Practicum

This is the forth time I'm writing this (on my phone) cause I forgot to save the previous times. Haha!!! Started writing on mom day and I finally got it!!!

Hello friends and family!!

This week was my third and final week of my first ever practicum here in Sydney. It was a really awesome and fulfilling practicum. The school I'm at is called Exodus Foundation Literacy Centre. This school runs a literacy programme for mainstream primary school students, who are 3-4 years behind their peers in reading and writing English. Exodus uses Australian programmes, like MULTILIT, Spelling Mastery and Reading Mastery, to help the students catch up. And it is amazing!!! Students who are motivated just catch up so quickly. The founder of Exodus, Rev Bill, and the teachers go all out for the students. Their dedication to the school and the students really is commendable.

Anyway, the programmes Exodus uses is really great. Of course every successful programme needs to be used correctly. And teachers teach the students the rules of English and strategies they can use to read and write. And really, English is just complicated and I think most of us really take for granted how easily we understood it. But for students who just have difficulty hearing the sounds, it's really confusing.

I'm considering to get the programmes back to Singapore. But because the kids I teach in Rainbow might be too young for this, I might wait and see how. I need to get trained to buy the programmes anyway. So maybe it's good to be trained and see how things go. :)

So because I'm a Wheelock Graduate, it's inbuilt to reflect on new experiences. And here are just some thoughts after the completion of my 3 week experience at Exodus.

1) Direct Instruction
In Exodus, the teachers don't waste time giving unnecessary instructions. The students know what is expected of them after the first few weeks. So they don't waste time giving them introductions and all. They go straight into the lesson after 1 or 2 minutes of rules. But of course they trained their students really well during the first few weeks of the programmes.

2) Positive Teaching
I've always heard of positive teaching, but the way they do it in Exodus (or maybe it's an Australia thing) is really different. They ignore negative behaviours and praise positive behaviours of the other students to get the students back to behaving properly. And really the students do come back and stop their negative behaviours. It makes me reflect about how I managed negative behaviours when I was a teacher. And I can do better.

3) A leader needs to be serious, and yet know how to relax.
This is easier to say than do. I've seen many leaders who are too serious or too relaxed. And it's hard to get a balance of both. But really a good successful leader who gets the full support from her team needs to be serious and at the same time be able to relax and enjoy the process.

That's about it I guess. It's back to the mugging hard at home routine again. Haha.