Experience
I was also an Assistant Professor in the English and Literature Group at NIE teaching diploma, Bachelor's and Master's students, as well as teaching at UniSIM and Republic Poly.
I have taught English and Literature to students from primary to secondary to tertiary levels.
Prior to these, I had taught English and Literature in Raffles Institution. I had been a researcher, with interest in developing curriculum for the teaching of English. I had successfully tested my own curriculum, the Literature-Driven English curriculum in a number of schools in Singapore. Recently, I had tutored students siting for PSLE, `O' and `A' levels, IP and IB. All of them had improved in their grades. An example would be a student failing in Literature obtained an A2 for her `O' levels after just a few months of tutoring. I like to teach the language with an eye to practicality - with an eye on how one uses the skills learnt effectively in one's writing, critical thinking and reading comprehension.
Dr Mary Delfin Pereira has over 20 years of experience in education, as a teacher, teacher educator and researcher who has been involved in all levels of education extending from early childhood to primary to tertiary education. She had been an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education, Singapore, an English and Literature teacher in Singapore, teaching mainly in Raffles Institution, and a Language Arts teacher in middle and high schools in the United States. She had also taught Academic Writing in an Australian university.
She had conducted research in Singapore schools on the effectiveness of a curriculum she had designed, namely the Literature-Driven English Curriculum, and in addition to being a thesis supervisor and a research mentor. She had presented papers on her research and conducted workshops on her curriculum in the conferences in the United States, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, India and Singapore. Furthermore, she had conducted seminars and taught courses in India and Myanmar.
Currently, she teaches English to all levels, from primary to junior college and Literature to secondary school students. She also teaches students who are in the Cambridge GCE and IGCSE `O’ level and IB tracks. Dr Pereira brings to The Pear Tree her valuable and varied experiences that have informed her findings on student learning and her formulation of best practices.
Areas of Expertise:
Curriculum Development
Literature-Driven English Curriculum
Language Approaches
Multi-modalities in English Language Teaching
Materials Design
Language Testing
Research Methodology
Teaching of Literature
Her Research Experiences
Research Mentor, Early Childhood Development Agency (2013 - 2014)
- Mentoring two teams of principals and teachers from two preschools In Singapore on their Action Research projects in their respective schools
Principal Investigator, Office of Educational Research, National Institute of Education, Singapore (Mar. 2009 – Dec. 2010)
Recipient of Grant (OER10/MDP08)
- With the teachers from the two participating schools and research team, designed the Literature-Driven English Curriculum for the Normal (Technical) classes in the schools
- Tested the effectiveness of the Literature-Driven English Curriculum on these two Secondary One Normal (Technical) classes
Part-time Research Associate, Centre for Research in Pedagogy and Practice, NIE, Singapore (Mar. 2006 – Jun. 2007)
Doctoral Research, University of Notre Dame, Australia (Jan. 2006 – Dec. 2006)
- Designed the Literature-Driven English Curriculum
- Tested the effectiveness of the Literature-Driven English Curriculum on 16 Secondary One Express and 2 Normal (Academic) classes in 4 schools in Singapore
Research Assistant, University of Notre Dame, Australia (Nov. 2003)
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