Practicum Reflections

b. Reflect on your teaching practicum so far: What have you learned from your experience during TP? What kinds of challenges do you foresee as you develop as a Literature teacher in your specific school context? 

It has been a tough time for me in Swiss Cottage Secondary School so far. As with everyone else, I have learnt that efficiency, perseverance and patience form the backbone of a teacher’s arsenal – no amount of teaching pedagogy will save you if you do not have these values instilled firmly in you. 

With the grind of churning lesson plans, establishing rapport amongst students, and teaching, I’ve come to realize that every teacher has differing styles of teaching, and that could be a blinding distraction from actual teaching itself. Many times, I struggled to craft a niche and establish a style of teaching that catered best for the students. For example, I found different teachers to view certain teaching styles as overtly ‘loose’ in structure, and wanted wordier slides to scaffold the student’s learning better. Also, whilst some teachers considered feedback to be simple verbal cues, sometimes they wanted more long drawn sentences as student feedback. Teacher Talk Time and hand-holding were the preferred modes of operation, and students were not used to being questioned and working as groups to close read certain portions of the book. Instead, they were more comfortable with being led step by step, with the teacher doing most of the highlighting and annotation. 

The APT form therefore becomes more of an enemy than a helpful tool.  Whilst a certain style might suit some teachers, it might not be for some, who are more comfortable with using less words on their slides, perhaps less ICT and more student-led- discussions. Are we being judged by the teachers on how closely we follow their ‘brand’ of ‘successful’ teaching? If students give positive feedback about your lesson, but if a teacher gives mediocre feedback because he/she does not think that it a good approach, who should we listen to? Our CTs or our real audience? This has been a major problem for me during my practicum experience, and while I’ve come to take all feedback as constructive and helpful, I cannot help but feel like I am cramped in a tiny box; any form of creativity and ideas I have for the lessons I want to teach seems to have dissipated.  There were always these doubly binding pressures working beneath me, threatening to deride my passion for teaching.

These questions manifested within me during one of my lesson observations, and it exacerbated my nervousness, to the point I could not react to certain questions the students had for me, as they were not entirely related to the lesson. With two teachers (my HOD and CT) at the back of my class heatedly discussing amongst themselves and looking at my direction, I was pressured to re-direct my lesson focus, and yet felt that I needed to answer my student’s earnest questions as well.

After a post-mortem on my lesson I learnt that I could have structured my lesson better and clearly, which I am learning to get better at, however one could not help but feel that a close reading activity is difficult to structure, especially when a closer look at the text links to various other incidents in the book, and opens up more possibilities for varied interpretation. I was given friendly advice by another teacher not to use close reading lessons for lesson observation, yet time is running short before their examinations and I feel torn between teaching them what they need to know, as opposed to preparing a textbook perfect lesson that was superficial, confined and neat.

That said, the journey so far has been intensely humbling and enriching, as I’ve learnt many different approaches to teach a similar lesson. Similarly, I think I have improved in classroom management, thanks to some painful lessons (I learnt how to use a softer approach especially in dealing with students with anger management issues – a boy crushed his worksheet after I told him to re-do some questions that he copied off the textbook’s answer key) and also some constructive criticism given by my CT, on how I had to be firmer in my vocal tone.