" It's not hard to be a teacher, it's hard to be a good teacher"

Sek. Men (J) Keb. Katholik

Greeting to all! 

Four weeks ago before our teaching practice, there were so many question marks keep rolling in my mind. Will i be able to control the class? What can i do if they make fun of me and step over my head?  In the first week, I strongly felt like to go back to UM to study instead of teaching in school. It has been more than three weeks so far, now i could definitely face the class with calmness and loads of interests even there are few Challenges for me. Sorry for the late posting, recently students have already started their final exam, so I could get a proper time to clear up my mind to look back what I have been through during last four weeks.  

I was assigned to teach two form 4 science classes. After few lessons I could get to know them a little bit. the first thing which needs to be mentioned here is class discipline. As we know there must exist few jokers or entertainers in one class.In 4S1, the amount of jokers is over my expectation. A lot of boys are noisy, naughty and hardly concentrate in class. Most of the girls are quiet and shy. How I wish they could balance their personality a bit. In the class, when my eyes are not on those noisy boys, they start to chitchat and laugh. When I found it and approach them to remind them, they show me the innocent faces. When the class start to become a little bit noisy, I would make a pause and just staring at the student who is not concentrating until he or she realizes that. Because I clearly know using louder voice to make them stop talking doesn't work on me as my voice is soft and low. So I will stop talking  for a second until they realized by themselves or some other students will remind the noisy one near them. 

I also found that name list really works on students. It could also easily catch students' attention. The first few classes I couldn't get the time and chance to memorize their names, so sometimes I just walk about in the classroom and call someone randomly. But soon I realized this way could not make them focus. Calling their names is one of the effective way to get close to them. They could feel the teacher pay attention on everyone. I start to take the name list with me, whenever I pick up the name list, they start to become tense and more concentrate. As 99% students are Chinese, their names are easy to be memorized. But the spelling of their names on the list are quite different. Some names are even harder to pronounce than English names. Even though some of their family names are same, the spelling are different. So I make it short, I only memorize their given names which make them feel more genial. Don't feel memorizing the names is troublesome, it helps you to get one more step to the students and it works on class discipline.  

As my teaching peer said that the way we study to teach is so much different with the way the students used to learn. Students are used to sit all day long and absorb the knowledge without interaction and reflection with other classmates and teachers. In 4S1 class, most of them keep themselves away from English communication through conversation, debate and presentation. They are not used to present opinion in front of the class. So I made some activities which help to improve their speaking skills such as giving speeches in different occasions and doing broadcast as a broadcaster. When they said they don't know as an excuse, I just try to guide them to complete the task instead of calling someone else. One more thing I found is a wide difference of English proficiency among them. Sometimes the good students don't feel bothered to pay attention and answer the questions as the questions are so easy to them, but for the weak students they hardly cooperate as well because they have no idea what to do. So in one lesson, I try to call the good students to answer some difficult questions to make them focus and feel not all the questions are easy to them. But most of the time, i gave chances to weak students to answer questions and speak up their opinion in front of the class. 

On second week all the teachers in Katholik  high school attended one workshop which is about blended leaning in Taylor University. During the workshop, all the teacher were given a quiz to test what kinds of learners we are.  I used this quiz to test my students in order to know their learning style. The results surprised me as most of them are kinesthetic type which means kinesthetic learners understand material best when they can do it on their own. according to their result I got to know they are capable to study English well and actually they like to be involved in activities. So as a teacher we just need to stimulate their potential and interests. Providing chance to make them talk more and do more by their own. At that time the exam was around the corner, so all the students were under pressure. I gave them task to complete on the class but not let them finish as  homework because I know most of them won't take it seriously and bring it on next class. 

My supervisor has already observed me and she gave me a lot of relevant suggestion. The last thing need to be mentioned is my mentor and teachers in this school are so kind and friendly. They never feel bothered with my thousands of questions. I have learnt a lot through communicate with my mentor and some teachers. This is another way to get to know about the students and the school better. 

Best of luck to everyone, be patient and passionate ! :)