On 14th May we went to Chaoyang to conduct our 3rd lesson, Simple Accounting & Money Exchange. As the name suggests, we taught the students how to add & subtract sums of money, and the concept of change. At the same time, we did a recap of the previous 2 lessons as well.
Here's the group's reflections...
Zhuo Yang
The lesson we had on 14th May was about money skills. The basic aim was to teach the students how to count money in terms of dollars and cents (which they were quite proficient already), and the concept of change for their customers, which was not that familiar to the 5 girls. The logistics which we prepared for this lesson were a menu with prices stated for different food, and sets of notes and coins for them to fiddle around with money and learn the concept of change.
The place we were in today was the internet café once again, and the environment was very conducive. The ventilation was good and the place was well-lit. We worked as a whole big group explaining the change, before breaking up into smaller groups to ensure that every single student understands their concept of change. After that, we made them do the full practice of serving, and it was also a form of recap, as they had to use the 6 sentences from the 1st lesson and apply courtesy from the 2nd lesson, as well as prepare Milo drinks and biscuits before collecting the money and returning the change to the customer. It was a good ending for the lesson.
I think that the major problem we had was to allow the students to know why there is a need to return change. This is because they were previously exposed only to direct transactions, while they might not have been exposed to this by their families as well. The body language of the girls told me that some already had a clear picture of the concept of change crystallized in their mind, thus they were getting fidgety and frustrated; while others’ body language told me that they were completely lost and still didn’t get the concept, thus they were clutching their hair or looking dejected. If we had done this activity by using simple analogies using sweets, etc before moving on to money, it might have achieved better results as they could see the issue in a simple manner. The main problem is that they did not see the unfairness of paying $2 for something worth $1, while they might have seen the problem had we used 2 sweets exchanging for only 1 sweet.
When I first got there, I felt quite confident that we would pull off the lesson well as we had improved from our previous sessions by having more preparations before the class/ However, my feelings changed when I realized that some students did not seem to be able to grasp the simple concept of change at all. I learnt that some of my peers are really patient and good at thinking on their feet for analogies, while others might have been a tad too impatient. I am particularly proud of guiding the student to see that if 1 Milo packet = $1 and she got $1, change would not be needed, but if she got $2, change would be needed, and also the method to calculate the amount of change to be returned to the customer.
There weren’t any problems which I saw today. Perhaps our group should review the video-taping of our lessons and try to pick up the way Mrs. Suwandi explained mathematical concepts to the students, and model our lessons in the same way. In the next lesson, we shall do a sum-up of all 3 lessons through doing a worksheet and a practical session, before we end off with an evaluation survey with the kids to find out their thoughts about this programme. That would help us a great deal in improving for the lessons after the June holidays as well.
Samson
Today, we taught the same 2 classes as last time. The topic that we were to focus on for the lower primary class was money while the older students were still learning about courtesy.
Just as we anticipated, money exchange was much harder to teach than the previous two topics. This is because it involves change and calculations which the students were still unable to cope with. Nevertheless, we started off by asking them simple addition and subtraction questions which they were quite good at. However, the moment it became money, they seem to be unable to apply what they know about addition and subtraction in getting change. We tried getting them to add up cents and dollars. However, this did not work and we were stuck. Luckily for us, Mrs Suwandi is very experienced in this and gave us a demonstration on how to teach the students about money by counting only in dollars so tat it is easier for them to understand. This was a great learning point for us as we learnt that we have to adapt to the situation and find new methods to teach the students if we are unsuccessful. In order to facilitate teaching, we decided to split the students into 2 groups. To my surprise, the students in my group learnt quite fast. Although they were unable to understand how to give chance at first, they never gave up and kept asking us to teach them again. I felt a sense of satisfaction when they finally learnt what exactly is change. Perhaps in order to further make our teaching more effective, we should do 1 to 1 teaching. One of the students was a exceptionally fast learner and understood our lesson quickly. She was very enthusiastic and kept trying to teach the other 2 students how to give change. On the other hand, one of the students got very frustrated as she was unable to get what we were trying to say. We wanted to continue to teach her the next lesson but she insisted on continuing. When she finally got it in the end, the smile on her face was really touching.
As for the higher primary class, there was definitely a great improvement from the first lesson in terms of enthusiasm. They were more open to us this time and were more confident in the speech. However, there is still a need to boost their confidence, especially when speaking as they are going to be waiters in the café in the future. We taught them courtesy this lesson and I could clearly see that they were already very polite. We had a new student this time and I must say, he is quite a fast learner. He remembered the 6 sentences quickly when we taught it to him. When they were practicing being a waiter, I could see the effort that they were putting in to speak as loud and confidently as possible. I am sure that with time, they would definitely improve further and exceed our expectations. In order the help them boost their confidence, I feel that we should try to be even more enthusiastic ourselves by learning from Mrs Suwandi. Somehow, there was something in Mrs Suwandi’s voice that always made the students respect her.
Overall, I would say that this was a very meaningful lesson and I hope that our last lesson with these students would be even more successful.
Keng Chee
It is the second last lesson that we are going to have with the students at Chaoyang for this term, and I think there was much to learn today, like in every other day.
Handling money was something that I take as second nature, something that I have taken for granted. However, during today’s lesson on handling money with the 4/1 class, and while going through the concept of value and change again, I found some difficulty to explain my point to the students clearly. I believe this is something that I have to improve on, to think from the children’s position and try to better understand what they are thinking and what they are confused about. Not only that, I think I’ve got a lot to learn from Mrs. Suwandi about handling children and earning their respect. I’ve come to learn that only with respect and greater understanding, can I be more effective as a teacher and as a friend.
Besides that, I’ve learnt another lesson today, and that is the fact that different people have different strengths and weaknesses. Like the case of *****, she’s good at speaking up and expressing her viewpoint, however she is weaker at understanding concepts of change. The case was vice-versa for ****** as she grasped the concept very quickly, although she’s slightly weaker in terms of people relations and being more outspoken. It’s a whole new experience as I began to learn about the need for me to adapt to situation and try to provide my support in different ways for different people.
All these are special experiences, and with this reflection, I’ll look forward to the last lesson in this term with them where I am given the opportunity to serve and learn myself.
Eugene
Back to chao yang again we went, with grit, determination, and definitely with expectant hearts. It’s been quite a few sessions with these students, and what I think is that we are really starting to get used to them. I no longer see them as individuals who are of slight disabilities, but as people whom we can have a mutual partnership with. This is honest really, without much reflection, my mindset has changed. And I like it
Well, the first session was with the level 4s. They were as usual, more than lively, happy and raring to go. Firstly, we tried to teach them money exchange. We thought it would be pretty simple. Nothing much but just telling them how to give back $2 if you gave a 10-dollar note and the price was $8. Or so we thought. Turns out they had a hard time learning it.
First learning point, Visual learning! Mrs. Suwandi immediately interjected, and showed us an example of teaching them how to count. “Put the bigger number in your head, say 10”, she says, “Then put up fingers representing the small number, and count back words”. “12, 11, 10, 9!”, Went the children. It was so much simpler for them that way. It was a good lesson learnt for us. It bears testament to the fact that we must always seek to refine our teaching methods, and brainstorm ways to teach the children. Sometimes, the simplest of things are the hardest to teach.
The students are getting more and more courteous, to our delight, they remember the 6 sentences taught to them on how to great someone, and how to exercise service with a smile. Its great knowing what you teach makes an impact.
The year sixes were their usual quiet and reserved self, but on this day they brightened up a bit, bothered to show a bit more of their emotions. They reacted to the teaching of courtesy, but sometimes it is still difficult to get a response from them.
I have always been reflecting about the students, it’s high time I reflect about our group’s own growth. After all, its SERVICE-learning. I feel that we’ve become more and more bonded as a group. Meeting online to settle something isn’t very tough now. We can stay focused more now. It’s our second year together, and the group dynamics keeps improvement. We have zhuoyang, the leader, objective and task oriented. Keng Chee the people’s relation guy, always on the ball and forthcoming, Samson, who has got to be one of the best researchers of articles and what not. And Chun Yin and I, the sparks with the ideas at the crucial moments. At least that’s what I think, everyone is really getting better. I think it’s a challenge being in service learning, because as a group, learning to shift our focus to service from doing a research project is challenging.
Chun Yin
This time we taught two classes again. Having prior experience in teaching, our team was able to start the lesson well by catching their attention.
We first started off with a simple introduction and some recap of what they have learnt in the previous few lessons. The P4 students responded well, whereas the P6 class was less responsive and more shy. For the P4 class, one teaching strategy that we used that worked effectively is by splitting the class into 2, with Eugene and myself taking one part of the class. The two students that we worked with were very responsive and participated actively in our teaching. However, they are rather weak in terms of simple money exchange. For the courtesy and serving etiquette, they could remember what we taught them quite well.
One thing that we should think about changing is the tone of the class. For our (Eugene and I) lesson, we adopted a rather lenient attitude; even though the students made a lot of noise and did not take the lesson seriously at some times, there wasn’t any strict scolding or whatever, because Eugene and I felt that it was not needed. To a certain extent, the two students took our patience for granted, and became more noisy and talkative towards the end of the lesson. Perhaps there is no need for a strict scolding or whatever; the students are just being enthusiastic and responsive, but there is a need to make sure the students know that it is a lesson after all and proper behavior is needed for efficient learning.
As usual, at the end of the lesson, a summary/recap of the entire lesson was conducted, and this is something that is good and should be continued. For our last lesson this Wednesday, we are planning to do up some worksheets and an evaluation form for them to complete, both for us and them to see how much they have benefited from the lessons.
Overall, I would say the lessons that are being conducted are quite successful. Not only do the students in our class benefit from our lessons, at the end of the day, this entire thing is a good experience.
Okay yeah we'll be learning how to blur images really soon then we'll be able to open this blog to the public again... That's all for now, next lesson will be on 21 May.
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