During the short sharing with the teachers, I shared a few tips about teaching very weak students who are probably also very demoralised. I advised the teachers to dress up to show the students that they are worth the effort. Make the students feel wanted and loved through our personality and the way we carry ourselves. No sloppiness and no sandals, please.

Some of the teachers also shared their success stories. I also shared that teachers should also keep up with the latest songs and singers. Sometimes, teachers get comfortable and they become obsolete very quickly in this era. I also talk about my struggle in getting organised and asked for suggestions. I have files for everything and I try to get my papers organised.

If you are blessed with a musical talent, use it. As I can play the guitar, I bring the guitar and play some songs. I have the boys eating out of my hand in no time. They cannot comprehend that this old aunty can belt out a rock and roll tune too.

Teachers should earn the students' respect. Students have stopped listening to teachers as they find that they have become redundant and obsolete. And there are so many other 'teachers' like the internet, freinds and television vying for their attention and they are more effective and attractive. Unless teachers update themselves and appear to be more knowledgeable, we will lose them.

Many of us struggle to teach students who are very weak in English. To make matters worse, these students are not motivated to learn and they are not interested. Therefore, it is certainly a challenge for an English teacher to teach in such a class. You have to be prepared with a lot of gimmicks, treats and do a lot of preparation. In the district meeting, we expressed our concern and came up with a few suggestions.

To make our lessons more interesting, we needed more games, songs, pictures, wordsearch and puzzles. So, we worked together to compile all the materials. The Internet has a wealth of information and free worksheets. So, do feel free to highlight any interesting websites that you have found.

This week, I want to highlight enchantedlearning.com
It has a lot of free worksheets that you can use in your weak classes.

The following page has a mini book entitled "All About Me". The pdf version is for members but you can easily reproduce the worksheets by looking at the mini version.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/books/easy/allaboutme/


For a mini book on 'My Dad and I', go to http://www.enchantedlearning.com/books/holiday/fathersday/dadandi/

For good classes:

For example:
This worksheet is useful after you have introduced proverbs to them.

Word Bank:
reap
nine
words
end
worm roads
eggs
nose
policy
perfect words
Beauty
Bad
will
leap

1. Practice makes __________________________________.
2. Look before you ______________________________.

3. ____________________________ news travels fast.

4. Honesty is the best ________________________________.

5. Don't cut off your ______________________________ to spite your face.

6. A picture is worth a thousand _______________________________.

7. All _______________________________ lead to Rome.

8. Don't put all your ______________________________ in one basket.

9. A stitch in time saves _____________________________.

10. _______________________________ is only skin-deep.

11. Where there's a ____________________________ there's a way.

12. Actions speak louder than _______________________________.

13. As you sow, so shall you _____________________________.

14. The early bird gets the ___________________________.

15. All good things must come to an _________________________.

We conducted a course on March 10-12 for a group of non-optionists from Perak. The course is supposed to help raise their proficiency for listening and speaking. We enjoyed ourselves as the course participants were rather sporting. We have seven more training to be done throughout the year, training about 720 course participants...

March 4
We managed to squeeze 4 days into one day. It was a bit hectic but that was all we could afford. The workshop was activity-based and hands on. Hopefully the teachers will pass on to the rest what they have learned...

50 teachers were chosen for various subjects as moderators for this project called PASAK (Penggerak Amalan Strageti Asas Kualiti) at the state level. Later, we are to conduct discussion groups at the district level. Ten teachers from schools who are teaching pmr are selected. We had our meeting in February and it was a fruitful meeting. We discussed how to make our teaching a better learning experience for weak students. We decided to work on one area and to share materials the next time we meet on March 25

It's been a hectic week but students are more settled. We managed to squeeze the registration for co-curricular activities during school.
It was also a week of meetings.
Most students have finished painting their classrooms. The spot-checks are still taking a long time in the morning. Been missing my first periods.

Jan 5-7
Form Four Orientation
As the Form Four coordinator, I was in charge of the orientation. This year we only planned for three days. On the first day, the principal gave a speech congratulating the students for the excellent performance in PMR. We were successful in getting the problematic students to be counselled in another room.
Day 2
Students were given some briefing on their elective subjects. The briefing ran smoothly but by the late morning, students were restless. The form ones were waiting to come into the hall and we had to cut the programme short.
Day 3

Students were given their classes. Had a tough time dividing the students into the arts stream as many of them did not do well in Maths and Science.Many students were trying to get out of the last class. Bad news, the principal was admitted into the hospital for appendicitis.

Jan 8
Invited some teachers from SMK Teknik to give a talk on SKM and other courses available in that school. Many students signed up.



Jan 9
Divided students into their respective clubs and societies as I am also the coordinator for the societies in school. There were many latecomers who looked lost. We posted the list of names in the hall so that students could read their names and locate the places for meetings immediately.
Due to my busyness, some classes had to be given to a substitute teacher. Felt rather incomplete as i did not have time for ice-breaking.
Jan 10
registration for societies and agm done.