Singapore Teachers—Lead. Care. Inspire.

Address by Ms Ho Peng, Director-General of Education, at the Teachers’ Mass Lecture, at 2.30pm on Wednesday, 26 August 2009, Singapore Expo Hall 2

“By word and deed, through the care we give, we touch the lives of our students. We make a difference—leading and inspiring our students to believe in themselves and to be the best they can be.
As individuals and as a community of professionals, we seek continually to deepen our expertise. Respectful of fellow educators, we collaborate to build a strong fraternity, taking pride in our work and profession.
We forge trusting partnerships with families and the community for the growth and well-being of each student.
We Lead, Care, Inspire,
For the Future of the Nation Passes through Our Hands.”

A Vision for the Teaching Service

ETD Chinese Education Portal

Looking forward to experimenting the portal the pilot project by the ministry. Though I will not be teaching with this portal, I will assist in the facilitation and administration.

http://10c.commontown.net/

Insights of education technology and Chinese language teaching/learning by Cornelius C. Kubler

Excerpts From Lianhe Zaobao,

…“有关华语语法、发音的说明，课本都有英文翻译，学生可以自己了解，不需要老师在课堂多费唇舌，浪费时间。上课的时间应该用来进行沟通式教学：包括口语、阅读、写字的练习。华人传统说teach是‘教书’，意思是teach the book。过去是这样，现在不应如此。我们现在以学生为中心，上课是‘教学生’，不再是‘教书’。”

担心老师迷恋电脑教学科技

　　最近15年，教学科技越来越发达，这本是可喜现象，顾百里却忧心忡忡。他说：“在美国有部分老师爱上电脑，把原来用在备课的时间，用在电脑上，喜欢发展很多新的软件。这些软件部分有用，部分未必有用。我认为，教师应该以学生为重，备课为先。设计一个像样的软件要花上几百几千个小时，我经常建议老师先搞清楚在中国大陆、台湾、香港、新加坡，有没有同行在研发类似的软件，尽可能避免不必要的重复。

 　“近年来有很多年轻老师爱上新的科技，很多卡通人物、漫画等等可爱小东西，这些其实都不是太重要，应该紧记一切以教学为重。有好的教学软件，不妨采用，但是不可以盲目跟风。”

My translation:

Traditionally, the literal Chinese meaning of ‘teach’ is ‘teach the book’. Now, in a learner centered environment, teachers should ‘teach learners’ instead of ‘teach the book’.

Kubler is worried of educators getting obsessed with education technology. He said in recent years younger teachers love technology, cartoons, comics and other little cute stuff. In fact, these things are not important. We must remind ourselves teaching and learning come before everything. If there are good educational software, give them a try. However we must not blindly follow suit.

I agree with most of Kubler’s view. In fact Mr 高极登 expressed similar concerns in this article. Both articles are very insightful.

However, since we are talking about learner centeredness, educators must rethink about how learning takes place today. We must also rethink on how technology can add value to teaching Chinese language. Most importantly, we must always keep an open mind on ways to engage students in learning Chinese language, without compromising the quality of teaching and language proficiency of students.

Singapore to set up Centre for Chinese Language

From MOE’s Press Releases,

Leveraging on Singapore’s unique bilingual environment for the teaching and learning of the Chinese Language (CL), a centre will be established to focus on the training and development of CL teachers. The National Institute of Education (NIE) will work with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to set up the Singapore Centre for Chinese language (SCCL) [新加坡华文教研中心] by mid 2009.

I can look forward to more professional development opportunities in Chinese language teaching.

21,015 words

From Drape’s Takes,

Of the 21,015 words used in the above post, 21,000 of them have been provided by the following Flickr users…

Amazing stuff. A great visual explanation of what 21st Century Teaching and Learning is.

风檐展书读 古道照颜色

The first Chinese title I used in this blog. This title is adapted from a Chinese column report in Lianhe Zaobao. I felt this report is an insightful yet controversial one. The columist Mr Gao commented,

1. Traditional pen and paper teaching is still the best way to build up strong foundations in subjects like languages, mathematics, sciences and humanities.
2. The essence of face-to-face teaching cannot be replicated with teaching in a virtual environment.
3.  Educators shouldn’t get carried away with excessive use of technology.

Yes, when a great teacher conducts face-to-face teaching, the learning experience is indeed priceless, which is somewhat impossible to achieve using technology.

However, while I agree with some of Mr Gao’s advice, I wonder if Mr Gao has seen how our pupils today learn, especially beyond classrooms and informally. I wonder if Mr Gao noticed the amount of new media children have been exposed to. I wonder if Mr Gao, being a technology columist, has seen how technology can add value, instead of adding gimmicks, to teaching and learning in schools.

Judging from some strong words Mr Gao used in this article, I believed that he has seen some negative examples of how technology has been used in teaching.

Is Mr Gao disllusioned after seeing more education institutions splashing millions on ‘technological white elephants’?

The purpose of teaching

The purpose of teaching

A good read when you are feeling down and need some motivation.

If, as a teacher…

Page taken from Carl Glickman’s Leadership for Learning: How to Help Teachers Succeed.

Maybe I would like to add one more line to the bullet points: I do not read edublogs by teachers and edtechs all over the world…

Great post by Darren Draper. Maybe I should print this page and stick it up somewhere to remind myself.