The new school year has started. Year two.
This time last year, I had no idea what I was doing. This year... while I’m still not the perfect teacher (if there even is such a thing), everything seems to fit so much better. I understand the structure, the routines and I'm ready to hit the play button so my students can push themselves to thrive in the system!
But maybe I get too ambitious... maybe I get so into everything I want to do with the kids that I forget to take a step back to see how they're doing - to really invest my time in conversations and observations to see not only their performance, but their attitudes towards learning English. Teaching is so much more than implementing lessons. A teacher is a motivator – to motivate a child to love learning and to believe in the potential he or she has.
This year I am the fifth-grade writing teacher again. It's an amazing opportunity to refine the units of writing I developed last year. We began the writing unit on Wednesday. Pumped and ready for the new school year, the kids were assigned a pre-assessment, so we could see how and what to teach the kids.
They were asked to write about "The Best Day of My Life."
Together, we created a mindmap on the board with potential writing topics (birthdays, holidays, theme parks, school camps,...) and discussed effective writing tools to include (the Wh- questions, adjectives, dialogue, connectives,...). After the mindmapping, each child had a clear picture of what they wanted to write about and seemed surprisingly excited to get their pencils moving.
Or is that just what I told myself?
Circulating, I watched as students diligently wrote. Some students began writing instantaneously, others decided to answer the guiding questions to get their ideas on paper. The classroom was silent. I could see the gears in their imaginative little brains at work, reliving the best days of their lives and trying to express them in their second language on paper.
"If you don’t know how to spell, don’t worry. Just draw a picture or try your best to guess. The teacher wants to see what you know and don’t know so we can help you this year!"
About 20 minutes into the writing, I noticed a boy had not written anything. 'What’s wrong?’ I thought. 'Does he not understand the task?' Kneeling beside him, I asked what the best day of his life was. Now up close, I made eye contact. I could see his glistening eyes and blinking eyelashes clumped together with tears. He’d been crying.
"What’s wrong? Do you feel sad?"
*shake head*
"Do you know what to write?"
*shake head*
A sudden pang of empathy sent me back to my primary school years where I saw myself, the perfectionist, struggling to start writing my Chinese compositions. Overwhelmed by the task of writing something to express all that I wanted to say, I’d always decide to not say anything at all. Not until the teacher pushed me or gave me a sentence that I had confidence in.
"If you don’t know how to do it, you need to ask the teacher. Then I can come to help you."
"Let’s look at the questions."
Relieved that I was not going to yell at him for not writing in the last 20 minutes, he wiped his tears and looked at me.
"What was the best day of your life?"
"My birthday."
"Ooooh I bet it was a really fun birthday!"
"Let’s write “birthday” on your paper."
I then guided him through the other questions on the paper and learned more about the party – who was there, what they ate, how he’d felt, and why it was his favourite day. Three minutes later, we had all the details needed, concretely written down on paper.
So maybe you can start by writing, “The best day of my life was my birthday.”
"Remember, next time if you feel like you don’t know how to do something, what can you do?"
"Ask the teacher."
"That’s right. Because the teacher always wants to help you. But you need to ask for the help!"
"Ok."
And from that point on, his pencil never left the paper. He wrote until the bell rang for recess, always looking at the clock to make sure there was enough time to write.
Writing can be such an overwhelming task.
Writing: the task of transferring an image or story from your mind into a series of letters and words, in an attempt to capture and communicate it as vividly and perfectly as possible. What. a. task. And then to compound the situation with a child who is afraid of displeasing his or her teacher – something that I feel is often taken advantage of in Hong Kong local schools.
Year two.
• Teach to the students.
• Set achievable tasks that they can successfully accomplish.
• Break it down to varying degrees, based on their ability and how they can be pushed.
• Teach them skills to approach writing – getting them to put ideas down on paper, not getting caught up in spelling,...
• And most importantly, remember that these are children whose second (or third!) language is English. Give them a break!