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.