Muscat: Maybe the pandemic brought in many challenges with it, but for one passionate teacher who wanted to help her students learn it has been a period of creativity.
Meet Amal Khalifa al Saadi, whose young students learning English were a bit confused when the talk of COVID-19 came about and subsequently interrupted the class. For Amal it was a question of how to complete the set portions and keep them practising what they have learnt as in the case of every language – the more you practise the better.
All her students come from Arabic speaking families and in her quest to keep up with the lessons she sought the help of technology. Initially it was powerpoint presentations and short videos through WhatsApp to complete the units.
“Afterwards it was my friend who requested the methods that I use to teach my little ones. And that brought about the You Tube Channel. I am very happy that I was able to help many children and most importantly mothers,” said Amal.
Amal has been teaching first and second graders and her focus is mainly Jolly Phonics Project.
“I felt as a teacher we must find alternative ways to reach our young students. For example, distance learning is something we can focus on during this time. So I have been trying hard to develop myself on my own to catch up with technology and programmes and some websites that can help us. So I thought of the YouTube Channel to teach reading and other units. I am not sure what more I can do but what I am looking forward to is to get into more advanced technology for incorporating tools into my teaching and facilities that helps us to be more creative and excel in areas we had never thought about before,” Amal reflected.
On the other hand, she points out that she is missing her young students in the school who are a source of energy and inspiration.
“When you have that energy in school it gives life and I think I am missing seeing them and their stories and ideas that they share with me. It is a very good part that we probably did not look into much earlier. Maybe I did not appreciate it much. But it is only a period and we will pass it with God’s grace. I believe we might be going through some discomfort now but we will come out of it with more benefits,” she noted.
She was always keen on design activity booklets but it is during this period she realised about the importance of interaction.
“I realise we need to be more interactive than before the pandemic. So I am looking forward to being more professional during this part of my life as a teacher,” she said.
So far she has been attending online classes, “Until now I have been an attendee and now I would like to be the presenter and use the methods to teach my students and hopefully I will succeed,” Amal said with hope and confidence.
No wonder she is known as the Teacher Hope – the name of her YouTube Channel.
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