“I work with a classroom of learners. One of the learners is me.” – this is the guiding belief and philosophy that Rosvinder abides by as a teacher. Constantly learning, she studies the curriculum and uses her knowledge gained through years of experience to build upon teaching strategies that will best meet the needs of her primary school students. Realising that her pupils are IT-savvy, she widely utilises ICT as a valuable tool that engages and promotes learning among pupils. For example, to develop her pupils’ oracy skills, she uses Screenr, an online software which allows pupils to record and learn from the mistakes they make in their oral discussions. This has helped encourage even the shy pupils to open up and record their own readings.

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Jacqueline believes in delivering lessons that are meaningful and fun for her students. She uses humour and wordplay in her lessons to add interest and reads entertaining stories, which she has written, to her classes. She also firmly believes that pupils need to have a strong foundation in grammar, built through systematic and explicit instruction. For many of her pupils, writing is one of the most challenging skills to master. Thus, she actively helps her pupils to develop their writing skills by providing good examples and a clear and practical guide to writing well-structured, entertaining stories.

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Wee Miang’s objective in teaching English is to lay a good foundation for her pupils to be able to read, write and speak the language effectively for a lifetime. One of the methods she uses to achieve her objective is a set of hand signals which she developed and uses with her class. These signals alert the presenter if he or she needs to speak with more clarity or improve his or her rhythm. This way, the presenter is able to improve with minimal disruption from the class. Wee Miang also worked closely with her colleagues to conceptualise a Writing Framework that helps teachers to teach students how to write well and provide pupils with the scaffolding necessary to do so.

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Charissa Chan believes that fun and games are key to unlocking children’s enthusiasm for learning – when they are engaged, they learn more effectively. To develop a school of confident learners with a love for the English language, Charissa, together with a colleague, pioneered the Primary 4 literature programme in 2010. Besides developing an awareness and appreciation for the creative use of language, Charissa uses literature to teach comprehension skills and simple literary concepts. The lesson incorporates listening, speaking, reading and writing and engages all the five senses. The literature programmes has proven to be a success as many have expressed their desire to see it being implemented at the Primary 5 level as well.

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Ignatia Wong enjoys integrating music into her English lessons as she realises that young learners respond especially well to music and movement. Putting this approach to good use, Ignatia adapts familiar tunes to reinforce the alphabet, telling the time, the use of questions words and grammar. This enhances learning and helps her pupils to easily remember and recall what she has taught.

To help weaker pupils, she provides structured scaffolding to cater to the different ability groups in her class. This includes breaking down a writing exercise into smaller parts and getting the class to piece the story together. This exercise also allows pupils to work in groups and boosts their confidence in writing.

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One of the main beliefs that shape Jared’s teaching is that language teaching is enhanced if it is integrated with the teaching of thinking skills and moral reasoning. For example, Jared tasks his class to craft and critique cause-effect chains of action when creating a story so that they can discover their own logical flaws in terms of story progression, a skill that his students can also apply to other subjects. Another example would be Jared’s “Walk-the-Talk” programme that requires students to tackle a fictional text, a non-fiction text and a video to develop their critical thinking skills and help them acquire greater general knowledge, oracy skills and improved comprehension skills.

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Hui Ping’s approach to teaching is simple: love what you are learning, learn along with your students. The ability to think and write well, analyse and express an idea lucidly and rigorously is a gift, and she has taken steps in her career to help students realise that. This has led Hui Ping to pilot, plan and write the school’s Philosophy curriculum. Philosophy has benefited her students in developing logical thinking habits which have greatly contributed to their skills in oral presentation, exposition writing and tackling Stimulus Response Question tasks. Hui Ping also incorporates ICT tools, audio visual aids, kinaesthetic and oral activities in her lessons to cater to the needs of all kinds of learners in her classroom.

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Ahmad enjoys using references from media and pop culture to enliven his class of teenagers. In a lesson teaching the usage of similes and metaphors, he created videos, including his own original video mash ups, of examples in music and film to allow his students to learn in a context familiar to them. Ahmad also designed the “Graphic Novel Project” as a platform to encourage higher order thinking, teach visual literacy as well as elements of drama such as tableaux. An active user of ICT where appropriate, his students used Google Docs while working on the Project, allowing them to engage in real time collaborative work.

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Solastri Suyot strives to provide a rich language learning experience to all her students. She is always mindful that she is there with her students to construct knowledge and meaning about themselves and the world through the English language. Some of the many English activities she has conducted for her class include a Spelling Bee, poetry recitation and Reader’s Theatre. The Reader’s Theatre took students through the entire process of writing and performing an original story – students researched on the theme, plotted story maps, took meeting minutes and finally the winning group presented their story to the entire school during morning assembly. Students were engaged throughout the whole process and many became excited and enthusiastic about reading as a result.

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