Penang Day 6

To quote Skid Row “Woke up to the sound of pouring rain.” It cools everything down, lovely. Erin, who is also at my school, was sick today, so she was unable to attend. When I arrived at school, I was greeted by every student I walked past – “Good Morning, Teacher.” The shy ones are funny – they wait until they have walked past, then they say it when they are behind me. If I look around and reply, they cover their mouths with their hands and giggle.

Another view of my school, Seri Relau

As I arrive approximately 45 minutes before school starts, I have some time in the playground. Some boys were playing jacks with white stones taken from the garden. I stood watching for a while, when a girl came up with some jacks of her own. I asked if she would be playing with the boys, and she said they wouldn’t let her, so I began playing. All of a sudden, half of the playground was there to watch teacher, squatting down to play jacks (poorly)! Once I had to stand up, I took out a picture book I had brought with me, and began to read. This drew even more children. I don’t know how many understood, and I certainly don’t think many could see, however they were a spellbound audience. A teacher suggested that tomorrow I would be better to do it on the stage they have in their eating area, because we were crammed into a corner of the school, blocking the pathway.

When the bell rang, it turns out our timetable wasn’t prepared yet, so I spent some time in the Special Education class again. They were meant to be doing PE, but because of the rain were unable to. They got to watch a video instead. The principal called a meeting at 8:30 to explain to the teachers I will be working with, exactly what it was all about. They gave me my timetable, and I will be teaching 8 English, 5 Science, 2 PE & 2 Music lessons.

The first lesson was after the meeting. Again it was meant to be PE, but due to the rain they had to stay inside. I turned up at the class a little late, to find the teacher wasn’t there yet. I began talking to the children about sport, until I finally realised that the teacher wasn’t coming – I had the class on my own for an hour! We began by talking about the sports that they liked, however that topic was exhausted fairly quickly, because they were shy and didn’t want to talk. I then turned to their textbooks, and asked each group to choose a sport, and then teach me something about that sport. They broke into groups, and completed the exercise quite happily – until someone asked if they had to tell me the fact in English or Bahasa Malaysian. Of course I said English, which caused some consternation! They all carry dictionaries, however, and they managed very well. I had completely run out of ideas, sport being a very weak subject of mine. Luckily I had the laptop; I was looking for some sort of physical game we might play indoors. I found one (thank you Australian Institute of Sport Playing for Life cards!) Towards the end of the lesson, the sun had come out, and some parts of the asphalt were puddle free, so instead of moving the classroom around, I took them out in the playground. We played a very simple game of groups, where the teacher calls out a number, and the students must form groups of that number. Anyone who was left had to come and stand by me, and we performed an action together, such as star jumps, or clapping, or hopping etc. The game was met with a lot of fun and laughter, and we certainly gained a lot of attention from other classes as they moved around the school.

My first ever class in Penang - 5A

I then sat in on a Religious Instruction class, all in Bahasa Malaysian. At 10:15 I had lunch – some sort of spicy tofu, a curried fish, and rice. After lunch, I had my first English class. They were working from the textbook, and learning about local produce, so in some way it was integrated with Science. I will be preparing a lesson to teach tomorrow. After English, I asked to sit in with a Maths class. Half of the class had been called away to do other things, so the teacher was just planning on doing revision, as she couldn’t teach anything new with half of the students missing. The teacher had some example copies of Malaysian currency, so I pulled out my coins, and we talked about them. Couldn’t tell them why Charles Kingsford Smith was famous, I’ll have to go and look that up.

English class, 3A. I will be teaching them tomorrow.

Finally, I sat in with the top English class in Year 6. I believe their written English was more advanced than the equivalent of students in Australia. They are preparing for a big exam that happens in August.

A school bus (bas = bus, sekolah = school)

Once the students open up, they don’t stop. They might take a little encouraging to begin talking, but they are full of questions and just want to talk to you. They are curious about school and life in Australia, as well as are you married, how old are you, do you have children, do you have a house, what is it like, and many more.

After our meeting back at RECSAM, we hired a taxi to take us back to Batu Ferringhi, so the others could pick up their shirts. We had dinner at a Thai restaurant that was right on the beach, then toured the night markets for a little while. I won’t be doing that again – it is too much after school. More time for lesson preparation, like a good teacher should be doing.

This was the range of seafood they had live to choose from! Poor fishes etc.

The view from dinner. Ahhhhhhh.

Overall, I had a great day, and I’m looking forward to teaching something tomorrow that I have actually had time to prepare!