From the briefing, I realized that this year, we are learning things that are much more practical (in real life), there are a lot of case studies and stuff. Furthermore, we are also learning wider. (from both China and the West instead of only Singapore).
About the modes of assessment, I am quite apprehensive about them because instead of the standard pen and paper test like other subjects(for example Math and Science), they are class discussions and reflective journals which has no fixed answers or format.(thus we are allowed to be creative) However, I am not sure I will do well in class discussions as I tend to not speak up in class and I do not actually read up about what is going to be taught before going for classes.(as I expect to be taught there) I am also not sure I will do well in reflective journals either, because I am not linguistically inclined and cannot express myself clearly in my journals. Moreover, I tend to not remember what was discussed during class and I am not good at taking down notes. Luckily, SES is not a subject by itself and only a component of another.
What I am worried about the most will be how class are conducted. Every lesson, there will be a student doing his termly presentation where he will present on what he has researched about the topic and direct the class discussion. I think this is the most problematic for me as you can only use cue cards and not a script and also there will be 30 other people looking at you for the whole time while you have to remain eye contact with them. The teacher will participate minimally and the discussion is mostly led by us. However, I wonder if this will truly be a effective way of learning as I know some people(maybe me) will not prepare for it and anyone hardly speaks up. Then, there will hardly be any discussion. Furthermore, there's a chance of us going off-topic and our research sources being unreliable. Then, we would be learning the wrong things.
Yesterday, we had our 1st academic lesson. We discussed about Cultural Intelligence(CQ), its definition, importance of it, and also the modes of assessment of the CQ test. At first, there were two different opinions on what Cultural Intelligence was, but after much thought, we decided on the 2nd one as it made more sense. Its definition was : Ability to function in a multicultural society. We agreed that we need CQ so that we can interact smoothly with others. Then we discussed about the 4 components of the CQ test and in which areas SES can help to improve in : 1. Drive(motivation) 2. Knowledge about different cultures/societies and understanding 3. Strategy(planning ahead, prevent offending others, reflecting upon experiences) 4. Action(behavior in front of people of different cultures) and we thought that SES could theoretically help in area 1 and 2. Personally, I feel that motivation is the most important area of the 4, as with motivation, you would tend to do well in the other areas too. Taking my own example, I am very interested in Japan, so I take Japanese as my third language where I learned about their culture and language. I also watch a lot of Japanese anime to grab a feel of an everyday life in Japan and their tradtions. Thus, I believe that motivation is very important. Yesterday's class was almost a discussion by ourselves with only a few prompts from our teacher. However, as we were not used to it, the discussion was slow and most participation was by the same person. Thus, I feel that the first few SES lessons can be improved by giving us more guidance. Lastly, I look forward to the SES lessons as I want to learn more about the economical powerhouses and this information may prove very useful in the future.
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