Adding Colours to 'A Poison Tree'

I taught my students the poem 'A Poison Tree' entirely online during the MCO period. We never had the opportunity to discuss the poem during our face - to - face lessons before the announcement of the  MCO. So when the school reopened last week, I decided to revisit the poem with them. Each of the students was given a sheet of paper with the poem 'A Poison Tree' printed on it and I asked them to make their own notes. 

They were instructed to do the following things. 

a) Identify all the important words and phrases, write their meanings on the left side of the poem. 

b) Write the interpretation of the poem for every two lines from stanza 1 till stanza 4, on the right side of the poem. 

Students were provided with coloured pens to make their notes and interpretations. They were excited to do things differently. It is a norm at times to just print notes for students to read and understand while doing some SPM based practices. I decided to beat this norm and do things in a different way by guiding my students to make their own notes so that they would understand the poem better. 

Before they started the note - making activity, we had a short discussion on things that they had understood about the poem from our online lessons. From the discussion, I moved my students' attention to the words and the first stanza of the poem, once we were done with the discussion, students started making their notes and when they completed one stanza, I moved to the next stanza and it continued till the last stanza. 

Since the control movement order is still in practice and students are to maintain 1 - metre distance from their friends and teachers, I did not allow them to move or sit in groups. Instead, they were asked to do the task individually. However, they were allowed to discuss with a peer sitting closest to them, that too in a metre - distance. 

To check students' understanding, there were quick questioning sessions after the completion of one stanza and before moving to the next stanza. The sessions worked really well especially after they completed their notes for every stanza as I could actually check how much they had understood and what was missing so that I can do some sort of reinforcement before we could move on. 

I did not provide them with notes as I wanted them to make their own notes based on the power point presentations as well as discussions and rely on their own notes to understand the poem. The following is an example of a work done by one of the students : 

work done by Melissa Annabel from class 5V2

maintaining 'social distancing' while explaining one the of the stanzas 

Sabrina from 5V1 -  diligently making her notes. 

girls from 5V2  - proudly showing their products

It was a fruitful lesson as students displayed their understanding of the poem 'A Poison Tree'. After they completed their colourful notes, I gave them an SPM based exercise and they could actually complete the task by referring to the notes that they had made. That was when I wrote in my reflection - 'objective achieved'. 

By they way, excellent students can complete the note - making task in an hour lesson but the average and weaker ones should be given a lot of support and  time to digest the content of the poem as it is not an easy poem work on for the weaker ones. The following YouTube video shows more examples of my students' work. 

Happy Teaching!!

At - Home Writing Activities

   ‘Blogging’ and making Youtube videos have taken most of my time nowadays, these are the two mediums I use to get connected to teachers and students.

Schools are closed and lives have come to a standstill, but that does not mean that learning has to stop. Over the past few weeks, I noticed that teachers are working hard, trying to get connected to their students through online lessons.

As a teacher, I have been spending more hours I spend at school in front of my computer screen now to develop and assign online tasks. This can be overwhelming to some, especially to those who have families to tend to 24 – 7 and needing your attention.

While assigning online tasks, I feel that teachers can also take a break from the syllabus – based tasks to activities that would allow students to explore. One way of doing it would be through writing activities that would help to let their hair down.

The writing activities that I mean here are not the SPM or PT3 based writing tasks but something that would be more personal, which would help students to develop their creativity as well as writing skills. These activities would eventually help them to develop skills that are essential in the SPM and PT3 writing tasks.

I am suggesting writing because it can be a therapy in which students can express their fears, hopes and joys when there are no rigid conditions set. So, here I am sharing a few ideas that our students can attempt while being locked down at home.

Writing a Journal

We can assign our students a daily journal entry without limiting the number of words, expressing their thoughts and ideas or on what they feel about things that are happening around them throughout the MCO period. It need not necessarily be about COVID – 19. It depends on us, on what criteria we want to set for the activity. We can list down a set of prompts for them so that they can use the prompts to write their journals. Please click here and here if you are looking for journal writing prompts.

Poetry Writing

Students can also try their hands at poetry writing. Currently, I am working on this with my form 4 students. I have done some simple poetry writing activities with them before and now I have assigned them poems based on themes. I do not want them to delve too much into the COVID – 19 pandemic. So, I give them some general themes such as love, nature, war, butterfly as well as sadness. I have also given a picture prompt for them to explore it creatively. I do not limit the number of words and stanzas for their poems. Their poems are to be as short as four stanzas and as long as they want them to be. To those of you who would like to try our poetry writing activities, you may refer to my previous blog post here. You may also refer to some poetry teaching websites here and here.

Writing a Movie or Book Review

Most of our students are now spending their lockdown hours watching movies and reading books. Since these have become the most common ways to pass time, why don’t we create a writing task for them based on these? Asking students to write a review on a book or movie would be fun. There are plenty of resources available online where we can get ideas to write book and movie review. If students are not interested in a book or movie review, we can leave it to them to decide on what they would like to review – games, radio shows, songs, singers, actress or Netflix shows. Anything that they fancy. You may look for ideas to write reviews here and here.

   Writing An Open Letter

The COVID-19 pandemic is not the only issue that the world is facing now, there are other moral related matters that are closely connected to the COVID – 19 that we are aware through the news sources. Using those issues we can ask our students to write open letters or letters to editors. We have NST and The Star newspaper where opinions from the public get published every day. We can actually ask our students to write such letters and if the letters are really good, they can even get them published. We are aware that The Star and NST are not the only sources where students can get their letters published. There are also many online portals that are publishing letters from the public. As much as this activity sounds fun, students should be reminded that they are not supposed to discuss sensitive issues such as religion and politics. You may refer here and here to get more ideas on how to write letters to editors. 

Writing How – To Guide

Writing a how-to guide would be a possible fun activity that our students might love. I am sure that students are exploring many new things such as cooking, baking, making a video or even making handicrafts. We can probably ask our students to write a how-to guide to be shared with their classmates. For example, if they have successfully baked a chocolate cake they can write the recipe and share with their friends through their class Telegram/WhatsApp group. This can be one interactive activity as curious friends may ask for further explanations. Well, the how-to guide may not necessarily be on cooking alone there is a multitude of things that students might have explored, so let students decide what they want to write about. Don’t limit to writing a recipe, let them explore what they want to write about. You may click here and here to help students to develop their language skills to write a how-to guide.

Creating  Comics

At a time like this, why don’t we take the opportunity to ask students to create interesting comics? I am sure students would be excited to read comics created by their friends. Students can sketch and colour their comics or use the online free comic making tools that are widely available online. Some students prefer to express their ideas via sketching with few words. This can also be a form of relaxation for students. If you would like to explore online comic making tools, please click here and here. 

7.       Writing a Photo Essay

A picture says a thousand words. Assigning students to write a photo essay is another interesting task that students may fancy. Assign a writing task based on a picture or ask students to communicate their feelings through an essay using a picture of their choice. This task can help students to think critically while exploring different facets of a photo/picture. Please refer here for a comprehensive guide to write a photo essay. 

     Creating Awareness through Posters 

This Poster was done by one of my students as part
of her assignment 

Students can also be asked to create an awareness poster on the COVID – 19 Pandemic using online tools. If students find it difficult to use online tools, they can use whatever they have to create their posters. I did this project last week and the outcome was excellent, I would say. I set the word limit so that students know how much information is relevant. Most of my students used canva.com to create their awareness posters. I am sharing some of their posters here.

These are some tasks that I have tried and they worked well for me and I hope they work for you too!!

Happy Teaching 

Stay Home and Stay Safe!!

LEARNING TASKS FOR LOCKDOWN

Social isolation and being locked down for a long period of time will greatly impact everyone's wellbeing and mental health. This is particularly very true for our students who have been spending their time substantially at schools and tuition centres with friends and teachers. Being used to be in the company of others, a sudden lockdown will leave them with a sense of loss or may lead to severe depression. Therefore, it is important for us as teachers to reach out to our students at times like this and keep them busy. 

From my social media account, I noticed that many teachers in Malaysia are attempting online educational tools and apps such as google classroom to get connected to their students and keep them engaged with teaching and learning activities. Hats off to these teachers who have maintained a balance working from home and keeping their students' high in spirit. 

Just like those teachers, I have also developed some ideas and worked with my students since the CMO was announced. It was a blessing that I had already set up telegram groups with all the four classes that  I am teaching at the beginning of the year, to give them instructions and tasks whenever I am not at school. So this set - up came in handy at times like this. 

At first, I wanted to use google classroom as a platform to assign tasks for them. However, I noticed that too many teachers are using that as a platform to keep 'in touch' with their students. Therefore, I decided to do something else. 

Scrapbook Project

The first task that I gave them was a scrapbook project which I adapted from the Fullblast textbook (page 131). Students are required to complete a scrapbook on one of the seven wonders of the world in about 10 pages. I asked them to use the materials that they have at home. They are to share their scrapbooks with friends once they are back to school after the CMO. I gave them a few datelines for this project. 1 day to plan,  2 days to design the cover, and another two days to write their introductions. The rest of the days I gave them a few other tasks that will eventually lead to the completion of the scrapbook. All instructions have been given via telegram apps. Take note that many of my students do not have smartphones, so I asked them to use their parents' phones to communicate with me, so basically, parents know what their kids are doing. The following are some of the cover pages that the students have submitted to me through the telegram app. 

Cover Pages of Students' Scrapbook Project

Lessons Via Youtube Videos 

Besides project work, I have also created (and in the midst of creating)  a few task-based lessons for my students on Youtube and shared the links with my students. The lessons are mostly writing lessons or ideas for creative writing. Along with the video, I have also created task sheets to aid learning. The task sheets are saved in google drive and the links are posted together with the videos. Students may print out the task sheets or copy the instructions from the task sheets into their exercise books to complete the tasks assigned to them.  This way, students are free to watch the videos whenever they are free at home. 

Some other tasks that they are to do while/after watching the videos are :

1. like the videos. 

2. State a lesson learnt from the story/ write three/five new things learnt from the videos at the     
    comment section.

                                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg0NBZm3ltg&t=41s     

                                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC1LoFCcEJ0&t=34s 

                                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD_HgXgamhc

That is all from me for now, I hope what works well for me will work for you too.

Will share more videos soon!

Till then, stay healthy and stay safe.

English Language Form 4 - Writing (Lesson 5)

I have been busy with a lot of work for the last few days and could not share much. However, I find time today to share a writing lesson which I developed recently. This lesson is based on the Form 4 Fullblast Textbook (pg.13). 

Well, before I get started, as teachers it is important for all of us to remind ourselves that essay writing is the major part of secondary school and it is our responsibility to explore different ways to engage our students in writing. For some of us, making our students write essays may be a daunting task but that does not mean we should give up and make them copy sample essays instead. So, please try a variety of activities to engage your students in writing lessons. Some may work and some may not. Don't just give up yet!!!

Now, let us get into the lesson. 

For the introductory activity, students were asked a few questions about webpages and websites and how they differ from one another. Learners were then directed to the following reading task : 

Students were required to read the text above and as they read, they were to underline all the sentence starters in the text. They also identified all the linking words in the text such as and, but, so and because. 

After reading, students 'shouted out' the list of sentence starters, followed by the linkers. The teacher listed them on the whiteboard. 

In the next task, students were required to work in their small groups. They were to identify three from the eight categories to brainstorm ideas.  As they brainstorm, they were also reminded that they could actually pick ideas from the text that they have read earlier. I also asked them to write their sentences using the simple present and present continuous tenses(They learnt these in lesson 2). 

After the brainstorming activity, students worked in their groups to create a webpage for "Aminah". They used all the ideas that they have gotten from the text and brainstorming activity to complete their webpages. The following pictures were taken while students were preparing their webpages. 

The following are some examples of the students' completed task : 

After completing the webpages, students did the "Gallery Walk' activity. They moved from one group to another and spent about two minutes identifying spelling and grammatical errors. They were told that the ideas should be developed in simple present and present continuous tenses just like how Ahmad's webpage had been developed. Students were reminded to only work on these two errors and write one thing that they like about the webpage. The pictures below were taken while students were doing the "Gallery Walk" activity. 

All the activities above helped students to build ideas and knowledge that would help them to write up their own webpage. I believe that students have learnt a large deal through all the activities and they are up for an individual task.

So, I asked them to write their own personal webpage by picking any 3 out of the 8 categories of ideas as their homework. The essays must be in about 150 to 200 words.  

And that's all for now.... Happy Teaching and Happy Ponggal to those who are celebrating it!!

English Language Form 4 - Lesson 2 (Language Awareness)

Today I had my second lesson with 4S1 on language awareness which is the second lesson in Form 4 CEFR - aligned Scheme of Work.

So this was how the lesson went : 

After introducing the success criteria, I gave 5 minutes for the students to discuss Simple Present and Present Continuous in their groups. They had learnt these tenses while they were in  Form 2 and 3. So, this lesson was an extension of what was learnt in previous years. The discussion was to activate their schemata. 

The discussion led to the next activity where students had to identify Simple Present and Present Continous in a teacher prepared task sheet and they were also required to identify and circle all the Stative verbs used in the sentences. You can download the task sheet here. 

Upon completing Task A in the task sheet, students were asked to put the task sheet aside. I continued the lesson by directing students to look at page 9 in their textbooks and gave examples of the two tenses that were being focussed. We also discussed how Simple Present Tense and Present Continuous Tense were used in context by referring to the text on Social Networking Sites(page8). Students were asked to identify all the Simple Present and Present Continuous Tenses in the text. Stative verbs were also discussed. 

After the discussion ended students were asked to look at the task sheet again and check and correct their answers. Task B in the task sheet and the grammar practise in the textbook were given as homework. 

After completing the tasks, students played a board game. To play this game you need a dice and also a striker. This is how the game is played:  

1. The game has words that are used in the text on Social Networking Sites and some are related to computer vocabulary. 

2. At the bottom of each word, it is stated Simple Present or Present Continuous. 

3. Students who stop at Present Continuous will have to verbally construct a sentence in Present Continuous and if they stop at Simple Present, they will have to construct a sentence on Simple Present. 

4. You may download the board game here. 

5. For every correct sentence, students get 2 marks and a deduction of 2 marks for wrong 

    sentence-construction (I made the rules simple, as to not complicate things). 

The pictures below were taken when my students were playing the grammar boardgame. 

Before the lesson ended, students completed exit cards on what they learnt today. 

Happy Teaching!!

Ready to Print Exit Cards!!

Exit cards are often used in post - lessons to get students to summarise the lesson learnt or to display what they have understood at the end of a lesson. Exit cards can be in many different forms and teachers can actually design their own exit cards based on what is relevant for their lessons. 

After referring to some online and offline resources,  I have prepared different types of exit cards which I am planning to use in my lessons and I thought of sharing them here. Exit cards can provide us with immediate information that we can use to assess our students' understanding, monitor their progress and to gather feedback on our own teaching. Exit cards do not only help us to assess our students but it is also a way for us to reflect our own teaching practices. The following are some of the exit cards that I am sharing here. 

a) Summarising the lesson

This is an interesting way to summarise the lesson. If you are having a speaking and listening task, you may want your students to reflect whatever they have listened and spoken in a written form. This exit slip can be a great way to reflect whatever learnt during listening/speaking lesson. 

b) Writing the summary of a lesson and listing new words

Besides summarising, if you are exploring new vocabulary in your lesson, this exit card will be a suitable one. This will help us to assess students' vocabulary gain at the end of the lesson. 

c) Answering simple questions

We can also use exit cards with three simple questions. I think this exit card will be suitable when we teach grammar. This will help students to reflect on new grammar rules that they learn. Undeniably this can also be used for other lessons. Look at the questions and think whether the exit card is relevant for your lesson before using it or else students will return empty papers. 

d) 3 - 2 - 1 

This is a common exit slip that can be used in almost all lessons but remember not to use it too often as students will get bored doing the same thing. A little variety will spice up things and help students to put on their thinking caps.  I have used this particular exit slip many times in previous years and not planning to use it this year.  

e) Reflection slip

When you use this exit slip, you are actually giving your students the liberty to decide whether or not they like the lesson. So, if you want your students to assess your lesson, this is one simple and quick way. 

f) Your opinion matters 

This is another exit slip where students are required to form an opinion around the topic discussed and they are to give relevant details to back up their opinion. This exit slip will be suitable when we are discussing topics related to certain issues, just like the reading task in unit 1 in the form 4 textbook where it discusses issues related to social networking sites. 

You may download the ready to print pdf version of the exit slips here. You may print in coloured papers of your choice. 

Happy Teaching!!! 

Reading Activity - Full Blast Unit 1

I began my lesson this year with a reading activity. This lesson is based on the 'Full Blast!' textbook, page 8.  I did not try anything ambitious as my intention is to develop my students reading skills using simple activities that will work for everyone, especially for my students. 

So, this was how the lesson went : 

Before I began the lesson, I put my students into small groups and they remained in the same groups throughout the lesson.  

For the pre-reading activity, I wanted to activate students prior knowledge on social networking sites(SNS), so students were given three questions to be discussed in their groups. After discussion, each group choose a representative to share the outcome of the group discussion. The sharing session then led to the next activity. 

The first round of discussion is in progress 

For the next activity, students were required to read the text assigned to them individually. There were four students in a group and each of them was assigned one section of the text. I also prepared supplementary task sheets to help them with the reading activity. You may click here to download the task sheet. As they read, students were required to fill in the necessary information in the task sheet provided and share them during the discussion with the rest of the class. They were required to identify the opinions of each individual about SNS in the text and together with the opinion they were also identified reasons given for the opinions. After completing the task,  students exchanged their answers with members from other groups.

Students completing tasks given in the supplementary task sheet while reading the text.

Students completed the supplementary task individually before discussing as a group

A student sharing opinion  and reason 

Upon completing this, I drew students attention to the next activity in the task sheet, where they have to read through the entire text again as a group to identify the advantages and disadvantages of SNS. Again, to save time I asked them to complete the task in their respective groups. After completing the table, students were asked to shout out their answers for the teacher's approval. This activity is followed by task C and D in the student's book. 

Students found it easier to complete task C and D in the textbook as they had read the text more than twice and understood the opinions of each individual in the text through the supplementary task. 

The next activity was speaking, due to time constraint, students were required to stay put in the same groups. I used talking chips so that students will be focussed and know their roles. Each student was given 8 chips. The chips have three different colours. Two pink chips for questioning, three blue chips to respond to a statement/question/answer and three yellow chips for them to state their opinions. The speaking task was very organised due to the use of the talking chips. 

Students are engaged in speaking task using the talking chips.

As a closure for this lesson, a few students were randomly picked using ice-cream sticks to share what they have learnt today. 

Happy Teaching!!!