Hi, I am Ninganyi (Eileen),
I am Chinese, and I am a seventh-grader. I have had an outstanding time at Raffles American School. I learned some fascinating and new things here. I also made some new friends. And the teachers here are just fantastic!! However, though I might blend well into this school now, there is absolutely no doubt that I was nervous and feeling uncomfortable at first.
On my first day of EIP6, I had a great conversation with Mr. Todd. Surprisingly, Mr. Todd found that I can go into the mainstream class, so I retook the test with Mr. Jeff. The next day I was sitting in the classroom of 6B. Whereas I only have class in EIP6 for one day (strictly speaking, only 2 hours), I somehow feel proud of this experience.
Having classes in 6B gave me stress, but Ms. Olsen and the other teachers I had were very patient and kind, which made me feel relieved. I love how they are talking with a humorous tone. Although I still had some small issues on understanding what teachers had said during class and adapting the different teaching styles compared to the style I had in China. However, I appreciate how teachers support us to be creative on homework. I have so many free spaces to practice my ideas. And I just love all of the subjects I have, though some are entirely new to me. For example, in Social Studies, I did not have any idea about this one when I first heard it. And Life Skills, I tried to translate it, but it gave me a weird answer! Now I prefer to understand how to take care of our mental, physical, and social health. Whereas I believe I am fully accommodative currently with all the subjects and different kinds of homework, whether posters or presentations, nothing can stop me from getting Proficient and Excelling (it did take me a while to figure out what the P’s and E’s stand for.)
As a non-native English speaker, I think that I was getting suitable with RAS quickly, and one of the most important reasons for this result, I believe, is the teachers’ help. Each of the teachers I had or have is fantastic. They are always kind and patient. I felt strange when I first saw that teachers would not scold students if they did not come up with answers when the teacher is asking. And they encourage us to ask them questions, yet their feedback is always detailed and plain. I respect all of them, especially Mr. Jeff. I love the self-paced study for ELA, and I think each unit he gave us to accomplish is very organized and clearly instructed. (He even told us a great word to say, which is “guava”.) With his and other teachers’ help and all the conversation I had with my foreign classmate I can feel clearly how much my grammar and vocabulary (these are the two things that I am weak with ) have improved, especially the assignment to read the book of the month, it helps me enormous on learning understanding the new words. If I have to pick one favorite subject, for now, I think it would probably be ELA.
The first term of CCA I had in RAS is volleyball. Unfortunately, I only have it for a few weeks. The second time I signed up for CCAs, which is now, I picked the badminton team and environmental club, and it just got canceled for last week. I have even suspected myself that I did not have the fate to have once completely CCAs. But even though I only got a few times to have CCAs, I can still see a lot of fun there. For sports, I sweat and cast all the stress out. For the environmental club, I discussed with the teacher and classmates how to raise awareness of environmental protection. I enjoy them a lot.
In addition, I appreciate Mr. Lyle for standing in front of the school and welcoming us every day.
Best Wishes,
From Eileen
