Teaching Practice Blog Entry 1

Describe how Literature is being taught in the school you are posted to for teaching Practice?

Here in crescent girls’, the teaching of literature varies for the upper and lower secondary. The lower sec girls undergo a program known as communitivate arts which integrates English language with Literature. This program basically consists of a series of engaging and exciting components such as story-telling and drama workshops during their communicative arts lesson. The girls generally love the workshops and it exposes them to literature and English in an incredibly entertaining way which contrary to the usual “downplay” of the teaching of Literature when such a program is put in place, elements of literature are as a matter of fact emphasized.

As for the upper secondary girls, the elect Lit classes (which I’m taking) is currently doing The Chrysalids. The general approach towards this is that the girls will be taken through the general understanding of the book before moving into the analysis of the characters, theme etc. this linear approach appears to work best for the girls here because of their style of learning and also, it allows the teachers to go in depth  into the specific segments since the girls generally do most of the reading up on their own. As for assessment wise, the secondary three girls are exposed to quite a number of assessment such as unseen and set text to familiarize them with the format and answering technique as the girls generally lack this despite having the content as they did not sit for formal exams in secondary 1 and 2.

TP Blog Entry 1: How is Literature taught in Bendemeer Secondary School

Bendemeer Secondary School has chosen to focus mostly only Singapore Literature since the standard of English in the school is not too high. The Secondary 1 students are focusing on "Little Ironies" by Katherine Lim, Secondary 2 students are studying Minfong Ho's Sing to the Dawn and the Secondary 3 students are covering Boom by Jean Tay and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. Interestingly, although local works were chosen in an attempt to help students relate to the text, apparently most Sec 1 students dislike Catherine Lim's "Little Ironies".

Unfortunately the lower Secondary students only have 2 periods of Literature per week. From what I observe, the texts are mostly taught chapter by chapter. Teachers systematically go through the contents of each chapter and have to help students break down the texts. The focus on most classes (regardless of whether it is dealing with a specific text or a genre) seems to be on getting students to understand the content simply because the students' standards of English is quite poor.

For the Upper Secondary students, the school is getting students to attend local productions of Boom. Students are also expected to put up a drama performance and write drama scripts based on the play. As a whole, literature classes are very small due to a lack of interest and demand.

TP Blog Entry 1

Qn: Describe how Literature is being taught in the school you are posted to for Teaching Practice.

At Hougang Secondary, the teachers do not really use a textbook for Lower Sec Literature. Students were introduced to poetry from the beginning of Term 1, and the materials have largely been individually sourced. They will be reading "Little Ironies" by Catherine Lim for Term 2. However, part of Term 2 will be used for poetry revision and mid-year exams, so the teachers have essentially only about 5 weeks to cover "Little Ironies". As such, we will most likely be focusing on only 3 stories and analysing them in terms of characterisation and the use of irony.

Even though the curriculum appears to be arranged according to a genre-based approach (poetry followed by prose), the genres are actually quite mixed as drama components are frequently infused into the lessons. This is because the students tend to be quite active and expressive, so drama components have been included to allow them to speak and move around during lessons. It also helps to pull their grades up as they tend to score better when they are graded for their skits, as opposed to their performance in their written work.


Shu Yan