Forum Letter Replies
TLLM aimed at engaging learners
Ms Wu Pei Qi (“Teach Less Learn More is ideal but impractical?”, 17/1) opined that “Teach Less Learn More” (TLLM) might be an ideal which cannot be implemented effectively.
TLLM aims to strengthen the quality of learning by engaging students and motivating them to learn better. It is not about teaching less per se, but teaching differently. It is also not prescriptive. Schools and teachers are encouraged to adopt their own teaching approaches to students to inquire and become active learners.
MOE has been providing schools with more teachers, as well as reviewing the curriculum, so as to create more time and space for teachers to customise their own TLLM approaches.
Schools have been adopting different approaches to make learning more engaging for their students in their efforts to realise the intent of TLLM. In these schools, feedback from students has shown that they are more motivated, enjoy learning more and are able to apply what they have learnt in class better.
In her letter, Ms Wu made reference to remedial lessons being conducted at the start of the year in some schools. Among a class of students, there might be some who may need closer attention or learn at a slower pace. Remedial lessons planned by the schools aim to help such students learn better and consolidate what they have learnt, in order to achieve the desired learning outcomes planned for the class. Based on previous records and analysis of students’ performance, some schools introduce remedial lessons early in the year to address learning gaps from the previous year.
It is our schools’ interest to help each and every student learn better and our schools look forward to working closely with parents to achieve that objective.
Director, Schools
Ministry of Education
“TLLM is ideal but impractical?” (Wu Pei Qi [An educator], My Paper, 17/1, B24)
Children have been facing the reopening of school with mixed feelings. This is because during the school holidays, they woke up late every day. They did not have to do school assignments, and could watch TV and play computer games daily. They were as carefree as they wished. Of course, when school reopens, they get to meet their classmates. Besides learning, they can have a great time playing together. This is another kind of enjoyment. Hence, the re-opening of school can still be considered a happy matter.
However, after enjoying only for a few days, students received the time-table for remedial lessons from their schools. Many students are required to stay back after school to attend remedial lessons at least twice a week. With the addition of CCAs, some students have to spend the whole day in school practically every day, just like the workers. It is no wonder that when students heard that there are remedial lessons, they all frown and complain that studying is tiring!
Actually, staying back after school for remedial lessons is nothing new. However, in the past, remedial lessons were usually confined to classes taking national examinations and students whose results were very bad. In addition, remedial lessons were generally conducted after the March school holidays. This is because some students did not do well in the first school term tests (majority of them failed in their tests or had a borderline score). Teachers hence conduct remedial lessons for them, hoping to help them catch up with the pace of learning by the mid-year examinations held in May.
It is not known since when remedial lessons have become part of the learning package. Not only are remedial lessons started at the beginning of the year, they are no longer confined to students who fail in their tests. Often, students who did not score above 70 in the previous academic year would most probably be named by their teachers to attend remedial lessons.
Frankly speaking, after more than half a day of lessons, most teachers and students would already be exhausted. If schools are to push for a few more hours of lessons for good results, this would be time and effort consuming, yet inefficient to the teachers and students.
Very often, whether a student has the habit of revising his work daily, put in effort to complete his assignments or even being serious towards correcting the mistakes in his assignments, would probably affect the effectiveness of his learning. As long as parents could cooperate and supervise more, such situations can be improved upon, and remedial lessons might not be necessary.
Teachers are eager to conduct remedial lessons at the beginning of the year simply because they want to seize the time to help students catch up with the subjects that they “did not do well” the previous year, in the hope that they will achieve ideal results in their examinations.
Such intentions are no doubt understandable. However, now that MOE keep reiterating the advantages of TLLM, yet schools have done exactly the opposite by being so enthusiastic about remedial lessons, does this mean that teachers or schools themselves actually do not agree with the effectiveness of TLLM? This shows that TLLM is, after all, still an ideal, and seems to be a different matter when it comes to actual implementation.