AEP T2 | Retrospective Blog

It's the start of the 2nd semester! Hard to believe time has passed this much. Looking back to last semester, I realize how much my view on AEP has changed or developed over the past few months.

If I can recall, I was very confused with what AEP actually was on my first few lessons. As I participated in class more and got to know the topics and general gist of what we were going to do, I grew more comfortable in my environment of writing essays with serene music playing in the background. I developed my skills on writing essays about graphs and how to structure information properly. Although it's not my favourite activity, miss Disa makes our class ten times more fun than I'd expected it to be. It wasn't just writing essays that seemed enjoyable, it included the atmosphere of our classroom and the whole fun of being in it.

To add, my grades were surprisingly not that bad 

-- especially on my first term. I'm not exactly sure if I'm actually doing good or if miss is giving me good scores to boost my confidence. Either way, my confidence is definitely growing bit by bit. I can confidently say that I'm better at writing line graph essays than I did when I first started.

Overall, my first semester in AEP was a lot more fun and exciting than I thought it would be. I expected it to be boring and difficult because I've heard about it from others being that way (probably because of its primary activity of writing essays), but after experiencing AEP in my own shoes, I now know that it isn't as bad as it's said to be. Miss Disa helps me develop my essay-writing skills with an open and considerate mind, and I think that really contributes to why I find AEP enjoyable.

Thank you for helping us learn and adapt in a healthy way! I really appreciate what you do for the class. I look forward to continuing to learn from you this and next semester! :DD

Retrospective Blog - 2.1

So Miss told us to write about our views on how the first semester was. Well... I spent most of it still adjusting to the online learning. I got used to writing on paper, waking up early, and seeing people in real life after a long while.

AEP learning was also a journey for it. Especially with writing essays. Oh boy. I also like the chaos of playing word games with everyone though.

Offline learning has been even more fun than online, but it has also been much more stressful. There's always a price to pay for salvation I guess. I'm not sure if it's just a me issue or an adjusting issue though. I do hope that I'll be able to work better in AEP and other subjects too.

Blast to the Past- Meral- AEP 9- Blog 2

Hello! After a long time, I am right here seated in the AEP classroom writing down my recollections for the first term as well as my expectations this term. I am hoping this will be a good way to wrap up everything we've done so far and give me a burst of energy for this semester.

As a quick note, we allotted the first two weeks of class with Scrabble to get to know each other. Miss Disa reintroduced us to Wordle, being one of my ultimate favorite warm up game played in the beginning of classes. We also learned a ton about Future Tense and grammatical rules in applying it to the sentences we form in our everyday life. Looking back, I remember how we had several technical issues at times, whether that be the smart board or the sound system, and now I can happily state that we do not face as many problems when including Leo to be a part of the class.

Other than that, I believe we’ve all somewhat adjusted to the classroom setting. I haven’t done online classes since the beginning of this school year. That being said, face to face classes have been quite a blast so far and I’m hoping it will continue to be so! I have dwelled further on the first weeks on my Blog 1. You may check it out for other details!

On August 24, we had also started the day with the classic Wordle in which I managed to find both words. As a result of a rainy day, we got to play scrabble! It was truly a joyful moment. The following week, on a Tuesday, I learned new constructive ways future tense is employed in speaking and writing, through one of Miss Disa's creative YouTube videos. On August 31, the following day, we played three rounds of Wordle. Afterward, we had a short quiz to revise our knowledge regarding the future tense and present continuous tense. We then began a game of Scrabble while the rain continued to pour in the background.

Overall, Miss Disa used a variety of techniques to teach the future tense during the month of August, including interactive videos, brief revision quizzes, scanning for the tense in news articles, and answering questions in Miro. We frequently played Wordle to keep our minds sharp and Scrabble during the rainy weather. Personally, I found it serene and productive at the same time which was a perfect start to the school year. 

On September 6, Miss Disa raised the idea that describing someone's traits and qualities in a letter of appreciation would have a stronger impact than simply thanking them. Thus we were given the remainder of the class period to begin composing our first project. I decided to write for my mother and I got to work. The next day, I completed my appreciation letter! By the time I had finished decorating it at home, all that was left for me to do was to submit my work in Google Classroom. Turned in! 

On September 13, we played a game called codewords, which we had played a few times last school year, to begin class. The game basically requires you to fill in the boxes with letters to create words. To make it easier to fill it in, there is a different number for each one. We all collaboratively completed it smoothly and during the remaining class time, I revised for the business midterm. 

On September 19, we had a overview on the learning contract Miss Disa prepared for us. It included the second collaborative project we would be working on for the following weeks ahead. Basically, we were tasked to make a promo video about a country- we later decided on Japan at Hotel Gracery Asakusa! We selected Leo to be the organizer and delegate the tasks. Soon enough, each person had their own part to contribute on. Therefore, we started working on it. We also had a Quizizz test on future tenses to remind ourselves on it from time to time.

During the rest of September and early October, we slowly but surely made a lot of progress! After we had found a credible website and a suitable Canva template, we started collecting the information that led to the overall output of our project. Additionally, there were some fun warm-up games thrown in to the start of classes- though admittedly it sometimes took a lot longer than anticipated. These games included Quordle, Waffle, Letter Box, Hurdle, Anti-Wordle. All being difficult when put in comparison with Wordle, but that definitely gave everyone in the class a challenge and it was very rewarding whenever we successfully found the word! 

Although each warm-up game was quite unique to itself, I found Anti- Wordle the most difficult out of the rest. Even though we weren't able to find the word by the 7th attempt, I quite enjoyed taking my mind to a different route of thinking and looking at it from the opposite direction. As the name implies, rather than finding the word, we were coming up with words that don't contain such letters. I must mention though, all the other games Miss Disa introduced to us were really enjoyable as well! 

All in all, first term has been a total fun and productive time in AEP classes! I am expecting warm-up games in the beginning of classes as usual and learning more on the grammatical rules used in the English Language. I also find walking at the hallway during breaks really effective in powering us physically than just mentally for the upcoming activities and projects in AEP class. It is truly a joy to have AEP as a subject as it doesn't only enable us to absorb new information, but also feel more relaxed with the busy schedule I'm sure everyone has for their other subjects. 

I am looking forward to the new journeys we'll be undertaking this trimester! Thank you for reading this retrospective blog of mine. 

Signing off,

Meral

Retrospective Blog - 2

Retrospective Blog 2: Catching up

A whole new semester is about to begin, and I’ll be talking more about what I’ve gathered so far from our previous classes from the very start and up until the end during finals week.

We’ve actually done so much for the past few months as we have started writing our response paper to any of our desired articles and then further moved along with improving from what we have learned from our chosen article. It's more of a "show and tell," but much more enhanced. From what I’ve done so far, the whole process of writing a response paper has been fun and challenging since I got to pick the article that I wanted to react on and make something with what I’ve learned. Basically, I can be very flexible with any certain topic, but I just choose to go along with articles that are psychology-related. As I wanted to explore more about those topics and observe about people's perceptions, or how we humans perceive things around us, those were things that piqued my interest.

I suppose that most of us struggled to accomplish our projects during the moment when we were writing our response papers since we had so much going on. This includes the numerous projects and assignments, school parliament, various activities, and upcoming and ongoing events. How come it always gets worse when we have a backlog of work and when we don't have anything going on? In short, we're terrible at managing our time. That being said, as things pile up, AEP would be put last on our list of priorities and pushed back. I certainly hope that this time around we’ll turn our habits upside down, but since this semester will be the most hectic as its very short compared to last time, I guess I'll try my best to submit on time or before hand, that’s the best that I could do, and also update the progress board.

Playing warm-up games such as Wordle, Quordle, Waffle, Foodle, and more, we certainly did have fun staring at the board in confusion. Hehehe, just kidding, but having warm-up games does actually help us stay alive by checking if our brain cells are still there and working, so we could say that having warm-up games went well and we could keep on playing these kinds of warm-up games but not foodle. Before ending the semester, the last day was somewhat memorable, I just liked how the lesson went on, and I think we all needed that conversation. It serves as a reminder that we’re all just humans, in the sense that sometimes we don’t get everything that we want, and in order for something to happen, we need to get up and actually devote ourselves in any possible form.

Reflection - Chloe Lloveras- Blog 2 T1 & 2- AEP9

Two months have gone by since I’ve written my last blog, which means it’s time for a new one! The adventures we’ve gone through in AEP have collected into one big swirl of memories just waiting to be unraveled. So without further ado, let’s start from September 6.

Theses were the days when we used to play “WordleCup” and unfortunately, I only guessed 1 out of the 3 words that day. 

And with that short warmup finished, we proceeded to our first project: writing a letter to someone we want to thank. Immediately after hearing the prompt, I’d thought of my aunt because of how I’d visited her over the summer. We spent my birthday together and she made the ultimate birthday bash with a custom cake, gifts, dinner, etc.! And I know she put a lot of effort into making it all possible; so, who better to thank than her? 

Finishing the letter was just a matter of a simple draft and actually writing on pretty stationary with a few stickers here and there. I finished the letter on September 7th whilst listening to “Studio Ghibli,” a guarantee for a relaxing time. I really enjoyed this type of project: simple, fun, rewarding! I definitely want similar projects like this in the future.

Moving on to September 13th, it was the day before midterms so we spent AEP playing “Codewords” as a class. It was pretty easy once we got the hang of it. And after about 3 minutes, we were instructed by Miss Disa to complete our missing assignments. Since I didn’t have any, I got to study for midterms. Lucky me! 

A week after midterms on September 19th we were assigned yet another project: to make a video to promote a specific country. We were given the privilege to choose 1 to our liking  (aside from the Philippines). Though, Miss Disa told us that she was just informing us for now and that’d we’d be working on it in the next few meetings. 

But before that, we played “Codewords” together. It took twice as long as last time (6 minutes). Afterwards, we played “Scrabble,” which was a bit trickier for me because at 1 point I had a full deck of vowels. In the end, Meral won with the winning score of 126 points. Nice job, Meral!  

The next day, on September 20th, we kicked the day off with “Wordle” and guessed the correct answer on the 5th try. Then, we watched a video on future tense phrases like “on the point of,” “to be due to,” and many more that we’d be using in our upcoming project.

To test our knowledge, we were told to join a “quizizz” containing 15 questions. Some were easy while others, I believe, had more than 1 answer. This made choosing very difficult. 

Meanwhile, at this point in time, I remember being so excited to start the project. It sounded fun and had endless possibilities to show creativity (1 of my strong suits). Spoiler alert! I preferred the other one better. But I’ll go into that in more detail later. 

On September 27th, we played “Quordle” together, which is definitely an upgrade from “Wordle.” It’s pretty much 4 “Wordles” mashed into 1 game. 

Afterwards, we did the same quizizz from the previous session over again. I got all of the answers correct. Since everyone didn’t have any more questions about the quizizz, Miss Disa appointed Leo as our head organizer for the project. 

It’s finally October, October 3 to be exact, and on that day we played “Scrabble” as the rainy weather encouraged it. This time I got really good letters and found the perfect places to put them. Upon completing the round in the 1st period, we decided to work on the project in the next. The planning stage took really long, specifically in choosing a country, but we eventually decided on Tokyo! 

On October 4th, we started the late morning off with “Waffle,” a new game that’s quite simple actually. We completed it on the 11th try out of the 14 we were given. Afterwards, we decided on what days each of us would do for the promo video and I got day 1. This meant that I’d be talking about the flight and hotel details. 

Researching information about the best options didn’t take that long. It was mostly the compiling of information and deciding on the format that was the hardest. 

During October 10, we started the day this time with “Codewords” and got it done in 7 minutes. We didn’t stay there too long because we all knew we needed to work on our project together. Throughout the session, I managed to fill my slides on the “Canva” PowerPoint, so all that was left to do was squeeze some more tenses on my part. The day ended with the usual exit ticket. 

The next day, on October 11th, we played a new game called “Letters Boxed,” which is the game where you have to create words with a string. You cannot use the letters on the same side next to each other, which is what makes it challenging. But after that, we worked on our project yet again. This time I managed to get everything done except for the voiceover (which I did over the weekend). 

My thoughts on this project were a bit jumbled. I enjoyed the design and research aspects of the project, but I found it hard to summarize all the information because there was so much of it! We get a lot of projects similar to this in other subjects like in English or Biology where we have to use “Canva” for PowerPoints, posters, etc. 

I just found writing a letter to be more rewarding because of how quick and simple it is. And for many people, like me, we can struggle in simplicity, which is why I found this project a big help in improving my English skills. Also, the fact that someone is actually receiving our work makes this project 10 times better. The letters project taught me that making something in school doesn’t always have to be for the grades, but it can also be for appreciating someone else.

Fast forward to the present time! It’s now November 7th, the end of term 1, but the beginning of term 2. The list of things we did in this first term seem endless, but here are a few: “Scrabble;” learning grammar; understanding the different future tenses; writing a letter; making a promotional video for Tokyo; and finding our way through the present and past  continuous tenses, present and past perfect tenses, and many others. Moreover, to name a some of the warm-ups we’ve encountered, we have “Wordle”, “Waffle,” “Codewords,” “Letters Boxed,” and “Quordle. And the lists go on!  

However, I do admit that doing these tasks did have some hardships like technical issues. Nonetheless, we managed to overcome them through practice, teamwork, and the help of actually being face to face. Oh, how good it feels to say we’re now face to face! 

Regarding the things I’ve liked over this past term, I must say that “Scrabble” and “writing a letter” would have to be in my top 2. They’re both fun, simple, but really get the gears in our brain to start turning. I also enjoy how we don’t write blogs as often since it lets us really talk more thoroughly about what’s happened so far when we actually do have to write. 

Overall, this term was a good way of pivoting from online to face to face. I do believe that we’re now getting into the groove of things a lot better than before. And with that, I bid term 1 “adieu” and welcome term 2 with open arms! 

leo's blog

 Hello, hello, hello!

Today we were tasked to reflect back onto the past term and to write how we felt about it. Overall, the first term was great. My grades were all high, I think, and my attention span hasn't yet faltered on me just yet. I'm still out strong and hoping to do more for this term.

As I've experienced more of what's in FIS, there's a few more differences I've found than in my old school. One, extra-curricular activities just dissolved. Although I've heard about clubs, the choices are nothing. Two, subjects are generally pretty fast, and they require a lot of notetakings. In my old school, things were generally laid back and I could memorize it pretty easily because of how slow they teach and how easily I could review and memorize each thing, although it was still IGCSE-based. Three, the examinations! Oh, how I could go on about how good the system for examinations is. In my old school, we were in giant rooms (hallway, common area) seated in split rows and columns to do the exam. We were required to follow all rules, which means to be quiet and do not speak to anyone even in and out of the examination venues. Then, the examination times were usually an hour to two hours long, but then we had to stay until the time has finished. We could not go home early to study, and we had to stare and watch the clock tick 'till the alarm. But then examinations were all one day each (some being in the afternoon with another exam), and exams were only twice a year, once a semester. So, some huge changes here and there. I've learnt to adapt.

The things we've been doing in FIS this term were:

WORDLE
Every lesson, we are given a unique type of wordle which we can play together as a team and solve it, unless it is the wordle where we go against each other in. As for the other wordles, they are all pretty fun and I've never seen anything like them before, so that's one thing. Another thing is that each are pretty engaging and entertaining to watch and guess which words could be which thing.

SCRABBLE
SCRABBLE DAYS! We had those when it rains, and it is great! Although, being online, I can't do much but sit and stare and occasionally talk when it's my turn, it's fun to watch and engage (somewhat) with my peers. And when I do get there, ON JANUARY, it would be fun to watch the rain and do a game of scrabble as the day goes. Especially since I'm a person who enjoys rain a bit too much.

PAST TENSE
So, this year, we learnt about the past tense. Using Ms. Disa's amazing videos, we've gotten information about the different tenses and specifics of it, knowing the intention and the meaning behind each of those specific tenses. Although most of what's being taught were in my vocabulary already, I hadn't known the meaning of those specific tenses since English is my mothertongue. 

PROJECT
The project! We were instructed to create a 3-day package trip in a foreign country. I was put as the manager of the project. It was a nuisance being online and trying to conduct people who were face-to-face, who could actually do anything in class. Luckily, we also did it online for us to create a canva project for a Japanese trip. It was stressful having to search up things I didn't know about and writing them down in a summary, then voicing it out quickly to get the 1-minute mark for each person. It came into fruition, and it was successful, so that's all that mattered.

Anyway, I've enjoyed the first term, and now I'll enjoy the next! Toodloo!

Blog 1.2

 Second blog!

I’ve now made a lot of improvements and have adjusted to this school already. Though the system and schedules were quite confusing and hard to catch up to at first, it’s getting easier to follow now. Although, this is my first time ever having midterms and I think I did quite well this term, but we still have finals to go through so I have to start studying now  0:

This half-term we start off our AEP lessons with different games like codeword, wordle, hurdle, qwordle and more. Starting off lessons like this really helps us to be more awake and warm up on our vocabulary. After that we would start to work on improving our essays. We have been analysing graphs and improving our vocabulary to add onto our essays. 

Analysing the graphs were a challenge for me at first since I didn’t know how to format my paragraphs and where to start in describing, I’ve also been looking into the details too much. Because of this, we recently have been doing exercises on the miro board to find 3 pointers for each graph that we were given. Using these pointers, it was easier to start off the essay. I felt so relieved when I had finally gotten the gist of the format.

Looking forward to learning more on how to improve my essays and to more games for starters :DD