Beatty Secondary School Yearbook 2021

Mother Tongue Languages
Depar tment
Varied learning experiences were organised for
our Malay & Tamil students during the annual
Mother Tongue Fortnight Programme. Our
graduating Malay students got to interact with
Malay Language Ambassador, Dr Norshahril Saat
who is our Beatty alumni, currently an ISEAS-
Yusof Ishak Institute lecturer. Our Tamil students
were introduced to the art of making ‘Thoranam’
and creating colourful floor art ‘Rangoli’ painting
as well as flower garland.
Seeing the enthusiasm and happiness on the
faces of the students continues to be our
favourite moment in Beatty. Home-based learning
(HBL) started off as a journey of wonder for all
of us in 2020. Moving forward in 2021, the digital
space serves as a platform for engagement with
our students and we have honed the ability to
rapidly learn, unlearn and relearn the way we
execute our daily tasks.
2021 marks our maiden attempt to plan for an
online Lunar New Year concert – a combination
of livestream and pre-recorded segments. With
initial apprehension but growing confidence,
we tapped on the affordances of technology
and even designed an interactive live poll on
our ‘Beatty Talent Show’ to keep our students
engaged digitally.
The online voting segment was interactive
and interesting. I was amazed to see the
hidden talents within our school. It spiced
up the whole programme!
Shruti Sardar, 2E1
The department faced yet another challenge
during our Secondary 4E/5N Mother Tongue
Intensive Programme this year. When MOE’s
decision to move to Full Home Based Learning
(FHBL) was announced on 19 May, we were
required to go back to the drawing block to
re-conceptualise the lessons within a short
span of time. Keeping our graduating students’
interests at heart and ensuring they got the most
out of the online lessons, we pressed on and
successfully conducted online mock examinations
and follow-up consultation sessions during
our first ever virtual Mother Tongue Intensive
Programme.
Endless nights of marking using the I-Pad
and hours of online consultation were
really tiring, but I was heartened when I
saw the positive attitude in students.
Mdm Fu Rong, Teacher-in-charge
Our team has displayed solidarity and provided
relentless support to one another as well as to
our young charges in whatever we have done,
which has kept us going. We will continue to
write Our Beatty Story together as a community.
YEARBOOK 2021 73