The English Department in Nan Hua High School is keen to encourage more students to take Literature in Upper Secondary. Secondary 2 students deal with Shakespeare for 3 lessons (55 minutes per lesson) every 2 weeks (the school operates on a 2-week cycle). Each Upper Secondary Literature class has 6 lessons per cycle, with 2 for set texts and 1 for Unseen each week. A teacher who teaches set text does not teach Unseen, and vice versa. Specialisation helps teachers to concentrate on preparing students for each 'O' Level paper.
Students are introduced to essay-writing skills in Secondary 1. The PEDAL structure (Point, Evidence, Device, Analysis, Link) is reinforced every lesson. A typical lesson would start with the teacher going through the text to help students, who tend to be weaker in English due to their Chinese-speaking family backgrounds, understand the content before letting them apply the PEDAL structure to answer structured questions. After students are done with their PEDAL exercises, the teacher will get individuals to present their answers in full sentences on the whiteboard, to simulate an actual essay-writing experience. Teachers use students' mistakes to teach the class, and an open and safe environment is created.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletesorry i didn't manage to include the statistical aspect of Literature in Nan Hua in my 200 words.
ReplyDeleteThere are 19 teachers in the English Department, of which 6 have a degree in Literature. These 6 share the Literature classes for Sec 2, 3 and 4. Due to the lack of teachers, English Language teachers double up as Literature teachers for Sec 1. The Department is trying to recruit more Lit teachers to change this situation. Yes Nan Hua thinks 6 Lit teachers isn't enough.
There are 2 classes in Sec 3 taking Literature, which make up a total of 70-80 students. I am not sure about Sec 4 as I have not taught them.
Having taught one of the Sec 3 classes Things Fall Apart and Unseen for one week, I have met students who have a genuine interest in Literature. There are other Upper Sec non-Lit students whom I've spoken to who expressed that they loved Literature but had not dared to take it in Upper Sec as they were afraid of doing badly for 'O' levels. Fear factor aside, I would say that the English Department has done a good job in getting students interested in Literature, and that Nan Hua is a very healthy place for Literature (:
That's good to know - say hi to Huixin for me!
ReplyDeleteOoh. I like the idea of 'D' in PEDAL. Slightly better than PEEL that way.
ReplyDelete