Ms. Ting's and Other Teachers' Teaching Strategies

Often, teachers reflect the values of the school and they will be transferred to the students. They are the medium of knowledge to the students where they also get educated from the teachers, and it sometimes be inevitable (or preventable if careful) that some teachers traits will be caught up by the students reveal what type of teacher, and culture the classroom and school reflect.

Like anyone who has been to or studied in both local and international schools, one should be able to tell the stark difference between the two worlds. And the same goes for Ms. Ting as well.

She finds the TISKL students different from the local students in terms of demeanour, the way they talk, the way they act and treat their peers and teachers. The most prominent trait of the students here in international schools are their confidence and their courage to question (for clarity, clearing their doubts & etc.) As compared to local students, they are more timid, more respectful to the teachers in fear of punishments awaiting them. From this we can tell that both schools have different teaching strategies when it comes to educating their students.

Ms. Ting stated that she applies restorative approaches to her class, or in TISKL in general. She believes that humiliation and punishments will affect the students emotionally and psychologically. This will also affect the students' performance in class. However, punishments may be necessary sometimes; she will usually talk to the offending student privately. Another thing to note on is that, when scolding a student, focus on the problem rather than on the student as this will affect their views on the teacher and the subject. In TISKL, homework does not exist; only if the students are unable to finish their classwork in time, they will have to take them home to finish.

ClassDojo can also be used
for calling out students when
answering questions.

A special feature in Ms. Ting's class is that she implements a rewarding system called ClassDojo. She explained that this system is meant to encourage positive behaviours in students. Surprisingly, she will not deduct any points if students didn't fulfill a particular task. This rewarding system is also visibl to the parents, and this ensures a more transparent communication between the teachers and parents of the students.

Quantum teaching has been introduced in class. It is "a brain-based teaching philosophy that includes many specific guidelines for creating an effective learning environment, designing curriculum, delivering content and facillitating the learning process. Its teaching philosophy is centered on presenting content to students in engaging and energizing ways thus allowing students to become lifelong learners who are responsible for their own learning." 

Ms. Ting uses various methods to gain the students' attention and they very much do listen to her instructions. There were of course, a couple of students who were less enthusiastic about the joys of learning and Ms. Ting would pick up her pace in resolving this minor issue. In the end, the class as a whole did put on effort in listening and finishing their work in class. She even noted that, the students will care if the teachers show that they care, about the subjects, the class and even the students. Respect is always a two-way street.The reason to this is all due to the way she sets up her class, how she presents the class, the atmosphere and environment will greatly determine the students' performance such as their attention span and efforts to contributing in class. Media she utlitizes are music, verbal cues, images and pictures, objects or even videos when she requires their attention to being introduced to a new topic. We would also see her and other teachers using "eyes on me" as well as claps tactic, the students will immediately respond and they will begin to focus on the matter at hand. When they are given a worksheet or task to finish, Ms. Ting will display an online timer for a countdown. This is to let the students know that work has a time limit, this also applies to the school too. Through a certain period of time, the bell would ring indicating a change of period. This is to ensure the students to have an awareness of time.

Classroom rules written by 6O.

There's also a routine before they leave for other classes that (Science, Art, ICT, languages are taught by specialist teachers). Once all the students have lined up and all set to leave, they would usually thank Ms. Ting before shouting: "Go (current subject) go!" before exiting the classroom. Occasionally, the students would make cheeky remarks before they leave such as changing their current subject to their favourite one (Science) before running off. According to Ms. Ting, this is a widely used tradition amongst homeroom teachers. To her, she believes that students should be catered at the same time we must not forget that we are teachers and those who are willing to teach and educate you should be respected and this tradition to her, is considered to encourage them to be respect, appreciation as well as an awareness of time. She also noted that in every first day of your lesson, we should already set up a rule or a boundary for the students, at the same time, we must be consistent with our rules and values, that way the students will actually follow them. They even have their very own jobs. Each student gets a role for a particular task, some will be a representative of a subject. And it was evident that they follow and carry out their duties written and pasted on the board.

These jobs had been decided by the students
on the first day or week of their class.

Throughout the room, we can see that it was quite decorated with the students' work. There are almost all of the subjects being displayed such as the decided rules, their art pieces, writtings and nearly all of the dispays were made by them. Having their work being displayed out, actually motivates them to put on more effort. This is very aligned with Ms. Ting's philosophy where the students know that the teacher cares for their progress and effort. Because of this, many actually volunteered to help designing and decorating a title banner for their new IPC topic.

These were their previous IPC work, they had to create a timeline about themselves.

This was their recent IPC topic, called "Going with the Flow," They had to write out what they had learnt from a video.

It was a Mandarin class work where the students had to write out a short autpbiography in Chinese. 

The class went silent as soon as the
teacher was done with her brief

Aside from that, we also get to witness other teachers' teaching strategies. Of course different teacher have different ways of executing their class. One of the most notable teacher was 6O's ICT teacher. A fine lady she was. Very firm and clear-cut. She goes with this motto: "Less talk, more work" and the class immediately paid their full attention to her as soon as she made her brief. Once she was done with her instruction, the class began to work dilligently,. There were no objections, no questions. During the brief, the whole class very silent, only the teacher's voice could be heard. Every single one of the student had their eyes onto her. Even the less enthusiastic ones too. The scene was indeed a wonder to be marvelled at. I believe that the catch was her allowing the students to have five to ten minutes of freedom when they got their ChromeBook. They get to play online games, watch Youtube videos & etc so long as they plug their ear/headphones. And they were very much in sync. Once she announced that time was up, the students immediately shifted to work on their project. Making a sprite animation using Scratch. It is a free programming language software simplified for people like the students and those who lack tech smarts like us to animate a cartoon. We got the chance to even attempt to animate a sprite using ChromeBooks too. But, we ended up leaving these animations to the professionals. 

ChromeBooks were stored in a charging storage cabinet.

Students programming their sprite to act under language command.

Bahasa Melayu class gave us a considerble amount of nostalgia. Most of the topics and exercises were based on UPSR exercises and to be frank, the topics the students were given to work on were no different from ours back then. The way the teacher handled the class was very carefree and laidback. Yes she did teach the class however, and unfortunately, her method of teaching did not really gain the students' attention. Most of the task were, just like local governmental style of teaching students- paper-based materials and very monotonous. Some of the students were interested in the subject but they had difficulties understanding the subject flow. We ended up assisting the students who required our help. It was very teacher-centered where the students only listen to the teacher and they were only allowed to answer if they were called. And rarely, the class would be quiet and conducive. Surprisingly, the students were very pumped with thegame which was introduced at the end of the class, that was perhaps one of the teacher's strategy in making the students to finish their work.

However, in Mandarin class, the teacher was very gentle. The class however, was noisy at first, probably due to the fact that recess recently ended and they were still in their play mode. But luckily, the teacher managed to calm the students down as well as being able to gain their attention using the clapping method. Once the students clap, the whole class finally settled down and continued on with their lesson as usual. It seemed that, the teacher only used very few methods of gaining the students' attention, they were well-behaved and thus, we didn't see her scolding or punishing them. Her teaching strategy was very similar to Ms. Ting's, acquiring quantum teaching where she showed the students that she took notice of their needs, ensuring the students were prepared and fully understood her lesson before moving on to the next topic.

Both language classes were divided into three levels- beginner, intermediate and advanced. Most Malaysian students would be assigned to advanced or at least intermediate level classes, whereas non-Malaysian students would flock into beginner and intermediate classes. They will be allowed to change class if they had fulfilled their level progress.