Teaching weak students

During the short sharing with the teachers, I shared a few tips about teaching very weak students who are probably also very demoralised. I advised the teachers to dress up to show the students that they are worth the effort. Make the students feel wanted and loved through our personality and the way we carry ourselves. No sloppiness and no sandals, please.

Some of the teachers also shared their success stories. I also shared that teachers should also keep up with the latest songs and singers. Sometimes, teachers get comfortable and they become obsolete very quickly in this era. I also talk about my struggle in getting organised and asked for suggestions. I have files for everything and I try to get my papers organised.

If you are blessed with a musical talent, use it. As I can play the guitar, I bring the guitar and play some songs. I have the boys eating out of my hand in no time. They cannot comprehend that this old aunty can belt out a rock and roll tune too.

Teachers should earn the students' respect. Students have stopped listening to teachers as they find that they have become redundant and obsolete. And there are so many other 'teachers' like the internet, freinds and television vying for their attention and they are more effective and attractive. Unless teachers update themselves and appear to be more knowledgeable, we will lose them.

Teaching Weak Students

Many teachers struggle to teach students who can hardly read. I am teaching a class of 24 students who cannot read and write in English. The first thing I did was to run a diagnostic test. I found out that many were able to read simple words but they do not practise punctuation and were unable to string a sentence.
Then, I revise many basic words which they needed to know such as things at home, things in school and verbs. I also do a lot of one-to-one reading and coaching. I usually prepare some worksheets to keep them occupied while I tend to those who are weak.
Teachers also complain that if we spend time teaching them the basics, how are they going to sit for the real exam. I train them to write a simple letter, teach them to string sentences from notes given. At least, six or seven will pass the exam.
I also give them a lot of incentives like chocolates and even cash for work done. They love to play simple games and look forward to my classes. They feel that they have been abandoned by the school and morale is low. They just need a lot of love, patience and attention.

How to improve your English?

Writing a journal

What is a journal?
A journal is a collection of your thoughts or responses to different events or situations in your life. Some may call it a diary but whatever you call it, writing a journal is one of the best ways to improve your English. When you write a journal, you are keeping a record of things that happened in your life. The things you write can be special events that happen to you or you can write about your feelings. A journal can also be the place where you keep stories and poems that you write or collect.
To write a journal you need to have some kind of notebook (or you can keep a journal on your computer!) and a pen or pencil to write with. Some people like to write in their journal every day, and some people just like to write on special days. Whenever you write, make sure you include the date, so you'll know when the events happened!

What is a journal prompt?
They are questions, fill-in-the-blank sentences or finish-the-sentence prompts to help you get started in your journalling journey. They are open-ended motivators that do not have a right or wrong answer. In fact, everyone's answer is bound to be different.
How do I use the prompts?
Read the prompt and respond instantly with the first thing that comes to your mind and with absolute abandon. Do not worry about your grammar. Prompts work to release your flow of thought and feeling. Don't just stop at one sentence or two. Write until there is no more left to write.
The beauty of written prompts is that they never get old. The same prompt you answered yesterday can work with a completely different answer on another day. This is because you are growing daily and dynamic lives lead to changing answers!
Apart from writing, you can also add pictures, photographs, poems and drawings at the end of the page where I have left empty.. Be creative and the limit is your imagination. So, grab a pen and let�s begin.

You can print this out and paste it onto an exercise book. Choose only those that are suitable for you. Happy writing. Let me know about your progress.

Tell about your favorite pet � what kind of animal is it? When did you get him/her? Why do you like this pet?
What is your favourite thing to do during the holidays? Why?
Tell about a trip your family took that you particularly enjoyed. Where did you go? What did you see?
What is your favorite movie? Why do you like it? What�s it about?
Tell something you enjoyed doing with your Grandmother or Grandfather?
What is the best birthday present you received? What is the best one you gave?
What was your favourite toy when you were a child?
If you could have your favourite dinner for your birthday, what would it be?
Tell all about your favourite friend and why they are special to you.
If you could have any animal as a pet, what kind would you choose and why?
Write something nice about your family that they do that makes you happy.
Tell your favorite joke or about something that makes you laugh!
What is a favorite board game or computer game of yours and why do you like it?
If you could watch a video over and over, what would it be and why? What is it about?
Tell about the house you live in. Have you lived anywhere else? If so do you remember the addresses and phone numbers?
Tell about a special Birthday party you�ve had or given or been to.
How do you like being the older, middle, or youngest child? Does it have any particular advantages or disadvantages?
Who is your favorite teacher? Why? Can you remember and tell about a special teacher?
What are you frightened of?
Describe your favorite clothes?
What kind of music do you like? What is your favourite song and why?
What was your most embarrassing moment?
Do you have a bicycle? What is it like?
What instrument do you wish you could play and why?
What would you give yourself if you had all the money in the world? What would you give your family?
Where do you go to school, what grade are you in, who is your teacher?
What is your room like? Do you share it with someone? What makes it special to you?
Describe a typical day during the school year.
What is your favourite holiday? How do you celebrate it?
Have you ever been sick and what made you feel better?
What is the most adventuresome thing you have ever done?
Write a want-ad that best describes you if you were for sale!
Tell about your favorite Aunt or Uncle.
Describe your perfect spring day � what do you like to do outside?
Tell about some of the places you have been in your life?
What are your favorite hobbies?
What is your mother�s best trait? Worst? Do you share any of these traits?
What is your father�s best trait? Worst? Do you share any of these traits?
Were you ever in a drama, speech, sports, pep or glee club or activity? Tell about it.
Do you go camping? Tell about your experiences.
How do you feel about school?
Describe a childhood birthday.
What do you think you would like to do when you graduate from high school or college?
What are some of your family holiday traditions?
What is your favorite food? What is your least favorite food?
Do you have any household chores? If so, what are they? Which ones do you enjoy the most/least?
Write about some places you have been with your mother.
Write about some places you have been with your father.
Where would you like to go someday and why?
Describe the classes you are taking this year in school. Which ones do you like and which ones don�t you like?
Do you belong to a church youth group? If so what are some of your favorite activities?
Describe the best teacher you ever had.
When are you happiest?
When have you felt lonely?
When do you feel proud?
Which quality best describes your life--exciting, organized, dull--and why?
Which quality do you dislike most about yourself--laziness, selfishness, childishness--and why?
Which place would you most like to visit--Africa, China, Alaska--why?
Which is least important to you--money, power, fame--and why?
Which is most important to you--being popular, accomplishing things, being organized--and why?
Who do you talk to when you have a problem?
Who or what has had a strong influence in your life?
Where would you prefer to be right now--mountains, desert, beach--and why?
Why is it important to be honest?
Why is important to have good manners?
Why is exercise important to someone your age?
Why do you think the rules you must follow are good or bad?
Families are important because...
Would you like to be famous? Why or why not? What would you like to be famous for?
What do you like to do in your leisure time?
Do you think boys or girls have it easier?
Do you think you have too many chores? If you could choose whichever chores you want, which ones would you prefer to do?
What would you do if everyone in your family forgot your birthday?
If you could travel in a time machine and go any distance into the past or future, where would you decide to go? Why?
What makes your class special?
If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?
If you could choose any bedtime you wanted, what time would you pick?
Pretend that you were already grown up with children. How would you treat them differently from the way your parents treat you?
Would you like to have an identical twin? What would be the best thing about it? What would be the worst thing about it?
If you were not a ...........(fill your job here), what would you probably be doing and why?
Save this question for last: How did you enjoy working on this journal? Did it help you discover some things about yourself or your past that you had forgotten?

POWER WRITING

I have been experimenting with ways to teach writing, especially writing main ideas and supporting details. Power Writing is one technique to teach students how to write an effective paragraph. Try it with your class.

POWER WRITING

Power 1: Main idea
Power 2: Major detail to explain or support main idea
(first, second, third, lastly, finally, another, moreover, in addition,
Besides that, apart from that, next)
Power 3: Minor Detail to explain a major detail
(For example, for instance, in such cases,
in other words, because of …..)
Power 4: Concluding sentence
( In conclusion, in summary, these are the reasons)


Examples:
Basic Power Writing Paragraph (P1 – P2 – P2 – P2 – P4)

There are many benefits of reading. ( P1 ) One benefit is it improves the command of your language. ( P2 ) Besides, it also helps to widen your knowledge. ( P2 ) Another benefit of reading is you will be able to read about experiences faced by different people. Reading also can make you knowledgeable. ( P2 )Reading certainly brings a lot of benefits.(P4)


POWER 1
(MAIN IDEA) There are many benefits of reading.
POWER 2
(MAJOR
DETAIL TO EXPLAIN MAIN IDEA) One benefit is it improves the command of your
language.
POWER 3
(MINOR DETAIL TO EXPLAIN POWER 2) For example, if you read a lot of English
story books, you will definitely enrich your
vocabulary as well as improve your essay writing.



Now, you try another paragraph by using the formula (P1 – P2 – P3)



POWER 1 :
(MAIN IDEA) .
POWER 2 :
(MAJOR DETAIL TO EXPLAIN MAIN IDEA)
POWER 3:
(MINOR DETAIL TO EXPLAIN POWER 2)





Try writing another paragraph about the benefits of reading using (P2 – P3 – P3- P4).



POWER 2:
(MAJOR
DETAIL TO EXPLAIN MAIN IDEA) Another benefit of reading is …..
POWER 3:
(MINOR DETAIL TO EXPLAIN POWER 2)
POWER 3:
(another minor detail)
POWER 4:
CONCLUDING SENTENCE

Sonnet 18

In the SPM ENGLISH 1119, you are required to answer a stuctured question on one poem. You will be tested on your understanding of the poem and you are also required to give your opinion to issues raised. One way to prepare for the exam for poems is to paraphrase the poem, making sure you understand all the difficult words.
I found a useful paraphrase while surfing and I would like to share it with teachers and students alike.

SONNET 18 PARAPHRASE
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: You are more lovely and more delightful:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, Rough winds shake the much loved buds of May
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: And summer is far too short:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, At times the sun is too hot,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; Or often goes behind the clouds;
And every fair from fair sometime declines, And everything that is beautiful will lose its beauty,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; By chance or by nature's
planned out course;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade But your youth shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, Nor will death claim you for his
own,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest: Because in my eternal verse you will
live forever:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long as there are people on this
earth,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. So long will this poem live
on, giving you immortality.
ANALYSIS

[Line 9]* - The friend's 'summer' or 'prime of life' will remain eternal because the poet immortalizes him in verse. Lines 10-14 confirm this reading. For more on this theme, see sonnet 55.

[Line 12]* - Because of the poet's verse the friend will actually grow as one with time ("to time thou growest"). For similar imagery, see sonnet 15, line 14.

Sonnet 18 is perhaps the best known and most well-loved of all 154 poems. It is also one of the most straightforward in language and intent. The stability of love and its power to immortalize the poetry and the subject of that poetry is the theme. The poet starts the praise of his dear friend without ostentation, but he slowly builds the image of his friend into that of a perfect being. His friend is first compared to summer in the octave, but, at the start of the third quatrain (9), he is summer, and thus, he has metamorphosed into the standard by which true beauty can and should be judged. The poet's only answer to such profound joy and beauty is to ensure that his friend be forever in human memory, saved from the ultimate oblivion that accompanies death. He achieves this through his verse, believing that, as history writes itself, his friend will become one with time (or, more informally, keep up to time). The couplet reaffirms the poet's hope that as long as there is breath in mankind, his poetry too will live on, and ensure the immortality of his muse.
How to Cite this Article

Mabillard, Amanda. An Analysis of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Shakespeare Online. 2000. (day/month/year you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/18detail.html >.

The Literature Component

We shall start with the short stories this week. Due to time and space constraints, I could only discuss two stories. Read the short stories again before attempting to answer these questions. I have provided the suggested answers at the end of this article.

THE NECKLACE by Guy de Maupassant

Synopsis
Mathilde is married to M. Loisel, a clerk. She is discontented with her life and yearns for a fancy life among the rich and famous. One day, her husband brings home an invitation to a ball. She is unhappy because she has nothing proper to wear. Her husband gives her money for a gown but she is still unhappy as she has no jewellery. She borrows a diamond necklace from her friend, Madame Forestier. At the ball, she is a great success. However, when she gets home, she realises she has lost the necklace. Loisel searches everywhere but cannot find it. They replace the necklace and spend the next ten years to settle their debts. Mathilde turns into a coarse, common woman. One day, she meets up with Madame Forestier and tells her the truth. To her dismay, she discovers that the necklace that she had borrowed was only an imitation.



1. Read the extracts from the short story The Necklace and answer the questions that follow.

She was one of those pretty and charming young girls who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved and wedded by any rich and distinguished man; so she let herself be married to a little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction.


a. What was Mathilde like when she was young? (1m)
b. What does the phrase ‘..so, she let herself be married to a little clerk..’ suggest about Mathilde’s marriage? (2m)
c. Do you think Mathilde made the right decision about marrying someone from the same social class? Give a reason for your answer. (2m)


2.
Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at the bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would not even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her despairing regrets and bewildering dreams. She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, illumined by tall bronze candelabra, and of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in big armchairs, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the stove. She thought of long reception halls hung with ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities of little coquettish perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o’clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire.


a. Why did Mathilde suffer ceaselessly? (1m)

b. Give two pieces of evidence from this extract that suggests that Mathilde was discontented and unhappy with her life? (2m)

c. Do you think Mathilde was right to feel discontented with her life? Give a reason for your answer.


3.“Yes, I have had a very hard life, since I last saw you and great poverty – and that because of you!”
“Of me! How so?”
“Do you remember that diamond necklace you lent me to wear at the ministerial ball?”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, I lost it.”
“What do you mean? You brought it back.”
“I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us ten years to pay for it. You can understand that it was not easy for us, for us who had nothing. At last, it is ended and I am very glad.”
Madame Forestier had stopped.
“You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?”
“Yes. You never noticed it, then! They were very similar.”


a. What happened to Mathilde to cause her great poverty?
b. What happened at the end of the story?
c. What do you think is the message of this story?


Answer:
1.a. She was pretty and charming.
b. She forced herself to marry someone from her social class.
c. Yes, because she has no dowry or any title to attract a better offer.

2.a. She felt that she was born to enjoy all the fine things in life.
b. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwellings and she longed for long reception halls hung with ancient silk, and other priceless items.
c. I think she should feel contented with her life as she has a loving husband and even a servant to do her chores.

3a. She lost a necklace which she had borrowed and she had replaced it.
b. She found out that the necklace which she had borrowed was made of paste.
c. One should be contented with one’s life./ If we focus too much on appearances, we may not see the truth of a matter.

Argumentative writing

This week, let’s look at another type of essay called argumentative writing. Here, you may be required to either state your stand on a certain issue (agree or disagree) or to present your point of view.

Some typical exam questions:

1. Co-curricular activities are a waste of time. Do you agree?
2. Large families make happy families.
3. More land should be used for agriculture than for industry. Do you agree or disagree? Give reasons to support you opinion.
4. Parents do not spend enough quality time with children. Do you agree or disagree?
5. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of homework.

ANALYSING THE QUESTIONS
Question 1, 3 and 4 require you to make a stand and proceed to support your stand with a few paragraphs.
For question 2, you may present both sides of the argument and finally, state your stand.
For question 5, present both sides of the argument as you are required to discuss the issue.

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT

Let’s say you have chosen question 1 –
Co-curricular activities are a waste of time. Do you agree?


STEP 1: Analyse the question carefully to make sure you understand exactly what you have to do.

TOPIC: Co-curricular activities (The general subject)
THE FOCUS: Co-curricular activities are a waste of time. (The part you are asked to concentrate on)
THE COMMENT: Do you agree? (You have to make a stand whether you agree or disagree).

STEP TWO:
Then, apply the acronym B.A.G. which stands for B – Brainstorm, A – Add supporting details and G – Get organised. (as discussed last week in Lesson 5)
Brainstorm for ideas. Note down all the points you have about co-curricular activities. You should have at least four points. Let’s say you have made your list below. Add supporting details.
Get organised. Throw out any ideas that are not relevant.
Decide the order of the points.

CO-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES ARE A WASTE OF TIME

STAND: agree
Why?
Benefits:
Provide a chance for students to learn about themselves, …

Develop other skills not learnt in the classroom

Provide leadership training

Provide an outlet for students to rest and relax






STEP THREE: WRITING THE ESSAY

THE WRITING PLAN:

1. INTRODUCTION: Give some background information about the topic and state your stand.

Example: Co-curricular activities are activities that are planned for students after school through activities in clubs and societies. Students in schools are required to join at least one uniformed society and a club. In my opinion, co-curricular activities play an important role in a student’s life and it is certainly not a waste of time.

2. BODY: PRESENT YOUR ARGUMENTS TO SUPPORT YOUR STAND.

There should at least be three or four paragraphs with good topic sentences and body sentences.

Example: First and foremost, co-curricular activities provide students with a chance to develop their talents in music, sports and other living skills. Some students are unable to shine in the classroom but they are superb athletes and musicians. Co-curricular activities provide an avenue for them to become fulfilled individuals.


3. CONCLUSION: STATING YOUR STAND AGAIN

Example: Many students and parents are of the opinion that co-curricular activities are a waste of time and they should be substituted with more beneficial activities. I certainly disagree with that. As we have seen, co-curricular activities play an important role in a student’s life. They complement the activities of the classroom. A well-planned co-curricular programme helps students become wholesome individuals. Thus, co-curricular activities are definitely not a waste of time.

4. Remember to edit your work.
Read your first draft once through and check the following things:

a. Have you arranged the points well? Is the first point the most important or the least important?
b. Have you included all the points and left out all the irrelevant points?
c. Are there any phrases that are not very clear or sentences that are too long?
d. Are there are spelling mistakes?
e. Have you used punctuation correctly?
f. Are there any grammatical errors?