Mindful English Learning - www.MEL.sg

Swipe 👉 for the “Before”! Is it still possible to make clear progress at P6? When there’s a will, there’s a way 💫😍

The progress in younger learners is always fun to see! Classes are fully online 💻 but homework is handwritten ✏️ and uploaded for marking (also by hand). These samples are from my P2/3 class that’s been with me for 5 months. Looking back, there’s so much progress! 😍💚 Always touched by parents’ support and trust, especially at the initial stages.

Late post of happy news from this year’s batch. I didn’t manage to screenshot everyone’s messages but I think you’ll sense the joy from these few! 😆📱 I’m a big believer of “grades don’t make a person” and not a huge fan of exams, but every year this big exam marks yet another year of teaching for me and makes me feel really proud that some more people out there are using grammar or vocabulary or a persuasive speaking or writing style that we learned together in my class 🤪💚🙌

I checked out the brand new Choa Chu Kang library and of course gravitated to the young readers section 🤓 I love a good picture book! There’s a big misconception that’s children should “grow out of” picture books once they enter primary school. Explore the shelves of and you’ll see so many picture books that contain deep stories and beautiful illustrations that bridge the literal and metaphorical. Through picture books, we can explore figures of speech and storytelling techniques in a condensed format.

Swipe right for some books I found and enjoyed today! All are somewhat related loosely to doing good in our world. 📚

Brings back memories of spending hours at the library and leaving with “stories in my head” and more books in my bag thanks to my entire family’s library cards 😂

Singapore thanks for having me! 📚☺️

🤩 It’s so nice to hear such enthusiastic and happy feedback after I sent out homework comments and materials. Excited for the students in my newest class (P2/3 on Saturday mornings)! Mostly new students so we are starting from the basics!

One-to-one consultations on specific lesson items and reviews on composition 💪🏽 These are always available as an add-on to my current students, if needed. You would notice that all our assignments are handwritten, even though classes are online. Writing notes by hand and completing handwritten tasks to check understanding is essential to knowledge retention! (This is also why I don't print pre-typed notes. Students do have to take control of their own learning!) Looking forward to seeing everyone back in class this weekend! Hopefully we're all easing into back-to-school! 🤪

“Asking for help isn’t giving up, it’s refusing to give up” — there is no shame in asking for help! Sunday reading - ‘The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’ by Charlie Mackesy. I LOVE a good picture book. If you need help with learning English, call 81186948 🤭💚

The tally is in! Some A*/As, some well-deserved Bs, but a whole bunch of kids who should be so proud of themselves for this milestone achieved in the midst of a ! It’s ridiculous how even as adults we can distinctly remember our own PSLE scores and somehow this gives people a feeling of superiority or inferiority - and for what? 😂 There are many more years of learning in life and learning that doesn’t take place in school ☺️ I’m so proud of my students’ achievements this year and so excited to watch them grow into teenagers! On that note I can’t believe my first students have completed Uni this year 😂 phew!

Taught this cool kid since she was P3 and I’m now feeling very proud that we have “Adopt Don’t Shop” units in P2, P3, P4 🤭 This theme can be explored in many ways — in composition exercises, oral practice, opinion writing — but this kid has decided to take the plunge and explore adoption in real life! Not a light decision because as we read in class “pets are our friends and responsibility for life”! So proud of her for making such a big decision. I always tell our learners that language is a tool to make changes in our world whether to make life better for ourselves or for others. The power of words 💚

News articles keep things current in our classroom! Language is a tool to express yourself, and expressing opinions VERBALLY and in WRITTEN form is something we focus on at P2-3. Discussing current trends and topics makes our language lessons meaningful. Students see that the vocabulary and grammar they pick up can be immediately useful in real-life situations. A big lesson to learn for all of us is that opinions will always be varied and there is no one way to think. A lesson for life 😚

WRITING and SPEAKING are productive language skills and a key part of learning any language.

“A lost item” … “Losing something” … “Something that you lost” … We’ve covered this topic several times over the past 3 years for the current P6 batch!

The thing about “spotting questions” is this: It SHOULD NOT matter if the exact topic or exact picture prompts were covered during practice. What SHOULD matter are these things:

✏️ Being sensitive to the topic / theme
✏️ Clearly linking the theme to the picture prompts
✏️ Crafting a meaningful storyline
✏️ Choosing appropriate storytelling styles to suit the story

I’m super proud that our students have these talents and have honed a familiarity with storytelling and reading between the lines that will work for them in Secondary School English Literature classes! Congratulations to another wonderful PSLE batch!