ng was very disappointed with me. For some reason I feel that he has very high expectations out of me and I firmly believed I wouldn't be able to live up to it. Fortunately Mr Ng was very patient and he really wanted me to learn as much as possible from him. So I didn't want to disappoint him further. 

The Friday I was still learning from Mr Ng's teaching. Just observing him taught me a lot of things. In theory, I got a clearer idea of how to teach better, but in practice it is not easy to change! These things take time too you know.

I also learnt about how much to prepare for a lesson. I had actually prepared quite a lot of things for just one period (35 mins), as I was used to university lectures which covers so many things in one lecture and gives no exercise in class, whereas in school we need to give students exercise in class, for they may learn more from doing the problems themselves. I really needed to take my time and not get too rushed. 

From Monday on, he started to trust me more to teach the class. At least I think I'm getting a better grip of things. At times he still needs to instruct me of what to do, like whether to start doing exercise, give more exercise, or just move on to the next bit. Some of these surprised me, as sometimes I didn't realise that students need to practice. Remember, practice makes perfect. I also still have to see him everyday before class to make sure and check my lesson plan with him. I honestly am very grateful he gave me this opportunity and had the time to help me with every little detail. I have yet to ask him what he thinks about my teaching in the past week though. Should have asked that before the weekend!

Assisting My Colleague

(Haha, can't believe I could actually call teachers my colleague. Technically I could right? :P )

As for the gr12, it is a very interesting class. Very diverse and really interesting. Certainly too much for me to handle but fortunately I'm not the main teacher. Mr Irvin is the main teacher who has taught them last year too. From my perspective, his style of teaching is very different from Mr Ng's style, but at this point I think it is important for me to get exposed to as many different styles as possible so I could find my own style and see which style is best suited for what kind of group of students. 

Some of these students are really good, and some others apparently think they are doing well but actually aren't (or so I was told). What I know for sure is that these people really need to concentrate and pay attention in class (which they usually don't) and practice a lot in order to do well in the real exams. I still have vague memories from my high school years, and I surely remember I have acted badly too in certain classes, not paying attention and doing other assignments during class. But I think this kind of attitude is unacceptable and the teacher has to discipline their students. 

Tutorials vs. Actual Class

Knowing this, Mr Ng has asked me to provide tutorials for some of the underperforming students, to make them more comfortable with topics covered last year. After discussion with several teachers and the IB Coordinator, I have arranged tutorials for gr12 Maths HL, gr12 Maths SL, and gr10 Add Maths which fill my after school hour on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I'm actually quite busy for an intern right? However, I honestly feel more comfortable with giving tutorials because I have done private tutoring before, and dealing with a small number of students is a lot more manageable than dealing with a big class. 

This gives me quite a bit of stress as well because it's quite hard to arrange a good time when everyone can make it. Obviously there are students who just don't want to have tutorials. Out of the 14 tutorial letters I have given out, only 5 students actually handed in the return slip. Don't they realise how much of a hassle it was for me to prepare these letters? :(

The things I learned during these tutorials are very different from what I learned in class. Other than after school tutorials I also do private tutorials with one student who doesn't do the full diploma, so he has free periods when I can see and teach him. He is a very interesting person, certainly one I have not taught before. He actually is quite smart and his algebra is very good. Apparently he is good at music too so I could expect him to be good at maths. However, he just cannot pay attention and concentrate. His memory is very bad. These problems are preventing him from performing his best, and I really hope I could do something to help him. So far he has been avoiding tutorials by doing other things such as doing homework, revising for test, or just playing games. In the coming weeks I hope to revise old topics with him and make sure he does not only remember but also understand the concepts. Ganbatte to me!

The gr12 SL is not bad. They already know what they need help with, but I still had to revise the basics with them and when I did, I found that they actually still need to revise the basics before moving onto the harder stuff! I'm seeing good prospects though and hope they could learn a lot from my tutorials. 

Tutoring the gr10 was a huge challenge for me. Six guys. Loud ones, at that. Knowing I'm an alumnus doesn't help at all. At least I guess they are always like that in every other class, so it's not just in my class. :P They are the loudest group I have encountered by far and I believe I have a low voice, I cannot speak loudly (hence I always have a problem with eating at pubs or formal hall in the UK). Many times I had to shout at the top of my lungs. I had to tell them many times to pay attention to me.

I covered the basics of trigonometry which it turned out that many of them didn't know how to do it. Finding sin/cos/tan of special angles is a challenge for all of them, so I taught them the method of finding it using the fingers of our left hand, which apparently none of them have heard of (same thing happened with the gr12 HL). I could imagine all of these students looking at their left hands making weird movements during exams and the invigilators think they are trying to cheat or something by exchanging codes. :P

Anyway it was so annoying because they think they can solve the problems and they want to show off by working it out on the board. Actually I think it's quite good because with this kind of students, it would be great if they could learn from their friends, so I gave them the chance to write on the board or explain the answers to the class. But I had to tell them to stop talking unless they could solve the problem under 1 minute. If they could do that then they are free to show off all they want.

It was challenging because different students had different needs. Some of them don't pay attention to the explanation the first time around and then ask for it to be repeated. Some others don't even need help to do the exercise. (To be fair, these guys said they got a bad average because of the SA2 only. They normally do pretty well.) Some others just want to show off and pick on their friends who can't do it. 

At the end when we moved on to plotting trigo graphs, I saw something that I had never imagined. I went through the coefficients which play different roles in the function (stretch/translation, vertical/horizontal) and how each coefficient changes the shape of the graph. It was quiet. Everyone was actually listening to me and taking notes. It's as if they just saw something very enlightening. It was too quiet I really didn't need to shout. I totally can't believe I succeeded in making this group of loud guys shut up and listen. It gave me a feeling of satisfaction, something that I could never feel if I didn't teach this group of students. They said they actually learned something from me today, which makes me glad. I feel that I have accomplished my target for that day, and hope that I could continue to help them while I am here. 

How I Feel About Teaching

It has only been one week of actual teaching for me, but I feel that I have learned SO much in the past week. For me, teaching is a challenge and a learning process. I have to think about how my students could gain knowledge from me. I have to put all those abstract concepts in a way that my students can understand, which may not be the same as the way I think. On the other hand, I could also laugh at them and laugh with them, while remembering that I'm still their teacher and not simply their friend.

It reminds me of that time in primary school. I think it was in grade 2. My teacher asked the class who wanted to become a teacher. I was the only one who raised my hand. Yes of course I was too young then to decide my future career, but in the past few years I have always considered teaching as a career. I always enjoyed sharing my knowledge and helping other students. I want to shape and nurture the young generation. 

Anyway, I still have three more weeks at ACS Jakarta. I will be returning to the UK in mid September, and hopefully finish my master's study in one year. If any student is reading this, please make use of this time to get help from me with your IA or revision with topics that you don't understand, because I really want to help you too. It is a learning process for me too so I want to get the most out of it. Please feel free to give me your feedback if I'm too slow or too fast or not clear in explaining, or anything else! I'm still learning too, so I could really use your input!

Do not forget to subscribe to hear the latest updates on my blog! I would like to update you all one or two more times about my teaching experience at ACS Jakarta until the end of August. Stay tuned!