Ms Pamela Kiew believes in making English interesting and relevant to her students. She brings the English language to life in her school through a variety of methods – one of which is a “Performing Arts Studio”, a room filled with props to spur teachers and students into scripting plays and putting on drama performances. Another of her programmes, “Mad about English”, gets students to complete tasks related to the four English Language skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Recognising that students look to adults as role models, she initiated a programme for all non-teaching staff, including canteen vendors and security guards, to be trained to speak in Standard English.

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Mr Edwin Tan created an environment that promotes Standard English not only in the classroom, but in the whole school. Coming from a dialect-speaking family, he attributes his English language skills to his own school environment – including his interactions with teachers, students and friends. He believes that teachers need to understand that they are role models to their students, and should always speak in good English. To achieve this, he devised a programme to improve the level of spoken English in both teaching and non-teaching staff. With his students, he started a reading recovery programme and engaged language facilitators to improve their pronunciation. In order to be a better role model himself, he made personal efforts to improve his own language skills by attending English language courses with British Council.

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Ms Gladys Ng of River Valley Primary School takes a keen interest in making a difference in the lives of her students. To improve her students’ command of the English Language, she established a classroom environment where the stronger students help weaker ones during lessons. Her key belief is that to motivate her students, one should focus on engaging students in the classroom, rather than to focus solely on achieving perfect grades. She incorporates interactive games like “Taboo” into her lessons to encourage her students to appreciate the English language. With the “Newsmaker” programme, her students discuss news articles – developing their speech and thinking skills with oral presentations in class. To reinforce the enjoyment of reading and learning English, she introduced an innovative programme called “JEWEL”, where storybooks are used to teach grammar to students instead of textbooks.

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Mr Julian Victor of Rivervale Primary School is constantly inspired to extend the learning process of his pupils beyond the textbook. He strongly believes in group learning and often gets his students to discuss questions in teams, before sharing their answers with the rest of the class. Not only do his students become more immersed in his lessons, they even extended this mode of co-operative learning beyond his classes, tutoring each other and learning from their mistakes. His success stems from his view that the character development of his students comes before their grades. By reducing emphasis on “right” or “wrong” answers, and through group discussions and tutoring, his students are more willing to face challenges, and have become more confident in using Standard English to express themselves.

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Ms Suzaina Koh Nasir of Assumption Pathway School makes it her priority to help her students learn the basics of English. She uses a variety of simple activities with lessons that are easy to grasp so that her students will not be easily discouraged. These activities include giving her students daily proverbs and reminders to jot down in their journals, exchanging morning greetings every day, and using YouTube and music to teach English – all of which help to stimulate learning, increase their vocabulary and encourage writing. Suzaina uses Mood Cards at the start of the lesson to get a better sense of how her students are feeling that day, so that she can better engage them. She also uses Learning Cards which indicate how much they have learnt at the end of the lesson.

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Mrs Lee Poh Lin of Montfort Secondary School still feels as passionately about teaching as she did starting as a trainee teacher. She sets high expectations for all her boys and puts in extra effort to help those who are weaker raise their competency levels by conducting remedial classes on Saturdays and providing individual coaching. She also makes use of learning software such as the “Newsmaker” to teach her students. She constantly looks for ways to create interest and a love for English in her students, a task she finds challenging but essential in order for her students to be attentive and willing to learn. Poh Lin strongly believes in imparting important social values to her students and does so by organising volunteer trips to a hospice regularly. This has made such an impact on her students that some of her former students have returned and requested to continue joining her in volunteering at the hospice.

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Ms Shirley Teo of Teck Whye Secondary School often feels that her students are the ones who taught her how to teach. She believes that a student’s learning process is affected by the mood of the teacher, and always makes an effort to come into class with a smile and lots of humour. In line with this principle, she felt that reading should be perceived by students as fun, rather than a chore, and implemented the Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) programme, which led her and her team of teachers to being voted for the MOE Outstanding Contributions Award in 2008.

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Ms Anna Mathew of Si Ling Secondary School believes that - “We don’t teach math, we don’t teach science, we teach students”. Realising her students were not motivated to study, she introduced debate sessions, incorporated newspaper articles into her lessons and allowed her students to discuss topics they were interested in. Anna brings her favourite books to class, shares with her students the stories but leaves the endings hanging so as to pique their interest and encourage them to read – a method inspired by her own Secondary School teacher. This has resulted in even the unlikeliest student approaching her to borrow the books she shares with them, or asking to visit the library together after school.

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