Started from the corporate world, now she’s here!

Meet Teacher Evette, Head of TTA’s Pri­ma­ry School Eng­lish Cur­ricu­lum Devel­op­ment team. 

Pas­sion­ate and dynam­ic. She is known for her abil­i­ty to cap­ti­vate and engage her stu­dents while con­sis­tent­ly achiev­ing stel­lar exam­i­na­tion results at school. Armed with her unique teach­ing style and unwa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion, Teacher Evette inspires each of her stu­dents to gain a deep­er appre­ci­a­tion of the Eng­lish lan­guage. 

In this inter­view arti­cle, we shine the spot­light on Teacher Evette. We ask her about her love for the Eng­lish lan­guage and how she cul­ti­vates that in her stu­dents. We also take the chance to find out why she chose teach­ing as a career and her dreams for every stu­dent under her tute­lage. 

Q: You could have stayed and done well in the corporate world, why teach?

A: Absolute­ly, I could have stayed in cor­po­rate but I did not enjoy the envi­ron­ment nor the work I was doing. Ini­tial­ly, I thought it was because I was in the wrong role or indus­try. How­ev­er, after try­ing out a cou­ple of indus­tries and roles, from bank­ing to Ven­ture Cap­i­tals and then to con­sult­ing — I realised that I was the hap­pi­est and most ful­filled when I was involved in youth devel­op­ment and edu­ca­tion. I need­ed to do what I like to do for a long time and con­sis­tent­ly. That said, I do not regret my time in cor­po­rate as my expe­ri­ences allow me to share inter­est­ing sto­ries and infor­ma­tion beyond the four walls of the class­room, with my stu­dents. Div­ing deep­er as to why teach­ing, I enjoy the cre­ative process of break­ing down new and com­plex mate­ri­als into teach­able sec­tions. I love the hours I spend in the class­room inter­act­ing with my stu­dents and lis­ten­ing to their sto­ries. I also find great val­ue in the fresh per­spec­tives my stu­dents pro­vide! Their unique (and often less jad­ed) out­look on issues offers me new angles to con­sid­er. Above all, wit­ness­ing my stu­dents grow over the years into peo­ple of their own is my great­est source of pur­pose and moti­va­tion to stay in the teach­ing pro­fes­sion. 

Q: Why did you choose to teach English?

A: Grow­ing up, I was not a ver­bal­ly expres­sive child and I often strug­gled with artic­u­lat­ing my thoughts. How­ev­er, I found it fas­ci­nat­ing and thank­ful that books were able to help me put my thoughts into words. As my pro­fi­cien­cy in Eng­lish improved, I was final­ly able to give voice to my inner­most thoughts and com­mu­ni­cat­ed with oth­ers more effec­tive­ly. I went on to study H2 Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture in Junior Col­lege and that was when I realised that Eng­lish is tru­ly a beau­ti­ful lan­guage and I would choose to teach it in a heart­beat if I were to become an edu­ca­tor. The ele­gance with which words can be woven togeth­er nev­er ceas­es to amaze me, and I am touched by its pow­er to res­onate with me. 

Q: What is your favourite word in English and why does it hold a special place in your heart?

A: My favourite word would have to be “hap­py”. Liv­ing in a fast-paced and com­pet­i­tive soci­ety like Sin­ga­pore, it can be all too easy to over­look our own well-being. It is spe­cial to me because I would like to be some­one who does not for­get to be hap­py no mat­ter how caught up I get with life. A lit­tle TMI but I have the phrase “don’t for­get to be hap­py” as my phone wall­pa­per 🙂 

Q: How do you create a stimulating and engaging environment for your student?

A: I try to utilise a vari­ety of teach­ing meth­ods such as a mix of instruc­tion­al tech­niques. Some days I go old school (lec­ture style) when there is an absolute need for focus, espe­cial­ly lead­ing up to and dur­ing crit­i­cal exam­i­na­tion peri­ods. On oth­er days, when­ev­er I get the chance to, I get stu­dents to role-play or employ inter­ac­tive tech­nol­o­gy tools to keep stu­dents engaged and lessons enjoy­able. This vari­ety helps cater to dif­fer­ent learn­ing styles and keeps stu­dents moti­vat­ed. I often encour­age stu­dent-led dis­cus­sions and active par­tic­i­pa­tion in class too. It is an open secret that when stu­dents are active agents of their learn­ing, they stay engaged and fos­ter crit­i­cal think­ing skills. 

Q: How do you help your students develop a love for the English language?

A: To that end, I pro­vide rel­e­vant mate­ri­als and knowl­edge that link class­room con­tent to real-life sit­u­a­tions in my lessons. For instance, in some Gram­mar class­es, I inten­tion­al­ly jum­ble up the sen­tences and get my stu­dents to deci­pher it. When­ev­er I con­duct this exer­cise, you can see the head scratch­ing, fur­rowed bros and the end­less “huh” that fills the class­room! Through this sim­ple exer­cise, my stu­dents dis­cov­er that if they want to be under­stood, they need to use the cor­rect Gram­mar rules and syn­tax­es. Addi­tion­al­ly, I believe this is where my expe­ri­ence in the cor­po­rate world and a Soci­ol­o­gy grad­u­ate also prove invalu­able. Draw­ing upon my back­ground, I often find myself equipped to engage my stu­dents in dis­cus­sions about var­i­ous real world issues with ease. Ulti­mate­ly, when stu­dents see the rel­e­vance of what they are learn­ing, they are more like­ly to stay engaged and moti­vat­ed rather than see­ing it as “just anoth­er sub­ject”, and hope­ful­ly come to love the sub­ject. 

Q: Could you share a challenging situation you face in the classroom and how you effectively handled it?

A: In my first year as a teacher, I had some stu­dents who required addi­tion­al sup­port and atten­tion in the class­room. Hence, I expend­ed most of my atten­tion towards assist­ing them. This inad­ver­tent­ly caused oth­ers to feel neglect­ed. Occa­sion­al­ly, a few stu­dents voiced their dis­sat­is­fac­tion in class. Although I could not direct­ly address the rea­sons for my dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed atten­tion, a turn­ing point occurred when a stu­dent burst out in class, exclaim­ing, “You’re so biased! Why is it always me who must help? Why is it accept­able for Stu­dent A to do this but not me?”

While tak­en aback and hurt by the out­burst because it was nev­er my inten­tion to make my stu­dents feel that way, I felt a deep sense of grat­i­tude. This inci­dent high­light­ed the impor­tance of main­tain­ing a bal­anced approach to attend­ing to every stu­dent in class. When class end­ed, I approached some of them to dis­cuss the issue open­ly. I began by apol­o­gis­ing for neglect­ing their feel­ings and took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to share the rea­sons that had neces­si­tat­ed my dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed atten­tion. For­tu­nate­ly, my stu­dents dis­played under­stand­ing and matu­ri­ty. They were aware of the com­plex class dynam­ics at play. How­ev­er, this still served as a poignant reminder that regard­less of their matu­ri­ty, my stu­dents should always receive equal care and sup­port from me. 

Q: If you could have a teacher’s ‘superpower’ what would it be and how would you use it to enhance your teaching?

A: It is no secret that teach­ers have to talk a lot and I would like to be able to speak for extend­ed peri­ods with­out strain­ing my throat. Just imag­ine all the pos­si­bil­i­ties! With such a super­pow­er, I will be able to share more sto­ries, deliv­er engag­ing lessons and pro­vide thor­ough expla­na­tions.

Q: Can you share a lesson or an activity that you have found particularly successful in engaging students and promoting active learning?

A: One of my favourite activ­i­ties in class involves select­ing head­lines from news sites and strate­gi­cal­ly blank­ing out cer­tain words. This activ­i­ty was cre­at­ed when I found teach­ing Com­pre­hen­sion Cloze in class to be mun­dane and stu­dents seemed dis­en­gaged. I tried it out with my P6s and they loved it. It not only rein­forces the rel­e­vance of the vocab­u­lary we cov­er in the class­room but also pro­vides an invalu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss cur­rent affairs with my stu­dents, espe­cial­ly top­ics sur­round­ing the pan­dem­ic! This enables them to artic­u­late their thoughts and ideas using the vocab­u­lary and gram­mar rules they have learned in class. Through this process, they not only gain pro­fi­cien­cy in lan­guage expres­sion but also devel­op the abil­i­ty to for­mu­late coher­ent argu­ments, which are impor­tant com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills.

Q: What is your hope or dream for every single child that you have taught and will teach?

A: My wish for my stu­dents is that they will be able to devel­op a per­spec­tive that tran­scends bina­ries and encour­ages open-mind­ed­ness. Rather than accept­ing absolute or one dimen­sion­al nar­ra­tives, I hope that my stu­dents are able to con­sid­er com­plex­i­ties and nuances, care­ful­ly eval­u­ate mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives, before mak­ing their own informed opin­ions. Ulti­mate­ly, I hope for their study of the Eng­lish lan­guage to be a means to that end. 

Q: Finally, I would like to find out more about your hobbies and life outside of teaching. If you could do something for a living where you do not have to worry about how high or low the job pays, what would that be? Oh yes, please do not say teaching.

A: For now, I would love to be a straw­ber­ry farmer! There’s real­ly no deep­er mean­ing to it but I just think that it would be nice to wake up in a place where I’m away from the hus­tle and bus­tle of the city, have a cup of morn­ing cof­fee then head down to a vast plan­ta­tion dot­ted with a lit­tle red. I’ll start my day by pick­ing the straw­ber­ries and the evening are ded­i­cat­ed to cre­at­ing dif­fer­ent types of food with them. 

This arti­cle was proud­ly writ­ten for you by the Think Teach Team. Every year, we impact over a thou­sand stu­dents and empow­er them with our smart tech­niques to achieve exam excel­lence in their school exams as well as the PSLE. We want your child to be our next suc­cess sto­ry!