Teaching Calligraphy

  Last Friday, I went to River Valley Primary School to teach ten girls who are all Chinese Singaporeans calligraphy and they chose calligraphy as their extracurricular activities. It is the first time for me to teach a class, while in the past, I just taught my classmates how to solve some math questions. So, I feel so nervous that I prepared a lot and got up very early on Friday morning.

  It took me nearly one hour to go there, taking MRT then exchanging to buses. When I got there, the students were washing eggshells; maybe they would use those eggshells to paste a painting. The in-charge teacher told me to lead them to the classroom and start my lesson at once. I had considered about which language I should use before the class, English or mandarin. Actually I wanted to use English at first, but when I stood on the teaching stage, I felt if I used English I could not say any words. Thus I had to give up my original idea and say mandarin, the only language I can speak smoothly on the stage. I introduced some knowledge about calligraphy to them and showed them some calligraphy written by some famous calligraphers. The little girls all looked confused by what I was saying and I feel very disappointed when I asked a question and nobody wanted to answer it. Now I understood our tutors’ feelings when we all felt sleepy and no one responded them. After a lot of introductions, I asked them to start writing. Since their hands were small, it was hard for them to hold the brushes tightly. When they were writing, their hands were shaking. I assigned them to write a point in Chinese character, but it seemed a little difficult for them. They wrote quickly and impatiently. I told them when they wrote calligraphy they should calm down and be patient. But since they are children and the nature of children is playing, none of them listen to my advice and still wrote quickly. After a while, they all drew some patterns on paper and I had to require them to write the calligraphy tenderly. Because all my students were girls, they were willing to do as I ordered and nobody was so naughty that she would do something against me. So I felt lucky to teach a class with ten girls. At the end of the class, they all felt bored in writing calligraphy and want to do something else, so next time I would prepare some games to make them feel interesting.

  From that day on, every Friday I will go there and teach them until May. Though the task is quite tiring, I feel very happy when I am with those children. And I believe from this teaching experience I will learn a lot and be more confident.