Even after 49 years of teaching, Mdm Germaine Lee Kwee Ming feels as passionate about teaching as when she first started. She adopts a ‘back to basics' teaching approach to create an interest in and inspire a love for English in her students. Coupled with customised learning resources and a conducive environment, students find themselves understanding concepts and enjoying the learning process in her classroom.

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Ms Claudia Wong Shi-Lei believes that good grammar underpins the English language and clear communication can only be achieved with the use of proper sentence structures. In order to help her students learn and understand these grammar rules and to see how they are applied in everyday situations, Claudia often makes use of role play and dramatisation to make their learning authentic. This technique also encourages her students to practice public speaking and expand their vocabulary with each character they take on.

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There is never a dull moment in Mr Richard Koh Pee Chou's class. Leveraging on technology to ignite his students' passion for Literature, Richard makes lessons come alive by using ICT to facilitate his teaching, group discussions, writing and presentations. For example, when his students were tasked with analysing the Bukit Chandu war poems, Richard brought the lesson closer to them by developing a digital learning trail. His students enjoyed the lesson tremendously as they were able to connect with the poems and so better appreciate the power of words in evoking an emotional response in the reader or listener.

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For Mr Mong Kok Thong, his top priority is to kindle in each student a love for the English language. He understands that the rise of new media has made this a challenging task as his students are easily distracted by visual stimuli. To combat this, Mr Mong effectively uses a variety of media to engage and help his students express themselves clearly in English. These activities include harnessing ICT tools such as Wikispaces where students are given a platform to discuss issues they have identified and the opportunity to express their opinions.

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Ms Melissa Chew Ai Ling spends much time and effort coming up with activities that will help her literature students to contextualise and better appreciate the cultural and historical backgrounds of the text they are reading. For example, she recreated an English picnic setting, complete with blankets; teapots; teacups and cucumber sandwiches, when she was teaching "The Importance of Being Earnest" so that her students could experience the social customs and manners of the English people in the book. Melissa also runs the annual "Literature Week" programme that has provided a platform for students to perform as well as raised the status of literature within the college as a subject that is still very much relevant and useful in today's society.

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Mdm Salama Ishak Noordin strongly believes that for students to be effective learners, they need to first be excited about learning. To increase their enthusiasm for learning, she creates a safe environment in her classes where students feel comfortable questioning their own assumptions and can openly discuss current affairs with their peers. Through these discussions, Salama guides her students on how to use the English language to express, explain, argue, persuade and defend their positions in an interesting and engaging manner. This also gives her students a sense of ownership over their own learning.

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Ms Shamala Maheswaran's philosophy in teaching literature is to help every student understand the themes of the text by making the learning process enjoyable and interactive. She employs the use of dramatisation which allows students to use physical gestures, a variety of positions and settings to examine the texts carefully and focus on the way meaning is conveyed. Shamala makes it a point to cultivate her students' interests in whatever texts they are studying and encourages them to delve deeper into the motivations of the characters and reflect on the way the writer uses literary devices to create effect.

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It has always been Mdm Lim Chwee Lian's belief that language is acquired through reading and its frequent use. It is through reading, listening to engaging stories, speaking extensively, discussing and sharing views with the teacher and their classmates that students' competency in English is raised. By creating a conducive environment for reading and a culture of good spoken English through the adoption of a whole-school approach, Chwee Lian is then able to achieve the desired outcomes of the STELLAR programme and produce pupils who are effective and confident communicators.

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Mdm Mischa Leigh Pereira has an underlying belief that an English Language HOD should be a positive role-model for department teachers. Teachers and students should be able to look to the HOD as someone they can turn to for advice, guidance, support and expertise in the teaching of the English Language. Mischa believes that it is also important to be structured, organized and meticulous in the planning, running and monitoring of the department curriculum and programmes to ensure that they are consistent, successful and effective for the students. She also strives to ensure that her department's programmes develop students' language skills needed for real-life experiences.

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