My Story - Volunteering at a primary school

Posted to Facebook on 31/3/2020 3:44 AM
My Story - Volunteering at a primary school"

I am very fortunate that the school I volunteer in trusted me to assist teachers in three different Years in a single day.

In a normal class, a teacher can only use one method (teaching style) to teach the students. However, when the class teacher assigned me to help small groups each are generally of the same competence level, I can use different techniques to help them understand better.

In my opinion the problem is not about the class size, but the student mix. It does not matter how a young teacher is mentored, they will still be frustrated because the one-size-fits-all method will not achieve an optimal outcome. It is sad that the system got rid of streaming, and therefore the end result is that the overall performance is just average. That my be what Australian culture is about - chopping down the tall poppies!

How can a young teacher deal with a student rolling on the floor crying, or the student keeps saying she is a failure? How can a young teacher cope with naughty or mischievous students who cannot be punished or reprimanded? How can a young teacher just use generic words to describe exact nature of the students' behaviour or the actual performance of the students in the "report card"?

It is not just the young teachers having problems. In fact many experienced teachers are as stressed and frustrated when they write the individual reports.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - A day with the Preppy

Posted to Facebook on 14/3/2020 at 1:11 PM
A day with the Preppy

Written on 29 February 2020

After a long break, I returned to the Prep class again on Tuesday 24 February, I arrived just about 5 minutes early, and the door of the single storey building to the classrooms was closed, but not locked.

There was a long queue of students accompanied by their parents. I think the parents were just as eager to get in the building than the students.

I opened the door of the building which housed several classrooms. Class teacher Mrs G had not arrived yet; so I roamed round and checked out what were on the display boards and on the wall in the classroom.

Mrs G arrived, and opened the door for the anxious parents and students to come in. Overall, they were were well behaved; the cute children walked in a single file but some were holding on to their parents. Surprisingly, none was in tears.

The noise of the excited students and the parents broke the silence. Many parents spoke with the children in Mandarin, while the rest in English. The parents helped the kiddies’ to locate their respective cubical storage to put away their bags and lunch boxes.

There were hardly any Caucasian students, about 10% of the total class enrolment.

Mrs G introduced me to the young students, and they would addressed me as Mr Chan from then on.

The students learn the phonic pronunciation. That is not something I am in favour of.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - My first degree

Posted to Facebook 4/2/2020 10:59 PM
My Story - My first degree

Written on 4 February 2020

The basic degree is just the beginning, and that applies to Malaysia and all other countries, including Australia, that‘s where I am.

In the early days, many male Malaysians came to Australia to study Engineering, economics or accounting. The number of females could be counted just with my fingers.

My HSC results were good enough even for medicine, but I chose science, a course which required much lower score. Many friends were puzzled!

There were two good reasons for my choice:

1. Hardly anyone knew about computers, what they could do and whether there was a future in this unknown field.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RMIT offered computer science course which covered a bit more on hardware then software. However, I chose Melbourne University for a degree course in Information Science which had a few subjects that involved computer logic and programming, plus mathematics. I knew I wanted to study something that would be in great demand in the coming years. I was spot on.

2. I wanted to study a course that required the least time and easier to complete. The sooner I got out of the University, the sooner I could join the workforce “to bring home the bacon”.

I neither studied for my interest, nor for prestige for example to be a doctor. I study for my first employment.

Choosing an easier course meant that I did not impose too much stress on myself, and I could achieve my first major “success” in life with a piece of paper to prove. Like the adage goes, “Success breeds success”!

I shot bulleyes on both.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - A function at Dixon House Neighbourhood Learning Centre

Posted to Facebook on 31/1/2020 at 3:37 AM
My Story - A function at Dixon House Neighbourhood Learning Centre

Dixon House Neighbourhood Learning Centre hosted an event on 28/11/2019 evening to thank the volunteers. I was invited for being a mentor to job seekers and a guest speaker on an occasion.

A few weeks ago, as a guest speaker I gave a 10-minute presentation on Communication and Communication Skill. The content of the presentation covered how to handle Stage Fright.

For people who have met me in person can testify that I have no problems in communicating on 1-to-1 basis or with a large audience.

In my true form, I mingled with many guestsat the volunteer function, including the person who gave impetus for my presentation on communication.

Did he benefit from my presetation? Sure did, and he thanked me for the rechnique in hadling stage fright.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - Learning new math tricks so that I can pass them on to my students

Posted to Facebook on 9/11/2019 at 1:52 AM
My Story - Learning new math tricks so that I can pass them on to my students

Many “students” look forward to the end of their math class to watch and learn new math tricks from me. I can’t let them down, and I won’t, because this is an ideal way to get them interested in math.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been reading and studying math tricks and speed calculation in bed for at least an hour and a half before I sleep.

To my great delight, I am just like Christopher Columbus when he discovered the new world, or Archimedes who figured out the volume of water displaced in a container was the same as the volume of an object submerged in it.

Oh yes, I realise now that many math tricks and speed calculation are based on application of algebra, approximation and rearrangement of numbers in the operation.

What so big deal about such “discoveries”? Knowing how these are derived, I can create my own tricks to intrigue and excite my ”students” further, and develop new methods to help them to break down some “mental blockage”.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - A day with the Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 students

Posted to Facebook on 31/10/2019 at 2:31 AM
My Story - A day with the Prep, Year 4 and Year 5 students

Never I felt so good before. The teachers were so pleased to see me back to help in their classes.

The Prep students learnt Skip Counting using a calculator. They also learnt grouping.

For the second exercise, a small group of students exhibited much stronger cognitive ability by grouping objects by shapes, sizes, thickness, etc instead of colours. Grouping by colours is the simplest and most obvious method used by the rest of the students.

In Year 5, the students learnt function rule, and algebra. In Year 4, the students learnt multiplication of three digits by two digits, with some exercises involved decimals.

I can see a better way to teach the students more efficiently and effectively, but my hands are tied. I am not a teacher, but just to help out.

Many people, including the students, are not good at identifying their shortcomings, and therefore they have problems identifying problems. Without knowing what the problem is, there is no way to remove the hurdle to have a smooth run in the future.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - Create a niche, seize the opportunity

Posted to Facebook on 14/9/2019 at 8:37 AM

This post is more relevant than ever in the present climate

While fluency in English is paramount for people residing in Australia and many other English speaking countries, fluency in other languages including their non-English mother tongue should be regarded as a strength. If no one around speaks your language, then create a niche to teach others.

I am so glad that my Dad gave me the opportunity to study Mandarin / Potong Hua instead of English when I was young. Although I only studied Mandarin for six years in primary school, it gave me the foundation to pursue more even after I changed to an English medium school.

I never intended to adopt an Anglicised name, even after I touched down in Melbourne over 45 years ago. I never thought I had the chance to speak Cantonese and Mandarin again, but I continued to practise my Chinese writing, read Chinese books, and conversed whenever possible in both languages.

My persistence and perseverance paid off. Back in the early 90's, not many "Chinese" could speak Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. My Cantonese was so good that I did not have any trace of Malaysian Chinese accent. A lot of Cantonese thought that I was from Hong Kong.

What a strength I possessed! I was in a good position to sell Melbourne real estate properties to Hong Kong people and later to the early batch of mainland Chinese.

I have the best of both worlds - the Chinese and Western. I understood then that knowledge was power, so I read as much and as many subjects as I could. Although I am not Wikipedia, I do know a great deal of Chinese history as well as Chinese mythology.

Instead of keeping my knowledge in my head, I created a FB page on Chinese Customs and Festivities, written in English, for the enjoyment of Chinese and non-Chinese readers.

No matter where I go, I know I am a Chinese - not a Chinese national, but like what the Aussie says, "a true blue Chinese" with an equal touch of Western/Oz. I am an Australian, born in Malaysia of Chinese descent.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - Sharing my life experience so that others can benefit from it

Posted to Facebook on 8/9/2019 at 1:00 PM
Sharing my life experience so that others can benefit from it

Do not keep your valuable life experience to yourself. Share it. Someone out there may benefit from that experience one day.

On 19/8/19, I mentored 2 migrant job seekers and one of them wrote to the project coordinator her feedback. The following is a transcript:

"Yes meeting went really well with Sin Fong. He shared his experience with me. I was really motivated by his tips and experience so, It will definitely help me with my job hunt in future.

Please say big thanks to Sin Fong on behalf of me. And yeah I think we covered most of the things which I wanted to know. So I don’t think I need to meet him for second time.

Appreciated your help too. It’s a wonderful program for migrants who are really struggling here during their job hunt.

Thanks to u for helping.”

Thank you for reading.

My Story - teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts

Posted to Facebook on 1/8/2019 at 12:44 AM
My Story - teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts

Somehow the school teachers thought that I am only good in mathematics (maths). The three different teachers ask me to assist the students in maths. Oh well, so be it

I easily get my guernsey from the principal, teachers and most importantly the students. I am given a free hand to guide the students to do the class exercises the way I see fit

I have been given the green light to deal with students with learning or behavioral problems individually within the class. It is important that the students need to understand where their mental road block is, and how to find ways to bypass or fix it.

Depending on how much time is left before the class is dismissed, I request from the class teacher permission to teach the students some maths tricks or give them some fun maths facts. The teachers are pretty good and attentive audience to say the least.

It does not matter whether it is a STEM subject or not, it is important to find ways to make it interesting and fun in order to minimise or even eliminate rejection by the students.

I have proven that my black-and-white hair is NOT a barrier or hindrance to join these young children and have communication at their age levels.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - bring students to the attention of their problems and lead then to work out the answers

Posted to Facebook on 16/7/2019 at 5:49 PM
My Story - bring students to the attention of their problems and lead then to work out the answers

I was asked by the Year 4 class teacher to help 2 students to understand why they made mistakes in the online exercises and how to fix the mistakes.

One at a time the student was with me going through the online exercises on a laptop.

The first student is fairly smart. However, he was too hasty and did not pay attention to accuracy

The second did not pay enough attention to question, nor to me when I was explaining

I brought to the attention of their problems, and led them to work out the correct answers or fix their mistakes made in the online exercises.

Student 1 needs to slow down, and double check his work. He will speed up only after he has proven his can do his exercises accuracy.

Student 2 must learn to read all available information, namely question and diagrams very carefully before giving an answer. She must listen attentively, without interrupting the speaker, teacher or instructor. Otherwise, she will miss the explanation and important information.

The students were asked to repeat what they understood about their problems and they had to tell the class teacher the same

The students and the teacher were happy, and so am I.

Thank you for reading.

My Story - Back to school for Term 3

Posted to Facebook on 16/7/2019 at 3:43 PM
My Story - Back to school for Term 3

Back to school first day of third term. I continue to volunteer in Prep and Year 4, but I also want to extent my service to students in different Years

I managed to have a quick word with the school principal, and he said he had a teacher in mind that might need my service in her class.

Lucky me, I shall be helping out in Year 5 class as well next week. In short, that will keep me occupied full day

Thank you for reading.