Day+7+18th+JUly

Met an 8 year old boy whose mother is a teacher in Junyuan. They are both back for a holiday/school attachment as the father and the whole family have been in Jakarta the past 4 years (Overseas posting). Mother wants to ascertain if her son is gifted or and/or autistic as the teachers in he international School in Jakarta have brought up the fact that he is intelligent and 'different'. Spent some time talking to him and advised the mother to get a proper profssional diagnosis for him as this would help his school and teachers help him more effectively.

Teachers in Junyuan are working and discussing in groups(TTT)- Good to see a collaborative work culture. As always, the questions that surface are 'what is the impact on the teacher and the pupils?' Has practice changed? Has thinking changed?'

Will be carrying out part deux of teaching/learning cloze. Hope to have a fruitful post lesson discussion using the reflection sheet.

Need to think about what are the most beneficial ways of using my time in school. Need to collect actual pupils sampes of work and observe and work with teachers as they attempt to 'change' practice. Would I need to ask pupils what they thought of lessons carried out- wheteh rit was useful etc? Have not worked with the AL team on their PERI work as well as the writing programme. Hope to carry out writing lessons in 4 Res using Idea Generation and development ideas as well as Feedback/Scafolding protocols.

Had lesson observation. Interesting and fruitful lesson. Saw the eyes and dispositions of thinking and focus. Blissss.Too much packed in. Not enough time. Will have to carry out collaborative cloze lesson later for filming. Teachers want. Short debrief was good experience. LHs from Lower Primary asked how to simplify skills/content for pupils. Teachers liked 'bitesized' activities. Have to see how syllabus and LOs can be tied in with teaching and practice of cloze learning. Tie in with reading. Esp purpose (washback?) Teachers would like to learn more about teaching of writing. They want to observe my lessons with 4 Res. Teachers want to observe practice that gives them ideas they can use (Anchors) to work with - idea of transfer. Then theories that support become obvious? CAn I take this opportunity to dialogue with them on what has influenced their teaching methods/philosophy? Recent graduate of NIE - I wasn't taught how to teach cloze, only STELLAR. I 'm not teaching cloze - teaching cloze as a subset of reading, there are important ideas embedded in my approach. They have to learn to see beyond the technique- the set of moves and instead examine what those moves represent (principles, theories, research)/ They need to look beyond, behind and between.

Told them I would like to help them apply ideas with pre and post lesson discussions and lesson observations.

Always remember, its the people not the structures and processes. They are more forthcoming when they see you teach. They are more forthcoming when they sense your passion and earnestness.

Different dynamics in consultation sessions when you talk about ideas and curriculum and when you talk about actual classroom practice.Both are complimentary.

EPIPHANY TIME RAison de tre for 4M Learning WITH and FROM teachers