Penang Day 13

The whole school at morning gathering. The colours are their sports uniform, for the different houses. Penang is a very colourful place, I really enjoy seeing it.

Began the day by playing batu seremban again, then reading a book. We are less novel now, having been here for a week, so there aren’t as many children interested in listening to the reading. I watched Erin teach her Maths class, and spoke with the teacher about aspects of Australian teaching, and how we teach mathematics. It is always valuable to be able to talk about teaching, especially with those who are practiced. Below is a report that the teachers must fill out at the end of every lesson. They are in a book, which must be handed in to a head teacher for checking, each Friday. At first glance, I thought it was an awful lot of paperwork, and wouldn’t work in our system. I do think it would be somewhat problematic to implement, as we do not get periods off in the day to fill it out, and in Kindergarten, for example, each lesson is only 20 minutes long! However, I like the idea, so maybe using my technology it would be possible to at least do a voice recording of the elements after the main lessons each day.

More paperwork!

That was followed by my PE lesson. Luckily it wasn’t as hot as yesterday, however we were still out in the full sun, running around. I taught the students two traditional Indigenous games. There was no easy way to differentiate them into teams by sight, so as much as I didn’t like it, we split them into boys and girls (they were very happy!). The first game we played was munhanganing, a version of bull rush. The boys got the girls out very quickly. We then swapped, and the game lasted much longer. The girls did very well, and quickly worked out a strategy, which was interesting to watch develop. As much as I would have liked to have let it continue to the end, it was too hot, so I called a stop, and sent them off for a drink and a rest. The second game was tarnambai, where one student bowls a ball along the ground, and another races to pick it up and return it. It wasn’t so bad, as you can rest while you are bowling, but I think the girls were pooped. We set up a competition between 2 teams of boys, where there was one clear winner; then 2 teams of girls. The girls finished their race surprisingly quickly, and we believe that not everybody ran, so theirs was declared a tie. They were mightily disappointed, however, when I handed prizes out to the winning boys team.

I think they're having fun, don't you?

After PE, I was invited to the Principal’s office, where I was fed a dish of glutinous rice, with a durian/coconut sauce, made by the Principal herself! I also purchased a long, cool iced tea after all of that running around.

Doesn't look much chop, but it was tasty. Sweet and chewy and coconutty (I made that up)

After the break, I taught my 3A English class. Most of the class wasn’t there; they were preparing for another event. I again struggled to stop the children writing what was on the board word for word. I had the sentences below, with the idea that they substitute their own words. Unfortunately, most of them copied them down with blank lines. It took a lot of encouragement to get them to write what they ate for dinner, as every person’s was different. The same struggle then appeared with the ingredients for their individual dinners. By the time they were to identify which food groups their ingredients belonged to, we were almost there – most of them were able to substitute their own answers. We then managed to play a game where they were given random foods, and had to find others that shared the same food group. They enjoyed that, and there was learning as they had to identify what the English words for certain foods meant.

And then… it happened. I had been asked to cover a first grade class for Bahasa Malaysian! Considering I know numbers, colours, and the odd random word in Malaysian, that was never going to work. As these children are approximately 6 years old, their English was also very limited. I walked in to the class to find another teacher walking out after just chastising them. Not a good start! There were more than 30 in the class. I can’t tell you the exact number, because for the entire lesson, it was like counting ants from a kicked anthill. Our lecturer had said if you were unable to teach a particular subject, simply change it and teach to your strengths, so I began by showing them some Australian animals, and we did some actions for each, walking around the classroom. They were full of energy, so I thought this might be a good start. It wasn’t too bad, but they were very noisy! Following that, I read one of the picture books I bought with me. The girls sat and listened, but the boys moved to one side with some abacuses/abaci. They were relatively quiet (relatively!), so I decided not to press the issue. Once the story finished, I decided to send them back to their desks and get some playing card mathematics started. This was completely unsuccessful – trying to get all of them to sit at their desks at one time was like trying to hold a handful of jelly. I’d just get one lot settled, when another would be up and around. In the end I resorted to doing number matching adding to 10 on the board. Again, this gained most of their attention, but there was still some chaos, which ended in one little boy crying. At that point I raised my voice and insisted they all return to their desks.

Throughout all of this, I had almost every student from the class approach me and ask to go to the toilet. As this had been mentioned as an issue at assembly the other day, I let the first one go, then said no to each request after that. I ended up pulling in another older student, and getting her to explain in Malay that I would be saying no! This was only a single period (oh my, thank goodness), so I said they could wait and ask their next teacher.

The period finally ended, and their teacher came in. She began by showing me her blood pressure results – 160/100! Her doctor has told her that she must control her stress. She invited her doctor to spend a day with that class, and then revisit that advice! At least I know it wasn’t just me, but wow, that was a huge challenge, and one I think I met very poorly! Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kindergarten Cop: “They're six-year-olds. How much trouble can they be?”

No pictures from that class, so here is a handsome fellow I saw around the school. I do not know what type of bird it is.

Had our usual meeting after school, the we headed to Komtar for some last minute shopping. I managed to find some self-inking stamps for teachers. So cheap! We had dinner at World Park Square, a large food court just down from Komtar. My dinner was lovely, but I wanted to share dessert with you. This is called ice kachung, and is available pretty much everywhere here. Yes, this IS icecream, corn and kidney beans, along with some other unidentified ingredients. It is a bit strange at first (they don’t even use the sweetened corn!), but once it all melts together, it’s fine. We decided it is the “pantry” dessert – you reach into the pantry, and mix whatever you can find with icecream!

Ice Kachung

Penang Day 8

Woke up to the sound of thunder and rain again, but I was well rested. Lucky, because today was a long day!

Finally, a picture of the front of the school.
It is dark when we arrive each morning, so I haven't been able to get a picture until now.

Erin was teaching art and craft as her first lesson, so I popped in towards the middle. She was teaching the children about indigenous dot painting. Perfection is very important here in Penang, but as we all know, perfection can get in the way of actually getting things done! The idea was to draw some shapes or pictures in pencil first, then use paint on their little fingers to add the dots. Some students still had blank pieces of paper near the end of the lesson, because they would draw something, and rub it out. Draw something, and rub it out. Others barely managed to begin painting, because they wanted their drawings to be perfect before they started. While the perfectionist in me empathises with this, the idea of the lesson was to experiment with dot painting, not drawing! The children really enjoyed the lesson, and there were some very good artworks created.

This young man did an excellent job.
He has also challenged me to batu seremban (jacks) tomorrow morning.
I do believe I will be thrashed!

I then had my triple English lesson, planned with Puan Susan. This went well. I recapped what we had studied yesterday, then we went out in the school to look at the plants in the school garden. We were working on description, so before we left the classroom, I modelled what to put in a description – what something looks/smells/tastes/feels and sounds like. Of course with the school garden, we neglected the taste, feel and sound aspects. I began by getting a few students up to tell the class about a particular plant, but they were too excited at being in the garden, so they were not paying attention. I then asked them to all stand in front of an individual plant. This worked much better, and I walked around while they described the plants to me.

We then moved to the canteen area, where they were to stand in front of the class and describe the fruit they had bought with them from home. With all of the exotic fruit available, they mostly brought… apples! There were also some oranges, a lot of rambutan, one durian, and one pear. I had purchased a dragon fruit. The idea was that after their descriptions, they could eat their fruit. This activity worked very well, and the Principal also came down and took some photographs. Unfortunately I didn’t get to taste the dragonfruit, as when Puan Susan cut it up, the children descended on it! There’s always a next time :-)

Three of the boys from 3A, after their fruit demonstration.

We returned to the staffroom, and were then invited to the library, where some teachers were creating the costumes for the traditional dance some students will be performing in a competition. Teachers must have many skills beside teaching! I helped a little, but I was mostly talking to 6A, who had a lot of questions for me.

Straight after that, I went to Science with Puan Ainda. I simply helped in the class, as she had a lesson already prepared. The children were investigating the types of conditions that rust will form under. They placed paperclips in test tubes, and then covered them with water, oil, and silica gel. They will have to wait for a couple of weeks to get the results, but they predicted based on the knowledge they gained last lesson.

Girls from 5A performing the experiment.

Boys from 5A performing the experiment.

 Straight after Science was the cultural dance practice for the competition. The girls are practicing for 2 hours after school, twice a week! The teacher is from the tourism department. He was late, so they practiced another dance they had choreographed themselves – to a song called “What the Hell” by Avril Lavigne! I think the video is too large to post, sorry.

Girls in a small part of their cultural dance costumes.

After dancing, there was a 1 ½ hour break before Sport began. Erin and I said we were going to duck across the road to get something to eat (skipped lunch, another thing that teachers do). Puan Ainda spoke to another teacher, who said that over the road wasn’t very good, so she would take us to a shopping centre, where we could grab something. She told the Principal, who then suggested that the four of us go to a restaurant. After we arrived at the restaurant, four of the male teachers also came. So what started as ducking across the road turned into a full banquet meal with 8 people! Apparently this is something that happens in Malaysia. The meal was delicious; I even enjoyed the Tom Yum, which I do not like at home. Maybe I just have Malaysia goggles on, where I enjoy everything that I eat!

We only just made it back in time for sport. We did the warm-ups with the girls playing netball, then did some throwing drills with them. Some of the girls then played a game, while others played poison ball. I also played, but as I hadn’t had time to change, running in a skirt is difficult! Erin then taught them Captain Ball, while I watched the game. After netball finished, we moved on to volleyball, which had four teachers playing as well. It was all a lot of fun, and it was great to see the teachers fully involved.

Getting the netball ring.

Netball (hockey in the foreground).

Another action shot.

We then caught the bus to meet the others in Little India, but as we had already eaten, we simply had something to drink, and returned to Komtar before going home. I had lost the lens cap for my camera. I decided that I was just going to buy one from a camera shop, no darn haggling. I went it, it was 90 Ringgit, when I went to pay, he charged me 50 Rinngit! Of course, there was a reason … all of a sudden, it was important that I purchased this for my camera, and that for my camera (all from him, for a good price!). I was very good, and resisted. It helped that I was there with Anthony, and the guy was addressing all of his sales pitch to Anthony!

Anyway, back home now and tired. I learned the word for tired in Bahasa Malaysian is “penat”. This is something I will be using a lot!

Finally, something that has nothing to do with this post - where you are lucky enough to find a pedestrian crossing, they sometimes have countdown timers to tell you how long you must wait on the red, and then how long the light will be green. I love it! Be careful, however, because the motorbikes don't stop just because of some silly red light!

Countdown timer