Monday, August 30, 2004

Back to school teachers' meeting

Our day classes have resumed (after summer break), and as with every year, we start off with a teachers' meeting. A few notes:
  • All of our classes have to make two oral presentations per year, same as last year, but this year they'll be required to use an overhead projector or Power Point (per Bossman). I asked him if a beamer (for the Power Point presentations) had been ordered, and he assured me that one was on it's way. I then asked him about a laptop, and he looked puzzled. I followed that question up by asking him how on earth students were supposed to do Power Point presentations with a beamer and no laptop, and he said, 'Good point, I'll order a laptop soon.'
The next two are from the 'Information for teachers' handout we received at the meeting:
  • 'Dictations will be given during correspondence classes this year. The correspondence teacher has to give all dictations, but the grade will be counted as a grammar grade, not correspondence.'  
That struck me as odd. If it's going to be a grammar grade, then why not have the grammar teachers give the dictations as we did the previous two years?
  • There is no standard or fixed grading scheme. The only thing that is important is that teachers give the office the grading scheme according to which they want to grade an exam in advance.
A school without a standardised grading scheme. Imagine that! This also means that we can use different marking schemes for ever exam if we want. How bizarre!