What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you have to make.
-Jane Goodall-
Hello and howdy fellow Hivers!🤗 I hope everyone is doing great wherever you are! As a language teacher, there are a lot of challenges that I encountered especially in dealing with my students' language and reading problems.
In today's blog, I'm going to share with you how I and other Language teachers tried to address our students' reading problems by conducting some activities during the "Pambansang Buwan at Araw ng Pagbasa 2022" or the "National Reading Month/Day 2022"
Kick-Off Activity
The School Level Reading Month celebration officially opened with a kick-off program facilitated by the Filipino & English coordinators.
These photos are not mine but taken from the school's Facebook album.
The School Head became the Mystery Reader of a Filipino storybook during the school's flag-raising ceremony as the highlight of the Kick-off activity.
This photo is not mine but is taken from the school's Facebook album.
The students looked very interested and glad to hear the first-time the School Principal told them a story.
Reading Pantry
This photo is not mine but is grabbed from the school's Facebook album.
From then on, an accessible Reading Pantry was set up at the School Stage with a variety of English and Filipino reading books for all the students to read in their free time.
In order to push the students to read, each learner was given a Reading Challenge Log to write the title and author of the fifteen (15) books he/she has read including the answer in each of the reading episodes.
Photos below are not mine but taken from the English & Filipino Teachers' Group chat.
Junior High and Senior High School students alike take the challenge of the fifteen (15) stories or more to read for the whole month of November.
Book Talk
In order to allow the students to communicate and improve their speaking skills, a 10-minute each day of their English or Filipino class period were devoted to the learners sharing a book they have read from the Reading Pantry through a Book Talk.
These Grade 7 students lead the storytelling activity in their English and Filipino classes. Photos not mine but taken from my co-teacher's photo collection.
This is a Grade 10-student who confidently shares the story she has read in the book from the Reading Pantry. Photo taken using my Vivo1919 camera.
Read-A-Thon
The celebration continued as the students' reading comprehension skill was challenged through the Classroom Level Read-A-Thon.
The modified mechanics of the Read-a-Thon challenge is given below:
The English/Filipino teacher shall divide his/her class into different teams of three (3) members. Each team shall be given copies of a story in Filipino/English to read in thirty (30) minutes. Comprehension and vocabulary questions shall be taken from the story.
The teacher/quiz master will ask six (6) questions in three (3) rounds about the given story with the following categorization: Easy, Average, Difficult, and a Clincher in case of a tie. The team that gets the highest points until the last round shall win the read-a-thon challenge.
The Grade 10 students raise their tagboards to show their answers to the reading question given by me, their English teacher. This photo is taken using my Vivo1919 camera.
The Grade 12 students proudly show their tagboards in answer to the question raised by me, their Filipino teacher. The photo was taken using my Vivo1919 camera.
The Classroom Level Read-A-Thon winning team was able to qualify in the grade-level competition.
The photos below show the Read-A-Thon competition where teams from different grade levels met and competed in the championship round.
These photos are not mine but grabbed from those images sent by my co-teacher at our Group Chat (GC).
Araw ng Pagbasa
The Araw ng Pagbasa in local dialect or the Reading Day came when everyone not only the students but also the teachers and the administrative staff simultaneously dropped everything and read using any reading material available on hand.
As teachers were instructed to take some quick photos on this day, a lot of photos were sent thru our group chat (gc) and I grabbed these photos to share in this blog.
The Grade 7- 10 students looked very serious in the simultaneous reading activity.
These photos are not mine but from my co-teachers' photo compilation.
The School Head and his administrative assistants also participated in the simultaneous reading held at 9:00 a.m on that day.
Dress Up Your Favorite Book Character
One of the highlights of our Reading Month celebration was the activity where the students revealed their favorite book character by dressing up like this certain character.
The winners of the classroom-level competition were selected by their English or Filipino teachers to take part in the school-level competition against other grade-level contestants.
These photos were taken using my Vivo1919 camera.
I must admit I was quite amazed at how resourceful our students were in trying to come up with their costumes at a very low cost or no expense at all!
These students brought us to tears as they portrayed their characters in the elimination round done in the classroom.
The Culminating Day
The most awaited part of the celebration came. The Culminating Day of the whole month reading activity. The Final Round of the "Dress Up Your Favorite Character" competition was the highlight of the show.
Everything was set. The stage, the venue, the board of judges, and especially the contestants.
Being the program coordinator, I facilitated the flow of the activity designating the proper tasks for the right people in order to accomplish our goal for the day.
The School Head and two of his administrative assistants are requested to be on the board of judges during the conduct of the "Dress Up Your Favorite Book Character" contest.
The show started with the contestants presenting their production number dressed in their favorite book character. The audience went wild upon seeing the cosplayers dancing in their book character costumes.
My apologies for this blurry captured photo. This is a screenshot of the part of the video
taken during the contestants' production number.
The Awarding Ceremony
At last! The time had come for the winners in all the contests conducted in the whole month's celebration to be given awards and recognition.
Some of these shots are shown below:
Photos below are mine taken using my Vivo1919 camera.
Everyone was shocked when the official results of the "Dress Up your Favorite Book Character contest was announced.
Photos taken using my Vivo1919 camera.
This cosplayer portraying Sisa (on the left), a character in the famous book of our Philippine National Hero, Jose Rizal entitled "Noli Me Tangere" (or "Touch Me Not" in English) came out the Winner in this Dress Up Your Favorite Book Character contest while the cosplayer dressing up as "Maleficent" (on the right), a character in the fictional story Sleeping Beauty, grabbed the "Best in Costume" and "Best in Production Number" awards.
It was, indeed, a fruitful reading month celebration as I saw the students not only enjoying the reading activities but also learning a lot from them!
When teachers make the right move, it surely will create a big difference!
I just hope our students would keep the spirit and enthusiasm in learning more by developing the habit of reading themselves!
This is all for today's blog guys. Thank you for reaching this far reading this diary of a language teacher!
God bless us all!🤗