Last Thursday, I thought I could sit back and jot something down in my blog during the weekend. Well, at least I am doing it now. But, last Thursday, my name was put up in a list for a meeting about 'Kelas Tusyen Untuk N6 Tupong' which is sponsored by YB Datuk Daud Abdul Rahman.
The purpose of that tuition class is to give opportunity to students who are from hardcore poor n low income families plus their hardcore poor academic performance to learn something that could improve their academic ability. When I studied the list of candidates for the class...its so sad to say that 98% of them scored E for all the subjects that will be tutored for them. I can't stop thinking how am I going to deal with this.
I kept trying to figure out..what did they learn since kindie or pre-school? If learning the English language is a problem, why are they doing so bad in Bahasa Malaysia?
Didn't the learn anything in the past eight years of their early schooling life? And why is this happening to students in town schools?
Do these students have learning difficulties and disabilities? No one can say for sure because they are not attending a special school....they have never been medically checked I suppose. Shouldn't that be done once the parents or teachers detected or noticed that they were not performing at least as average in their studies? I mean, I have watched some documentaries and even movies based on true stories about children who were suspected with learning disabilities and difficulties were given tests and evaluation in order to help them in their studies. Once the results were positive, these children were sent to special classes that could accommodate their special needs. These children even teenagers looked as normal as any other kids but they were different and special in their own way.
So, what about the fourteen year olds that I have to tutor starting from next Tuesday? For one thing I know, I cannot teach them the way I normally teach in formal classrooms because these kids need special attention and special programs that could help them to at least read simple words or phrases and write short sentences.
Thats the additional duty...to be a tutor for these English illiterate kids and to find some simple ways and materials to help these kids read and write in English....
