Teach English as a Volunteer - 16 Oct 2014

Posted by Xian Jin

My Mum volunteers at a learning centre for Myanmar refugee students in our neighbourhood. This centre is open from kindergarten all the way to upper primary level. She teaches English once a week as a volunteer. The students range from 12 to 19 years old. Sometimes the younger students also join in. During my school holidays, I help my Mum to teach the students.


 On my first experience teaching them - many pairs of eyes stared at me while I stood awkwardly in front of them. Worse still, the younger class had to join in because their teacher was absent. I was really scared and luckily my Mum was there to support me.

My confidence started to wane as class started. My forehead was already sweating and my voice was getting softer. What more, they were giggling here and there and I just wanted to pass on to my Mum.


I shared with them about birds. I explained about birds' characteristics and behaviour and tried to make the lesson interesting. I could tell by their faces that they were enjoying it, with a flicker of recognition when looking at different birds.


Origami cranes! I taught them how to make paper cranes and they loved it. 


My next experience was different. My mum wasn't there to support me. However, I didn't plan to have lessons. I prepared games! They're more open to me this round because they knew me. We had a great time, playing Spelling Bee and others. We didn't even realise that we had passed the school hours!

It's a wonderful morning spending time with them and the experience took away my fear.

'Show and Tell', a nerve-wrecking experience! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Al-Attas Garden in Janda Baik - 4 August 2012

Image
Besides being a well-known contentious writer, little do we know that Syed Hussein Alattas is also a self-taught gardener and an architect. He had built Taman Hana in Janda Baik from scratch and named after his wife.  Taman Hana sits on a 8-acre plot of land in the quiet village of Janda Baik. It boasts a collection of 1,000 species of plants including fruit trees, more than 700 big flower pots and five buildings that include the home of the Alattas family.  The good news is that it is open to visitors every day.  As we made our way past the entrance, this place appeared unkempt. It was well beyond its heyday (in 2008) but still showing off its faded beauty. Some parts were badly neglected, which was so unfortunate, because it originally was to be a quiet kampung retreat. A mix of traditional Malay, Peranakan, Indonesian and colonial British architecture and a Minangkabau styled roof. Syed Hussein had actually started building the structures in 1982 and he spent...
Read more

Discovering Pasir Pinji's Comfort Food - 29 June 2014

Image
Pasir Pinji Road in Ipoh is like a living heritage town. If you google this place, you will see a long list of local delicacies you must try - the famous yong tau foo, chee cheong fun, cendol, roast pork, traditional mooncakes, pastry, etc. On a Sunday, we saw the idyllic lifestyle of the local people - watching the days go by, sipping tea and catching up with friends along the corridor of shophouses, waiting for the takeaway of their favourite food or desserts from the roadside hawkers, sitting in coffee shops and dipping Hainanese buns into their kopi-O or Milo. .. it's like a walk to my childhood years in the 80s.  Ban Guan Foong Bakery has been around for more than 50 years. One of the very few remaining bakeries producing traditional Hainanese bread and buns using wood-fired oven.  A family-run business by the Goh family and some old and loyal workers. Getting ready the wood-fired brick oven  Removing the ashes from the heated oven  ...
Read more

A Potter Village in Sayong - 30 May 2013

Image
Pit Stop at the Perak royal town, Kuala Kangsar. The 1st rubber tree in Malaysia was planted in this town. That's about all I knew about this place. Labu Sayong or water pitcher from Sayong village, known for its health value to help migraine, lower blood pressure etc due to the special properties inherent in the local clay. Before this, we didn't know much of labu sayong.  We didn't go to the village or plan this visit. Out of curiousity, we bumped into this unassuming workshop at No. 3, Kg Setia, Enggor, run by Mohd bin Harun.  Pakcik was very open and gave us a tour of his workshop and how he makes labu sayong. His warm, friendly welcoming people made a lasting impression on all of us - a trait that we've lost in the big cities. The traditional way of making labu sayong uses hands to mould the clay into the shape of a 'labu' (gourd-like vase) but this is too slow. Now, the clay mixture is poured into standard mould blocks. It's ...
Read more