This blog was created for students teachers to reflect on their teaching experience at school and share this experience with one another. As each shares and collaborates on best practices, successes as well as mistakes in teaching ESL, it is hoped that student teachers will benefit from such collaborative reflections on this blog platform and continue to appreciate the use of such a platform for further collaborations even after Teaching Practice.

Wednesday 7 November 2012

Counting Days...


Assalamualaikum and Hi to all!

Third Reflection:

Well well well, what do you know…? The students’ exam has ended! Even their marks are finalized and posted. Alhamdulilah nobody failed. Mind you that “Failure” is a raspy and such repulsive word for this school so having everybody passed especially my own students is a relief!

I was assigned to mark both of my classes their Paper 2 exam except for the Summary part. I have found more than 90% of the students managed to answer the literature part (one of my biggest responsibilities was to teach Literature for both classes – don’t know why!) with excellence. I remember being given the last minute task to teach them one poem, Nature by H.D Carberry two weeks before their exam started. Without knowing the exam questions, I also managed to include general knowledge that is connected to the poem so I managed to include an activity of presentations done by the students on Natural Disasters and Environmental Issues. Coincidentally, questions on how to conserve nature were asked in the exam! The struggle to teach them within limited time was already hard, let alone the students themselves in need to add another poem to prepare for their exam. But with such outstanding marks, am I proud or what? Hehe..

Since exam has ended, all we were asked to do was just revision with the students based on their exam papers. This is not so much of a problem, not unless you have more than half of the class being absent! Hello! Its post-exam season so the students have no interest of coming to school anymore. Thus, I had to enlighten the atmosphere of the class by having really good games and activities for them. Sigh. I had to really think out of the box so I came up with games such as Role-Plays, Puzzles, Guessing games etc. I managed to get the computer lab for my lesson with both classes and I told them it was a reward for them since they rarely go there so I shared some interesting inspirational stories with them.

Observations are done by my supervisor, Dr Wong and my mentor, Pn Susan. However Dr Wong could only managed to observe me once due to her busy schedule and our exam timetable which took about one month. I have already sent all my lesson plans to her too as requested. Pn Susan has also seen my lesson plans and both of them commented the same thing on my teaching. It was something like “You are very systematic”, “Your lesson is interesting” but “You should have more challenging activities for them”.

Its been 9 weeks already and time flies so fast. I have learned a lot through this process of being a teacher in the future. It has surely given me an eye-opening experience. *teary*



Fourth Reflection:

It is indeed the final week for Teaching Practice. It is indeed a relief to complete the course. It is indeed sad to end this course. It is indeed heartbreaking to leave this school, Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan Katholik, Petaling Jaya.

During this final week, there are no students around anymore. They are given two months holiday before the school resumes next year. Therefore, the atmosphere of the school is very quiet, clean and just gloomy without them around. Just noises coming from the teachers’ staff rooms or the canteen.

The task for this week is just to help out teachers to prepare modules for the year 2013. Yes, I was assigned to do the Literature part again. Why? Maybe they see me like an expert in this area? Haha dream on! Anyways, so I had produced hundreds of slides on PowerPoint in order to create Literature modules touching on different poems with different strategies and activities along with its other important focuses. Ofcourse I didn't do this alone, I was supervised by a teacher, Miss Stephanie who sits next to me so my job is easier and faster as I can always ask for her help. The task needs me to take a lot of pictures from the textbook and other books as well and mind you, it is not just about 20-30 pictures. Its more than 100 pictures! So I came up with taking the photos using my phone rather than scanning it as I find it easier and faster. Then I was also needed to do a lot of editing of the photos and this does not take a day or two to do it. Typing is not an exception in this task too. I ended up doing 117 slides altogether on PowerPoint. Phew!!

Nonetheless, I am very pleased to be a part of this school because I was able to attend the launching of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by the Principal during the last assembly of the school last Monday. Not forgetting the awards he mentioned that the school received throughout the year. Some of the awards are being the best Chinese High School in all over Selangor, having the best Sports Gym in Selangor and second place for the best Science lab all over Selangor. I am proud as a teacher here indeed.

Okay for selecting two posts, it was difficult because I believe everybody did their best and produced a good job. Nonetheless, I have chosen Zhao Xunyu on her third reflection. What attracted me the most was the fact how she faced the “natural disaster” situation where she managed to handle it well and control her students’ concentrations. That is just bravo! Not forgetting the way how she stated her problems and strategies in her post. Secondly, I chose Farha Alia on her third reflection as well. It was mainly due to her creativity. Her activities based on her pictures literally show how enjoyable it was for the students. Even so, it makes me a bit envious as even I could not think of such ways to teach the students. So well done both of you! And for others, I am very sure we all have our own ways. Cheers!

Below are the pictures I have taken during the past ten weeks :




Students going home~


                                            All the trainees at SMJK Katholik. Missing : Ellina



Teachers' staffroom





  Some of the pictures as materials for Literature Module 2013




My Form 4P1 class. Yes, one of the students just literally took my phone and snapped a picture with me.


Some students practising their Lion Dance


My Form 4S9 class I had in the Computer Lab



Post-exam activity : my students playing Running Man - Fighting!!

Appreciation Dinner


                                                    Trainees with Puan Ya, Deputy Principal


Miss Stephanie - teacher of Form 4P1


                                                   Mdm Lim Bee Ain - teacher of Form 4S9


Talk to you all soon and Assalamualaikum.


Regards,

Khairiah

1 comment:

  1. I had to laugh reading your first few paragraphs regarding the students' examination marks. The former English teachers were the ones marking and I helped to do the discussions in the classroom. My students were mostly careless on their mistakes. When I discussed with them there were many "ohs" and "arghs" , the students were upset with themselves. Thank God your students scored the exam well.

    For me, my students have already scored well but being extremely competitive students, apparently, A alone is not enough. They dreamed for A+ (yet committing petty careless mistakes).

    Cannot wait to listen to more of your experiences, talk to you soon!

    ReplyDelete