Canberra Primary School And Bowen Secondary School

The visit to the primary and secondary schools really opened my eyes on the learning of literature in a fun and informational ways. The effort done by the administrators and teachers themselves proved that learning can be done in such interesting and joyful environment and that is what makes the difference between the Singaporean classrooms and Malaysian classrooms. The importance of drama and art are also put at the highest level in most of the selected schools and I have managed to capture a lot of snapshots as evidence so that I will be able to make use of them in my school.

Experience At RELC, Singapore

The lecturers in RELC and their training methods:
The lecturers in RELC are really great. They imparted their real life experience during their lectures to make us see the reality of the school environment. Malaysian and Singaporean schooling environment is more or less the same in the sense that English comes as second language to both countries. Only the usage of it makes the difference where in Singapore it is widely and thoroughly used where else in Malaysia, most of the students learn English in schools during English periods only. The sessions with all the lecturers are all very informational sessions. They brought us into the insights of ourselves by pushing the right buttons and making us believe that we as the tool have the right materials to carve our pupils’ ability. Their future lies in our hands.

Dr. Chan always came up with very interesting and resourceful hands on activities with us. Everybody was always asked to move around to fulfill the tasks. He always turns everything into a learning process such as singing and taking part in a drama characterization slot. With Dr Wang, even though at first we were like lost during her lectures as she uses the big ‘L’, we managed to grasp her info when she finally tuned down to our level of expectation without cutting off the major inputs. Dr Tan who is an energetic and highly resourceful drama lecturer always commented with good feedback and encouragement whilst pondering on the fact on how to improve teaching English through the drama skills.

As usual, Ms Sandra never gives a dull moment. She always shares her teaching experience which we can relate to our everyday teaching life. I personally feel that she is truly a born educator because she is able to deliver her lecture effectively by giving real life experience. She stresses that teachers should bring enjoyment in the literature to the children and she has proven it during her lecturers with us.

I feel that RELC has used the perfect training methods as we learnt a lot thoroughly. Even though the lecturers are all PhD holders, they were able to tune to our levels and gave great lectures to us without omitting anything out of the syllabus planned. The course covered everything we need, from the overall view of literature in the ELT classrooms, teaching poem, short stories and even to drama. With the additional, rich information and knowledge given by the Director herself regarding the selection of literature books and the famous guess speakers, no doubt we gained a lot.