AEP Blog #2.1 “A retrospective blog”

 Salutations dear reader! Welcome back to your daily dose of Ayesha’s AEP blog. 

Okay, just a heads up; My writer brain is not functioning, unfortunately it never does after a long break. I think I need some spicy tofu, or some strawberry shakes( yes, its plural) or maybe a good ol’ slap on the back to wake me up internally. 

DO I NEED SOME BOLD LETTERS? Italics? underlined?

Definitely not a crossed out one. Maybe I can put it for my definitely right comments…hehe

Now with all that aside, I have to give myself a pat on the back. 

I did well, I did the best I could do within that time. Perhaps I can do better, perhaps I could’ve just worked harder, perhaps I could’ve done better if I had more time…et cetera

My reasons could go on and on, but what I know for sure is that I did the most I could’ve done with all my circumstances. I may not be proud, satisfied and full of glee but I think I’ve accepted what I have done because it wont change. 

Now! Lets take a look back in term 1.

Although I cannot just bullet point each and every activity we did throughout these 3 months, allow me to tell you a general idea of what I personally learned — whether literally AEP-related or not. 

This blog will be structured a little differently, lets have it numbered and all organized! 

1. Writing IELTS graph essays ( or descriptive essays…or any essay…) 

Frankly I always thought, “Gee! Im good at writing essays,  I love words! I love English!” (I seem to be manipulating myself, attempting to change reality and abusing my phycological health ) This colloquial term is otherwise referred to as “Gaslighting”. I never enjoyed English class, no matter who the teacher was. I just can’t seem to find myself enjoying words in general. Playing around with words and learning how to write such fantastic stories with perfect punctuation, grammar and structure. It sounds like a dream to me, and although the dream is possible for many, I find it hard to make myself so passionate about a skill that I’ve had so much trouble with. 

All these years I havent been so constricted in my writing unlike right now.  I’ve been used to following my own flow in writing an essay. The only difference is perhaps the word count, the topic or just adding a few subheadings here and there. I have always written the way I have done for the past 10 years of my school life, with only additional spelling, writing and constructing techniques that almost everybody learns once they enter middle school. Once I started year 10 AEP, I learnt how we will be doing essays. These essays however, are much more different than what I imagined them to be. They were factual, they had to be descriptive and they had to have a specific structure that was one I was not used to at all. Especially the vocabulary. This type of essay writing changed the way I view my essay tasks, and after doing a few in AEP classes, I find myself a little more confident with my essay structure but of course I know I have a lot to improve on in every aspect of writing that essay. 

Looking back, I think I should’ve tried focusing more on the structure of the graphs. I would always write about the graph in little mini parts, disregarding the hierarchy of importance and explaining it in a way where someone would fall asleep because I would never get straight to the point. (Im now contemplating about my blog, but this is a blog— not a graph essay). I am looking forward to see my progress, hopefully my flexibility with essays will be much better. Not to mention how I analyze graphs in general! 

2. Emphasizing the importance of learning 

This is the first time I’ve ever felt this. 

You know, I’ve always just studied again and again, following my normal schedule and getting marks that I like to see. I work and I relax, its a give and get mechanism and although it does fail sometimes, it is the way I function as a student. For the first time, I have felt intimidated to push forward. I can’t really go into detail but I really felt scared to ask, scared to learn and the learning environment for me was a place I wanted to leave in immediately. I have always been taught to never feel shame in asking for help, “Its the teacher’s job to teach you, so don’t feel scared.” was what my mum would tell me. So I had the chance to not feel intimidated to ask questions for many years now, but knowing my O-levels are coming and all. I feel scared in asking for help just because Im afraid the teacher will get angry at me. 

Its a childish reason, but now I realise how others feel. This feeling is still common and I frown upon those teachers who want and do make their students feel scared to ask questions or just learn in general. In AEP, as I mentioned previously, we were doing essays about graphs. I know how I am horrible in writing them but I realised how comfortable I feel with not doing well at the start. All the more, I feel at ease when I ask for help, and the feeling of not doing well was not a slap on the face to me but rather a call to do better. The call is a way to tell me that I still have so much room for improvement, which makes me feel at ease. Of course, I do not feel confident with my abilities, but in AEP, I never feel scared to learn. 

3. Word games, word games and more word games! 

We’ve all done word games before. Whether it was a short game of scrabble, a gruelling score in hangman or the wordle craze many have been into these past few months. In AEP, we did many versions of wordle. Ranging from 4x wordle in one, or a wordle that pushes your brain to think of the most incorrect answer possible and even one which resembles a waffle. The amount of wordgames are unlimited, and doing them at the start of every class always pushes my brain to work, even if its just a little push. To add, doing it with my classmates makes everything so much funnier. We get a few laughs and a lot of smiles, perhaps a few screams here and there if we have a new record. Or maybe loud silence because we dont know what the answer is. 

4. Padlet

I always include this segment in any of my retrospective blogs. I enjoy doing padlet and even if my exit tickets are short, doing a bit of reflection at the end of every class session does not allow me to leave with a bad heart. Sometimes uploading in padlet allows me to remember what I enjoyed doing in class, or maybe what I found tough. Or in most days, its just what I did on that day. 

In conclusion, its a 5 minute safe-space for me and my classmates. 

Oh! Seems like Ms Disa is calling us to post on padlet, how perfectly well timed. 

With that being said, I’ll see you all in the next one!