Job Discussion Forums

[Ger]

I have to teach phonics and reading, the English Panel Head said that the children are bored in the lessons!

What strategies that low ability in English pupils can understand are useful?

[ChrisRose]

My advice is veryy simple.

DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD.

Don't make anyone lose face.

END OF ADVICE

[ChrisRose]

Sorry Ger,

I didn't notice you were the poster.

I shall spend a little longer on the reply.

The EPH and Principle are the ones whom get to choose what is taught and how.

In the local culture a quiet word of advice is actually a direct command. usually misunderstood by westerners.

Rightly or wrongly, they have a vision of what they want taught and how. Regardless of what the students require and their potential capabilities, there are many possible reasons to reduce the quantity of learning aims per lesson.

It may be that some parents have expressed concern or a local teacher feels he or she is losing face.

Whatever the reasons, two suggestions from the staff are very blunt, polite but blunt.

At the end of the day, you are not permanent staff. As an extra curricular teacher being paid for something alternative, the school does have the right to request / receive what they decide, regardless of anyone's better opinion.

This might sound patronising, but really I am not trying to sound that way.

The true test of skills here is to provide what they desire as employers.

Best regards
Chris

[AndyinHK]

Ger

I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Chris offers some good advice here. I guess when you go through an agent, it's best to sit down with the EPH day one and find out what she/he wants then if there are any differences in what you were told to do you could bring it up with your agent. That way you cover yourself.

Hope it works out.

[ozman]

Hi Ger
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. The advice already given is good - find out what they want. I don't know exactly what is going on in your reading lessons, and I don't want to sound critical - however it does sound rather boring and repetitive. I think maybe you should try and get more interaction by using different approaches. I honestly don't think that you reading and the students then repeating is going to be all that beneficial or interesting for the students. Can't you get "Big Books" rather than using the visualisor? You need some game type activities in order to drill the vocabulary.
From past experience in Hk and other parts of Asia, I've found asking questions to the whole class just doesn't work. At p1 and p2 level they probably don't understand the question anyway.
I know the Cambridge phonics books contain good material, but again, you really need to work out some strategies so they can participate in the phonics lessons.
Why not throw it back at them and ask them to come up with some suggestions.
I'd be a bit concerned regarding that letter you were shown. Sounds to me like they wanted you to see it.

[Ger]

The phonics books I use are Cambridge University Press ones. Used in the national literacy programme in Britain.

[Ger]

Just got hold of the "Using Big Books to Teach English" Units of Work from the Primary English Reading Project edited by Tony Mahon, 1999, (A Language Fund Project) HKIED.

Ozman, would the "strategies" you mentioned involve the following?

Before Reading

Arouse the pupils' interest in and curiosity about the story. One way of doing this is to show them the picture on the book cover, and perhaps the title, and encourage them to predict what the story might be about.

Write pupils' predictions on teh board.

The First Reading

Read the story aloud bringing it to life by using appropriate intonation, facial expression and gesture. Pupiuls listen.

Point to the words as you read.

Try not to ask too many questions at this stage as it may lessen the pupils' enjoyment of the story.

It is useful however, to stop occasionally at the end of a page and ask the pupils to guess what might happen on the next page.

After the first reading return to the predictions pupils made based upon the cover and ask what they found out from the story.

The Second Reading

Read the story through a second time. This time encourage pupils to join in reading together with you. Children at different levels of understanding may respond in different ways. Some may join in and read along with you, other may join in repetitive patterns, while others will just follow the pictures and listen.

Pause before patterned words or phrases and let pupils "fill in" the words. If you choose a story with strong patterned language or lots of rhyming words, reluctant readers will find it easier to join in.

After the second reading encourage the pupils to share their feelings and ideas about some of the characters and events in the story.

Follow-up Activities

After engaging in shared reading, there are numerous follow-up activities that can be used to help pupils develop a balanced range of skills and strategies at text, sentence, word and letter/sound levels...