What Students Must Do to Improve their Grades
"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere." Barack Obama
I have been teaching for 11 years. I was able to teach several subjects already: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Technology and Livelihood Education, Computer, Christian Living and English. Every time I am assigned to teach a subject I give my best. I decline to teach if I do not know the subject, or that I cannot study and learn it. In all cases, however, I am knowledgeable of the subjects I teach. I have special fondness for English though, and this is what I can teach the best of all. To prepare me more, I took short courses on teaching English as a second language. I attended several seminars and updating on teaching strategies for English. I read a lot and invested on good books for both content and teaching strategies for English as a foreign language. In all of these things I have done, I learned that English as a second language should be taught with the end result of the student being able to communicate - the transactional function of the language. Structure and meaning are important but the function should be better emphasized. This is always in my mind whenever I am teaching English to the seniors.
There are four macro skills to learn in English as a language: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Each of this macro skill has several minor skills under it which every student in English has to master. This is specially important if the student is in his senior year in high school. Senior English is mastery of all the basic skills in English as a second (ESL) or foreign (EFL) language. A fourth year high school student, therefore, must have mastered almost all the skills. The only exception is formal scientific research, which in the DepEd list of learning competencies is still to be taken up in the last year of high school. I am not expecting my fourth year English students to be able to write a good research paper. They are still to learn it this year. However, I am expecting them to be able to listen analytically and appreciatively to almost anything. I am also expecting them to transact business orally in English, classroom recitation included. I am also expecting each one of them to be able to write a decent three-paragraph composition. Over and above the three is reading comprehension. I am expecting all the seniors to be able to read beyond the lines. These are my minimum expectations before any of my English IV student can have a good grade.
Whoever fails, therefore, in my subject is being challenged to prove to me that he is worthy to be a senior student. There are students who failed already. Let the failure be a challenge to those who failed. Self-knowledge is in order here. Any student who failed must go into deep introspection and discover why. He should ask, "Why did I fail? Which skills have I not mastered that is why I did not get a passing mark for the first grading period?" The process of getting down to the roots of one's failure is an utmost exercise of humility. Do I really need to learn some more? What else are expected of me? Have I been idle and wasting time instead of studying my lessons? One cannot keep on blaming what has not been done in the previous years, which ought to have been mastered already as of fourth year. Clearly, it is one's own fault now why the minimum skills for English IV have not been mastered yet. Know why because it is and it will not ever be late to re-study what has not been understood very well. It will not ever be late at all to restart even from scratch. Time and effort will only be wasted if one continues to believe and have a false assurance that he knows his English only because the English IV teacher did not fail the obviously erring but pitiful student.
"Making your mark on the world is hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But it's not. It takes patience, it takes commitment, and it comes with plenty of failure along the way. The real test is not whether you avoid this failure, because you won't. it's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere." Barack ObamaI have been teaching for 11 years. I was able to teach several subjects already: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Technology and Livelihood Education, Computer, Christian Living and English. Every time I am assigned to teach a subject I give my best. I decline to teach if I do not know the subject, or that I cannot study and learn it. In all cases, however, I am knowledgeable of the subjects I teach. I have special fondness for English though, and this is what I can teach the best of all. To prepare me more, I took short courses on teaching English as a second language. I attended several seminars and updating on teaching strategies for English. I read a lot and invested on good books for both content and teaching strategies for English as a foreign language. In all of these things I have done, I learned that English as a second language should be taught with the end result of the student being able to communicate - the transactional function of the language. Structure and meaning are important but the function should be better emphasized. This is always in my mind whenever I am teaching English to the seniors.
There are four macro skills to learn in English as a language: listening, speaking, reading and writing. Each of this macro skill has several minor skills under it which every student in English has to master. This is specially important if the student is in his senior year in high school. Senior English is mastery of all the basic skills in English as a second (ESL) or foreign (EFL) language. A fourth year high school student, therefore, must have mastered almost all the skills. The only exception is formal scientific research, which in the DepEd list of learning competencies is still to be taken up in the last year of high school. I am not expecting my fourth year English students to be able to write a good research paper. They are still to learn it this year. However, I am expecting them to be able to listen analytically and appreciatively to almost anything. I am also expecting them to transact business orally in English, classroom recitation included. I am also expecting each one of them to be able to write a decent three-paragraph composition. Over and above the three is reading comprehension. I am expecting all the seniors to be able to read beyond the lines. These are my minimum expectations before any of my English IV student can have a good grade.
Whoever fails, therefore, in my subject is being challenged to prove to me that he is worthy to be a senior student. There are students who failed already. Let the failure be a challenge to those who failed. Self-knowledge is in order here. Any student who failed must go into deep introspection and discover why. He should ask, "Why did I fail? Which skills have I not mastered that is why I did not get a passing mark for the first grading period?" The process of getting down to the roots of one's failure is an utmost exercise of humility. Do I really need to learn some more? What else are expected of me? Have I been idle and wasting time instead of studying my lessons? One cannot keep on blaming what has not been done in the previous years, which ought to have been mastered already as of fourth year. Clearly, it is one's own fault now why the minimum skills for English IV have not been mastered yet. Know why because it is and it will not ever be late to re-study what has not been understood very well. It will not ever be late at all to restart even from scratch. Time and effort will only be wasted if one continues to believe and have a false assurance that he knows his English only because the English IV teacher did not fail the obviously erring but pitiful student.
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