Community service has given me the opportunities to experience things that I never have before. During Pace workshop, I have learned a lot of things such as the techniques and skills on how to do drilling, screwing, hammering and others. Certain activities required a teamwork and understanding to complete while another activity needed courage and bravery. It was a very interesting workshop to experience as I managed to learn some multiskills. The following week, we were assigned to be mentors for Methodist school students. It has raised a lot of questions in my mind like ‘How much can help?’, ‘What can I contribute to the students?’, ‘How can I help them to be a better student?' and many more. As the class started, I picked a student named Praga to be my mentee. Throughout the 2-hour class, I have discovered that Praga has a serious difficulties in explaining things as he didn’t really know the meaning of certain words.
I managed to help him with his in-class-excercises and it gave me some sort of self-satisfaction and I felt ‘touched’ somehow to be able to help him understand. However, I still wished that I had more time to teach him. Alas, I only had two hours to be there for him. I must say that the only thing that drags him down is the language barrier. His command of English and Bahasa Melayu are very shallow and I guess that’s what made him not understand most of the things he learned. I wish the teachers could ask the students on things that they don’t understand and make them to be more open up to tell the difficulties they are having in studies because it is very important to discover the root of the problem and not to prolong them as they are going to learn higher education levels onward. Other than that, I think Praga needs to be more confident and not scared to be wrong while learning. He never really asked questions to me nor the teacher on things he was not clear on. These kind of values need to be taught to the students in order for them to ‘grow’. On the other hand, Praga as a student, has to take his own initiatives to study harder and I’m going to advice, motivate, support and do whatever I can to help him throughout this course as students can get out of track easily. I really look forward to teach him and hope there will be some improvements from him at the end of this course.
I managed to help him with his in-class-excercises and it gave me some sort of self-satisfaction and I felt ‘touched’ somehow to be able to help him understand. However, I still wished that I had more time to teach him. Alas, I only had two hours to be there for him. I must say that the only thing that drags him down is the language barrier. His command of English and Bahasa Melayu are very shallow and I guess that’s what made him not understand most of the things he learned. I wish the teachers could ask the students on things that they don’t understand and make them to be more open up to tell the difficulties they are having in studies because it is very important to discover the root of the problem and not to prolong them as they are going to learn higher education levels onward. Other than that, I think Praga needs to be more confident and not scared to be wrong while learning. He never really asked questions to me nor the teacher on things he was not clear on. These kind of values need to be taught to the students in order for them to ‘grow’. On the other hand, Praga as a student, has to take his own initiatives to study harder and I’m going to advice, motivate, support and do whatever I can to help him throughout this course as students can get out of track easily. I really look forward to teach him and hope there will be some improvements from him at the end of this course.
