Part 2- School-based Diary Entry

School-based Diary Entry

Shadowing Date: 02-03-2011

At 7:30 a.m.

After receiving the notification from the General Office at the school gate, she went down to the gate to join us (the four students from the HKU). She introduced herself to us and then immediately brought us to the General Office meeting the school Vice-Principal, who was the mentor of two of our classmates as well as meeting the school Principal. As mentioned by the school Principal, there would be some other visitors coming from the Chinese University, the school would be very busy and crowded. After the brief introduction, the mentor left us with the student-teachers and she rushed to her office. She seemed to be very busy all the time because she walked fast and spoke fast. She did not join the morning assembly while we were in the playground observing the students doing exercise during the morning assembly.

At 8:00 a.m.

Right after the morning assembly, we and the student-teachers went back to the preparation room and the mentor came in. She chatted with us and asked us to introduce us to her. As mentioned, she seemed to have a packed schedule and she seemed not to be listening during the introduction. Quickly ended up the introduction part, she handed her timetable to us and then immediately left the room. She then visited the 2B class. She was not the class teacher of the class but she did the visit because she likes the class and will go for a visit every morning. During the visit to the class, she had casual chatted to students. She asked a male-student whether he has taken his medication, later she explained to us she showed her care to the boy because he was absent from the Sports Day last Friday. During the time, she also collected the class feedback form from some of the students because they did not have enough time to complete the form in the previous lesson. The mentor seemed to be enjoyable when she walked around and chatted with the students, and with no doubts the students like her as they would initiate a conversation with her. Although the mentor kept her high-speed talking, she showed her smile finally when she was chatting with the students and I felt she enjoyed the visit so much.

At 8:20 a.m.

The home-teacher time ended and the mentor went back to her room and counted the number of cards she needed in the afternoon class. There were two cards missing, and she had to run to the staff room to do the printing before the first class starts. She looked confused when she discovered two cards were missing because this accident would affect the grouping of the class and hence, affected the progress. At that moment, she did not talk anything to us but rushed to the office, leaving us in the room. The students arrived late, and so provided extra time for the mentor to make the cards. The mentor was not surprised by the late-coming of students as she explained; usually the first lesson will start late because there are many things to be settled during the home-teacher time. When students reached the English room, which is the mentor’s room, she gave the instruction of forming a big circle of 26. Her tone was severe, probably because she wanted to start the lesson quickly and smoothly. The students responded quite well and got everything completed within 1 minute. The lesson was fluent and students were generally on-task. Though when the mentor moved on to another game, there were misunderstandings that the students did not understand the instructions and started the game without the mentor’s permission. The mentor showed her disappointment to the other two teachers and had a quick decision to resume the class and continued to play the first game. Initially the mentor was calm and stayed at a soft voice, but later she turned into a severe voice and ordered the class to get back to their seats. After the lesson, the mentored had some complaints about the class performance and she was obviously feeling unsatisfied because of the incompletion of tasks.

Between 08:50-09:25 a.m.

The mentor had a free lesson during this time slot. While the two student-teachers went to have class observation, the mentor sat down with us and had a discussion over her work as a NET teacher in school. She showed some mini-books which were produced by her students to us, and I felt her being proud when showing the work to us because the content of the mini-books is actually quite complicated for Primary One students to do and the content was beyond students’ zone of proximal development. The mentor also showed her tiredness to us, she explained the tiredness was because of the packed schedule, she has to attend lectures after school-days. She added, she usually arrives home at 12pm and can only sleep for a few hours. The shadowing activity also made her stressed because she had a lot of arrangements to deal with. Although teaching life is tiring, she loves teaching because she thinks it is enjoyable and challenging. I appreciate her attitude towards the professions, because although she was tired, she was energetic during lessons and she tried her very best to motivate students’ participation.

At 09:35 a.m.

It was the lesson of the two-student teachers and so the mentor will be observing the lesson and then give comments to them. The lesson started late, it started 10 minutes after the bell rang. The mentor sometimes helped with the class management during the class and she was helping the student-teachers to record the lesson. She seemed to be enjoying the lesson. When some students made a very silly story, she laughed out.

At 10:05 a.m.

The class ended and the mentor rushed to the playground because she is in charge of the English Ambassadors Activity. She had to rush to the playground because the previous lesson ended late. She brought along her recording machine with her to the playground in order to tape the interview between her and the students. While we were standing aside her and observing her during the activity, she seemed to be not so happy and she dropped a sentence:” Don’t follow me!” to us. Then, we walked around the playground and chatted with students. The students were quite interested in the English Ambassadors activity and they lined up and waited for the questions asked by senior primary students. Later when the bell rang, we got back to the mentor’s room and waited for her.

At 10:20 a.m.

The mentor arrived and had the P.1 English class, teaching students the body parts. The mentor sang a song with the students “Put your right hand in” to revise the vocabulary items regarding different parts of the body. Students were excited, but the mentor seemed to be lacking of energy. After the song, the mentor started giving instructions about the worksheet-Draw a monster.

Between 10:53-11:30 a.m.

The game started and the mentor walked around to observe the progress. Students spun the wheel and drew the appointed body parts on the worksheet to form a monster. Students in group took turns to spin the wheel.

The game ended with peer appraisal that the mentor showed students’ work to the whole class. The class was excited during the peer-evaluation section when they saw the others’ work. I think the mentor felt happy for this lesson because the planned tasks were completed and the responses from students were positive.

Between 11:30 a.m. -12:35p.m.

Lesson ended and started lunch. We stayed with the student-teachers in the preparation room to have lunch. After lunch we took a walk in the school and when we passed by the mentor’s room, she was sleeping inside her room. I understood she was so tired and needed a nap before she started her afternoon classes.

Between 12:40-13:10 p.m.

After the lunch hour we went to the mentor’s room joining her for the mock interview practice. According to the mentor, she has been doing these mock interviews with those P.6 students for three months. A group of P.6 students came to the English room and took turns to practice the interview for applying secondary schools. The mentor was responsible for asking the “candidates” questions. However, the students’ performances were far from satisfactory, and initially the mentor’s mood was fine, but it turns negative afterwards. I think the mentor was unhappy and regarded the performances as unsatisfactory because of their poor attitudes. The mock interviews ended early, because the mentor could no longer stand for the performance and she showed her anger to us when the students left. I was surprised by the mentor’s reaction because she stopped the students from giving responses. I guess this reaction was because of the accumulated anger and tiredness.

Between 13:10-13:41 p.m.

After the mock interview practice, a P.2 lesson started 18 minutes after the bell rang. The learning objective of the lesson was about the days of the week. After the greeting, the mentor sang a song with the students and when the students memorized the lyrics, the mentor hided some of the lyrics and students were required to guess the day of the week. She then assigned some students out to answer the questions, later the mentor explained to us that the students she assigned were students of lower learning abilities. After the singing of the song, the mentor started introducing the rule of the card game and had invited some pupils out for demonstration.

At 13:50 p.m.

The mentor started distributing the materials for the game and in some groups, they started the game. However, there was an incident happened: it happened when the mentor asked students representatives out to collect the materials; a male-student from the grey group told the mentor that he was from the purple group. When the mentor discovered, she immediately called out the student, asked him to stand at the door, and stopped the boy from joining the game. The boy stood at the door and cried for so long while the mentor was joining every group in the class and was playing the game with students. Later after comforting by the student-teacher, our mentor approached the student, talked to him and allowed him to go back to his group. However, when the boy went back to his group, he was lagged behind and it seemed that his group mates ignored him. At last, he couldn’t join the game and the game ended. My interpretation to the mentor’s reaction towards the boy’s behavior was that, there might be misunderstandings between the boy and the mentor. Maybe the mentor thought the boy did it purposely and the boy did not explain. As an outsider, I think the punishment was a bit too heavy because the boy did not have to chance to explain himself. I had a look on the picture, the grey color was faded and the color was not obvious. I felt pity about this incident and I think the mentor was in an extremely bad mood influencing her attitude and decision at that moment.

At 14:15 p.m.

The game and the class ended. The mentor stayed in her room playing with her computer. We grabbed the chance to interview her regarding her relationships and interactions with the other participants, like the school Principal, the other teachers and researchers. After the interview, we stayed in the mentor’s room and waited until the school ended.

At 16:00 p.m.

School ended. The mentor brought us to the Principal and notified the Principal that we will leave. We showed our appreciation towards the shadowing arrangement and said goodbye to the Principal. Afterwards, the mentor brought us to the school gate and sent us away. While we were saying goodbye to her, she seemed to be a little bit impatient and rushed. Probably because she had to attend classes for her PGDE programme or she had got something to do afterwards. Anyway, shadowing a NET teacher was a fruitful and unforgettable experience to me. I enjoyed it very much! J