Students aren't guinea pigs

A GUINEA-PIG BUSINESS
NUTP has raised out their disagreement on the suggestion to extend English language learning sessions for Year 1 students. (as reported by a local newspaper) (perhaps to enhance students' proficiency) NUTP refuses to back MOE's action because they are not consulted before. To show their concern on students affair, NUTP's secretary-general says that our students should not be treated like guines pigs. In addition she says Science and mathematics classes has turned out into language lessons nowadays.

I agree with NUTP's views. We should not gamble our students' fate with projects which the success is uncertain. About the ETEMS, it is true that we cannot see its result in few seconds. It takes time but what I know so far the problems are more on the subject teachers (Sc & M3). Now they have to sit for some sort of special English competency test. If they failed they have to go to Teachers Institute for a course. Isn't that look... ( I do not know what to say). It is not to say that I against ETEMS but I do not feel the implementation is good enough. Something has to be done. May be we should hear the teachers' voices.

ANOTHER BURDEN?
On the same day NUTP's response was reported, in local TV news there was a suggestion to introduce an anti-corruption subject as single separated subject in school. Teachers will be trained in one of local higher institutions in Perak. Oh.. come on... hasn't our 'nilai-nilai murni' and 'Pendidikan Islam' good enough to cater this corruption matters?

SOME FACTS TO CONSIDER:
Year 1 English Language Lesson hours per week:
Previously: 8 hours/week... New suggested hours: 18 hours

Guinea Pig:
Scientific name: Cavia porcellus, Family: Rodents, Popular for: being experimental subject.
(more info...)

How will our pupils learn Science or Mathematics if their lessons are turned into English classes?« - LOK YIM PHENG, NUTP SECRETARY GENERAL as cited in The Star

Nice to hear...

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Bosnian groups have nominated Malaysia's former premier Mahathir Mohamad for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for helping the country after its bloody civil war, according The Star newspaper.

(source: asia Yahoo News: AFP)

My related post about TUN M

Ohh..ohh not teacher again...

NUTP today, in a local newspaper reveals that there is a female teacher who is now suffering trauma even though she is a dedicated teacher. This is due to a punishment given to one of her student for not completing homework. The consequences she had to face were:

• The student's parents sued her.


• It gives her bad reputations to the community


• Her job and salary were impeded.

However, she won the case and NUTP paid RM60,000 for the lawyer cost because she is a member of NUTP. NUTP’s General Secretary, Yim Pheng advices teachers to act carefully when dealing with any punishment. Punishment such as toilet cleaning might be harsh to parents view.

Today’s Teachers.

This is what teachers get from present day parents. They are no longer respected. Punishment which is to educate is seen as hidden hatred of teachers to the students. If all parents continuously embrace this attitude I feel that in the future we will have majority of citizens who are law ignorance. This will force our law enforcer to work harder and again the blame will come back to teachers (educators?).

Punishment I: Psychologist perspective
A devoted psychologist, B.F. Skinner proposes his operant conditioning theory in explaining how human behaviour is affected by its consequences. He believes that both reinforcement and punishment can be used in shaping children’s behaviour. Punishment is given to avoid the repetition of desired behaviours (delinquency). Punishment will decrease the desired behaviour because punishment is a kind of undesirable consequences. Therefore, it is not wrong for a teacher to punish their students in shaping their behaviour and attitudes.

Punishment II: Religious perspective
There are so many scenes appear in both the Quran and the Bible that depict the punishment given by God to human misconduct such as:

The mass flood to the people of Noah
The plagues in ancient Egypt
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Flashback: I was punished for my careless of did not bring my
English Language text book. The teacher still gave me a chance to follow the
lesson of the day but my place was near the front door outside of the classroom
and... HERE I AM TODAY! A teacher like her...

A start of a journey

In the news today, it is reported that vase area of Johor was flooded. The state of Johor was the first state where I started my career as an ESL teacher. It is still fresh in my mind some of the events happened. One of the events gave me a major impact where I made up my mind to continue my study in UPSI. I felt that I need more knowledge to be a better teacher. I felt that 3 years in Teacher’s training college were insufficient for me to be a good language teacher. Let me tell you the story…

It was the first class that I had to enter on that day since it was also the first day of the new school session began. As usual, with the gadget that we call a record book, in it there was a fully prepared lesson note; I entered the class with full of confidence. The class was occupied by 34 pupils; 8 girls and 26 boys. I started the lesson by using teachers ‘common ritual’ which is called the set induction. The set induction was related to the topic that I was going teach which was ‘Personal Details’. I began introducing my name and a little background of mine. I believed it was the simplest way to relate it with the topic. After that it was their turn to tell their details. It was a big shocked! The response was negative. In fact it could be no response at all (at least some of them provide me with simple facial expression, smiling.)They did not even know the meaning of the word ‘name’. They only knew the meaning after I spoke to them using the ‘apache’s language’ like what a Red Indian chief used to talk to white settlers in cowboy movies… i.e. “Me, Farish. You what?” plus a little bit of hand signals. My set induction took me about 80 percent of the lesson. It was no more a set induction. Then only I realised that they learnt no English since they were in Year 1. According to a reliable source, their ESL teacher was fed up because she felt that the syllabus for Year 1 were not suitable. The syllabus itself ‘assumed’ that the all students were able to read and write. The students knew no alphabets when they were in Year 1. Therefore, she felt teaching new ‘alien language’ by following the syllabus was irrelevant because the students could not read and write in their first language. This incident made me put a thinking hat but the only solution that I had was I had to put aside the Year 5 syllabus and started to teach them with my own ‘modified’ Year 1 syllabus. Don’t ask me the content of it. I just taught them to get them to know certain meaning of words in English and shape their interest in learning the language. I believed that it was the best way that I could help them with. Starting from that moment the desire to further my study was getting stronger. I filled up the form and now here I am at UPSI in Semester 6.