skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The title of this blog entry actually modelled after Paul Sze's one blog post written in July. He talked about whether teacher educators or those working at tertiary level had 'holidays' in summer. The story he wrote was quite interesting and illuminating for those who are particularly hardworking like you or those who have contracted 'workaholics'. My response was yes and no. When I worked in school as an English teacher, I did have regular holidays such as Chinese New Year holidays and Summer Vacations though the latter lasted only around for 3 weeks because most secondary teachers in Hong Kong are caught up with some administrative commitments. Of course, students can enjoy a full summer holiday. Having worked in the tertiary sector, I realized that I didn't have a real break in summer. Why? In theory, there is annual leave and I can take leave as long as I have no teaching duties. However, the nature of my work is ongoing and the schedule is very packed as well. For instance, when I finish a module, I will mark students' assignments. Then, if I was assigned to teach a new module in the coming academic year, I need to do some readings and research in order to prepare the course well. In my case, it takes me about 1.5 to 2 months to prepare a brand-new module with 30 contact hours. No doubt, the preparation time could be flexible and it depends how familiar I am with the subject knowledge of that module. Apart from marking and teaching preparation, I may continue my research project in summer. I have to do a review of literature, prepare the manuscripts, analyze and write up the findings and so forth. More than that, I need to take some library courses to upgrade my research skills and read some books to enrich my knowledge. Lifelong learning is equally important in the field of teacher education. Virtually, I have no real break. Therefore, I'm planning for a break later next month when I finish part of my teaching in this semester.
On Wednesday, typhoon signal no. 8 was hoisted and the EDB announced there was no school for all full-time students. Though the EDB's annoucement was a bit general, it was easy to understand that the 'no-school' directives were only applicable to kindergarten, primary and secondary students. Then, how about tertiary institutions such as university and community college full-time students? Well, for every tertiary institution, they have set up their own guidelines on typhoon policy. For instance, in the institution that I work in, classes will not be suspended if the typhoon signal no. 8 is lowered for more than 5 hours. I bet for all tertiary students, they can refer back to an official document titled 'Student Handbook' for the program in which they enrolled. However, what astonished me was that some 'tertiary students' complained to the EDB about the ambiguous 'class suspension' announcment on Wednesday. Here, I would say this group of so-called 'university students' should learn to be independent and shoulder their own responsibilities. After they graduate, nobody will tell them whether they need to go to work if there is a typhoon. Instead, they should be proactive and inquire where they can get to know the typhoon policy. In many tertiary institutions, there are clear instructions in print or on-line to inform students under what circumstances classes will be suspended and when they will reopen. From now on, don't blame others and read the student handbook you have misplaced for ages!
As a novice academic in the field, I have experienced the joy of publishing and presenting my papers as well as the sorrow of being rejected in publishing my manuscripts. Three years ago, my mentor and one very well-respected scholar told me that I had to balance the bright and dark sides of the 'game'. They said, 'If you play in this writing game, you need to comply its rules. However, there is no guarantee. This game could be very brutal to your professional life or could be very helpful in your career.' At that time, I had no clue what they talked about and thought that this piece of advice was a riddle. Now, having joined the field for some while, I comprehended the underlying meanings of their advice and learned how to 'balance' the joy and sorrow of publishing. Obviously, at the moment, I do not write for money nor career advancement. Instead, I would like to try different things before I am too old. In addition, I want to explore my potentials. To me, there is still a long way to go in the area of publishing but as long as I enjoy what I am doing, I have no complaint and won't regard this game as a pain in the neck!
Yesterday, I had a multi-purpose family gathering which not only celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival, but also served the following purpose(s):1. my niece's first birthday;2. my brother-in-law's nth birthday;3. my father's 65th birthday;4. Mid-Autumn Festival with my mother-in-law;5. Mid-Autumn Festival with my parentsActually, there were 15 people in the gathering. This 'multi-purpose' event is very economical and efficient. First, we can save a lot of time because usually I need to celebrate the Festival twice (one with my own parents and another one with my mother-in-law). Second, in September, it is the birthday of three of our family members, i.e., my father, my brother-in-law and my niece. So this kind of all-in-one celebration is good for everybody in terms of saving time and money. Why not? We were very happy during the banquet.
Whether one said 'I chai my breast' or 'I try my best' does not really matter! What matters is whether one is brave enough to confess their wrongs and promise to make improvement.
An infamous phrase 'I chai my breast', spoken by a newly elected politician and now widely broadcast on You Tube, has become talk of the town. The problem I reckon is not his mispronunciation but his problematic attitude. This politician shouldn't say, 'Yes, my English is poor as I graduated from CU.' First, most CU graduates that I know can speak very fluent and accurate English like my sister-in-law. Second, he shouldn't blame anyone but himself if his English pronunciation is not good enough. What he should do is to apologize to the public as he was elected by them and promise he would make improvement on his pronunciation. Third, he set a very bad example to the youngsters that there is no big deal to pronounce English incorrectly as long as people can understand each other. He should be more conscious of what he said as he is a high key 'celebrity'.
Personally, a politician especially a young and inexperienced one should be humble and constantly update his/her knowledge in order to be ready for serving the community.
I just read from the news that two famous professional bloggers in the States, Russell Shaw and Marc Orchant, died recently. Why? It's because they were both excellent and prolific bloggers who used to write blogs to earn their living. Who employed them? From big corporations to famous artists. They were so busy that they spent most of their time, not 9 to 5, probably 9 - 12 am every day to write blogs for others including ads, travelogues, autobiographies, reviews, etc. No need to worry! We won't write blogs and die like Russell and Marc as they died of extreme fatigue and heart disease. These two big shots were productive bloggers as well as writers. For us, if we simply use blog as a platform to share our personal and professional life with other bloggers, we won't die so easily (even if we wish) due to blogging. On the contrary, there are tons of advantages I have already mentioned in one of my previous entries. So, keep on writing, enjoy the process of writing and share our writing with others!
My dad retired in January this year who is now 65. Actually, he already had his "first" retirement 6 years ago. Having rested for a year, he grumbled retirement life was too dull, so he job-hunted again and found a decent but demanding job in a very big cleaning company to work as a supervisor. His leadership was good but he had to work long hours. Anyway, he enjoyed the job but as time went by, he said that the workload was too overwhelming for him. Hence, he decided to step down this year and went to the States with my mom for 1 month. He is pretty laid back now and can sleep in as he wishes.My mom just retired last month. She didn't want to but she had no choice because of some workplace politics that she couldn't cope with! Well, I said to her one day, 'It's time to step down though you don't wish to because you're 60.' She complained some of her ex-colleagues said some nasty words to her and made her feel hurt. I explained, 'If you get angry with these meaningless words, your EQ is not really high. Though you are the no. 1, people still speak behind your back.' She then told me she didn't want to step down in an ungraceful way. Then, I assured, 'Retirement life is not at all terrible. Now, you have more free time to talk to dad and you can go swimming together. If you feel bored, go shopping and watch Korean DVDs.' What I learn from parents' retirement is that if we plan to retire or are about to reach the retirement age, we need to 'prepare' for life after our retirement. Without careful planning, it's hard for anyone to transit from hectic to tranquil life. Participating in community and contributing to society would be a way out for all retirees. My mom called me this morning and said she wanted to further her studies in an elderly community college. Why not?
In the NSS teaching team, my colleague, Tim Taylor proposed to have co-teaching in the upcoming cohorts of NSS PDC. This proposal is definitely a good and innovative one. First and foremost, both of us agreed to teach the areas according to our specialisms. For instance, Tim will be responsible for the introduction of curriculum framework and planning the new senior English curriculum for CMI and EMI schools. He will further talk about how to integrate language arts components into the mainstream curriculum through the I-S-A model. For me, I will be in charge of teaching and learning issues of the NSS curriculum such as deductive approach to teaching grammar and genre-based pedagogy to teaching writing. In addition, I will lecture on assessment issues in NSS such as the implemenation of alterntive assessment in the EFL writing classroomand and how AfL can be adopted in the local context. The division of labour sounds both promising and efficient to both me and Tim as he is specialied in curriculum planning and self-access learning while I am interested in assessment and AfL. I really hope that our collaboration will be a successful one and most important of all, our participants can find the PD course useful and practical and apply what they learn in IEd to their teaching contexts.
Yesterday, I taught a new cohort of Yr. 4 students. This year, what makes a difference is that two international students have joined our group and they come from the northern part of Thailand. Initially, they were a bit shy. Having discussed some issues in the tutorial, they warmed up and shared their opinions with some of the Yr. 4 students. I am sure with their backgrounds, Gip and Yui can integrate into our class without any problem. Another interesting thing is that in this cohort, there are only 4 gentlemen who are all very nice and brave to speak up. Though they are the miniority, they are very serious and sincere in their learning.
My first impression of this group of students is that they are all very attentive and eager to learn. That is a good sign. As their module lecturer as well as DPC, I think I need to give them extra support both academically and professionally as soon they will do their teacher practice. They still have a lot of worries and concerns in relation to real teaching. I am confident we may get along well.
