TOTEACHISTOLEARNTWICE

I cant believe some of the things you went through at school. I have spoken to some of you and spent some very lengthy discussions after discussions and I am amazed at the things you've come up with. From reading your posts, from observing you at school, from listening to your supervisors and mentors, I feel like you have gone through a lot in a very short period of time. Nonetheless, I am proud of every single effort that you put into your experience at school. I am thankful for every mistake, every challenge, every success that you had to go through. They are all part of learning.

For your Fourth Reflection, read your peers' posts and identify at least 2 very insightful posts that you could learn from. Cite reasons.

Don't forget to come back online for Reflection 5, your last post. One last thing: all your supervisors are very proud of you. 

EASE YOUR MIND COMRADES!

Greetings and as-salam,

I miss all of you TESLians! Oh I bumped into Joy and I was truly happy to see her until I automatically called out her name in excitement. It feels real good to see coursemates outside Uni. =) I know I have posted for the 3^rd reflection, but it turns out I posted way before Dr. Adele informed us on what is required in the post. Hehe. My bad, so here is my 3^rd reflection. Caution; it will be lengthy! 

Anyway, it has been two months since we started our practicum. How are you doing? My observations went well. I was not satisfied though with my performance on the 1^st observation done by Dr. Dorothy but she assured me that all was fine, thank God! I received useful advises and constructive criticism from her as well. My strategy for the 1st observation was to have a teacher and students-centered lesson in balance but it did not really work out because students were afraid to speak up and chose to keep it to themselves but gave good feedback on homework (it shows that they did understand the lesson but scared to stand up alone and respond to my questions).

As for the 2^nd observation, I made sure everything was well planned so that at least it would be close to perfection.  Yayy, this is when I’m going to say “when there’s a will, there’s a way” and “practice makes perfect”. Frankly, I was more contented with the 2nd observation. This time, I made the lesson to be student-centered and assigned them to work in groups. By doing this, they would easily share their thoughts with group members and participate actively.

This is what I did for the 2^nd observation with Dr. Dorothy;

The main skill was on speaking, I started the lesson by showing them the movie trailer of the Avengers. The students loved it as the video was interesting and had their favourite superheroes. Next I instructed them to be in their assigned groups and gave them a short lesson on adjectives. 

The pictures of the superheroes were pasted on the whiteboard. Moving on, I explained about the ‘Golden Circle’ (served as a guideline) where they had to think of which superhero they would be talking about and why did they admire his/her qualities. 

Students then discussed the characteristics of the chosen superhero in their own group. In the mahjong paper, they were required to draw the image of the superhero and came out with his/her characteristics by drawing a mind map. Before the lesson ended, students presented in front of the class about the characteristics of their groups’ chosen superheroes.  To make it interesting, strings of different lengths were each given to every group and the lengths represented the amount of time students had to present in front of the class (one of the two presenters rolled the string on her finger while presenting about the superhero chosen. When the string had reached its end, it marked the end of their presentation). As this group activity had a lot of doings, I had assigned a task for everyone in a group so that I could cater to the issue of time constraint. 

Two observations with my mentor went all right too. When Mdm. Suguna (mentor) first came for observation, I did reading with the students. On the 2nd observation with her, I did speaking with the students as language is all about using it by the way.

This is what I did for the 2^nd observation with my mentor Mdm. Suguna;

On that particular last week of teaching, I did speaking with the students as I had focussed on the reading, writing and listening skills during the earlier weeks. To stimulate students’ minds, I showed an environmental awareness video. Next, they were told to be in their assigned groups. I pasted posters of environmental awareness on the whiteboard as examples. Subsequently, each group was told to think about their ideal environment and what needed to be included in their environmental awareness campaign (for example; animals that are facing extinction, clean river, trees and etc). Each poster must have at least two messages to be conveyed to the public. 

Next, two students from each group were chosen to present in front of the class the messages that their poster contained. Lastly, students were instructed to write a short reflection about their love towards nature in their journal or composition book. Since it was my last lesson with the class, I gave pens and tid bits to all of them before the class ended but the group that came out with a poster that had impactful messages and excellent presentation received extra tid bits.

For the time being, all of the students are having exam. Hence, I can’t teach anymore. I wish we are being given more time. At school, I will talk to Winnie (the best partner ever), go for relief and my own classes according to schedule, help my mentor and the other teachers when they need my assistance, check my students’ exercise books and etc. Sometimes Winnie and I will ask around to see if there are tasks for us to do. We did help in organizing and facilitating the MBI Workshop for teachers and Language Camp for the Form 3 students. Besides that, we are busy marking our students' exam papers.

All in all, I enjoyed my lessons with the amazing students. Anyhow, I’m not sure how everything will turn out at the end of the teaching practical, but there are two things I’m certain of; I’ve learned a lot from teachers at school and Dr. Dorothy, and I have genuinely done my best.

Sharing time of some random pictures:

Recently I fell sick and I got a cake from a student

Well, that is all from me. I do hope all of you are doing excellent! I can’t believe our practicum will end soon, time flies! Thus, ease your mind my dear friends, we have faced several challenges, nothing will hold us back.


best regards,
Farha Alia

7 Makes It Even..

Week 7 (15/10/2012 - 19/10/2012)

7th week!! Woohuuu!! Well, what can I say, nothing much happened this week. The Form 3 students are still having their PMR. Most of the time, my Form 2 class (2 Hazen) were taken over by my mentor, Datin Hazlin. So, I had a lot of free time and more time to settle my unfinished business. On Tuesday (16/10/2012) both Hanisah and I had our last and final observation from Madam Thien (Mentor). We were required to take over and teach her Form 4 class, which is 4 Accountant. Both of us took turns teaching the class and we could see that the students somehow enjoyed the lesson, and so do we. Pray to Allah that everything went well and according to plan. The day after tomorrow, Hanisah and I were in charged of the "Program Selepas PMR" which are only  for the Form 3 students. We did a 'Team-Building' activity for the students to get-to-know all their schoolmates, and enhance a teamwork spirit among them. What I find in the school is that the students are not bonded to each other, as they only sticks together with their own cliques. So, what we did was to separate them into groups consists of different classes, sex, race, etc. At first they wanted to be in the same group with their own friends. However, through the activity we can see that the students finally responded to each other and started to mingle around during the activity. The activity went smooth and everyone had a blast. Here are some of what we did on that day. ^_^

Apart from these, our school had organized a "Co-Curriculum Day" on Saturday (20/10/2012). A lot of activities going on on that day; Co-Curriculum award ceremony, Karaoke session, food selling, ghost mansion, students' performances and etc. There were even teachers who went up the stage and sang their hearts out! Everyone had fun. Well, a picture worth a thousand words.. Here are some of the fun moments~

3rd reflection:

  Time flies fast, I cannot believe I am already in week 7. My supervisor and mentor finished observation by last week.

   During these weeks I already build a good relationship with my cute students. Of course I cannot stop some of them hate me, the reason is simple, I scold them more than three times during my class that they were misbehaving or being naughty. On the other hand, overall we all have done our job well, I am glad that most of my students are cooperative in the class well except few naughty boys. 

   The problem I mentioned in my 2^nd reflection is class management, I have to admit that this problem has not been solved yet, even when I scold them or point at their name, it is useless now. I think they are used to the way I scold them which I think they will behave well. It only can sustain 5 minutes, after that they still talk with their friends and sometimes walk around inside class. If I ask them where they are going they will answer that they need throw the rubbish at back, but on the way they walk there they will use every chance to talk with their friends and laughing. So, I came up with a new solution, which I think will work a little bit longer. If I see who is talking, I ask that person come in front and stand there, the only way you can go back to your sit is you should watch the class see who is talking, then you ask that person come in front to replace you. If we are having a new lesson in class then this way shouldn’t be used because it only can be used during relief class or writing class.

   From my teaching strategy, I chose to use more visual aids and game activities to catch their attention, indeed, it works well and they are all involved and love to play the activities. For example, I give them some words from easy to hard and then ask them to divide themself into groups; each group will take a turn to describe the words use body language that one person need to guess the words from their partner’s movement.

  All in all, students are making progress.

Reflections 2 - Shortcomings, Here They Come!

Hi fellow bloggers! We are all moving into the seventh week of teaching practice and I am sure most of us are still enjoying every of its moment. We’ve hurdled numerous ups and downs as educators, I am inspired to read the sharings from all of you. Each of us faces different challenges and it was amazing to acknowledge ways to overcome the obstacles from all of you.

I am (thankfully) still enjoying my time in school. Not much of teaching these days as the students are having their final examinations, still I believe I have gone through worthy experiences to share with all of you. Shortcomings, sense of achievements, joys and sorrows really put colours to my otherwise monotonous teaching practice.

I am teaching two classes – 4 Angsana and 4 Dahlia. 4 Angsana is the top Science class in Form Four while 4 Dahlia is the first Sub-science class. The students’ level of proficiency is upper intermediate regardless being in different streams of classes. Most of the students are highly proficient in English writing and speaking as they communicate in English daily.

I am going to share some classroom strategies I used  to engage closely with the students. Upon first entering the classroom, I did some ice breaking activities as well as expectation settings. There were two activities I used to do ice breaking session called ‘Back-sweetalking’ and ‘My Colours, My Story’. Before playing these two games, we did  conventional self introduction like getting to know names, interests and ambitions. In Back-sweetalking,  students pasted a piece of an A4 paper behind their back and they must move around within a certain period of time writing their friends’ characteristics on their backs. Words such as ‘friendly’ and ‘nice’ are exempted as they are too cliche. For example, A thinks B is a determined person, hence A will write on the piece of paper on B’s back ‘determined’.  Then, we discussed whether what the friends said about themselves were true.

The second activity was My Colours, My Story where everyone got M&M chocolates each. Each of us told a story based on the colour. For example, red M&M was for heroic stories, brown M&M was for sad stories, yellow M&M for happy stories, blue M&M for embarrassing stories and green M&M for anything that the students did for the first time. As for me, it was compulsory for me to tell each of the story as I was the one who needed to break the ice most importantly.

After the ice breaking session, I did expectation settings session with the students. This was basically to ensure that I would manage to deliver an efficient and enjoyable lesson for the students while I myself feel at ease in conducting the lesson. First of all, I took out a list of expectation settings from myself to the students. As shown in the picture, those are the expectations I looked forward from each of them. Then, I gave each student two sticky notes which they were required to write goals and expectations from the lessons. All of them had various goals and expectations from the lessons. Having done those, both the students and I agreed to adhere to the expectations and I would try to help them to achieve their goals in the lessons. As expected, most students looked forward for ‘fun’ lessons and I planned to devise my lesson plans to meet the expectations while following the syllabus and teaching schemes.

However, after three weeks of teaching, I noticed that there was a distinction between these two classes. Students in 4 Dahlia were more verbal and active when conducting classroom activities that involved group work, presentations and performances. For example, they were eager to do role play, singing activities, lyrics composition, debates, mock bidding and drawing. On the other hand, students in 4 Angsana were more interested in intensive classroom activities such as summary and essay writing, in-depth grammar teaching and exercises as well as they preferred more serious activities like formal class presentations and discussions. I noticed this problem when I received different responses for the same activities. I experimented the activities for one week to see if my hypothesis on their preferences was right. After that one week, I asked the students if they enjoyed such activities. During this one week, I did role play, drawing and mock business summit with them. Students in 4 Dahlia claimed that they really had fun and learned a lot at the same time. They even requested for more activities and it would be best if I can have the lessons out of the classroom or the language room. They wished for more fun-type activities. 

However, the feedback that I received from 4 Angsana students were the complete opposite. The students said they were fine with the fun-type of activities once a while but most of the times they prefer total-academic activities as mentioned before. I took into considerations of their feedback as what is most important is their learning curves in the classrooms. Though these two types activities differ greatly, they are extremely impactful for each type of the students. It comes to my senses now that the definition of ‘FUN’ varies for these two type of classes.

For the following weeks, I have came out with new strategies on how to create more impactful and meaningful learning for my students. The strategies shall be explained in my Reflection 3.

Awatif Ghapar

Keep the flow, ignite the glow..

Hello there Comrades,

How are you all doing, I hope all of you are doing fine and great.. Well, for me, nothing much happened as my form 1 and form 2 students will sit for their end-year exam starting today until 24th Oct.. 

I couldn't believed that we are in our 7th week of teaching practice.. time flies really fast.. I am well aware that the end is approaching but I am not sure if I'm really happy with it.. Sometimes, I feel sad to leave the students because they have been part of me all these days..

For the past 3 weeks, I have been teaching as usual, not much problems as I am preparing my students with their final exams.. I had a talk with them and asked them which area that they need my help the most and I figured out ways and strategies to help them. For instance, they are having problems in elaborating their main points in essay writing, so what I did was, I gave them Graphic Organizer and asked them to write their main points and reasons. Then, they wrote an essay by referring to their Graphic Organizer, I would say it is effective as they know how to give supports and evidences to the main points. Meanwhile, for literature, I did a lot of exercises on Section B and novel such as the plot, characters, themes, moral values and etc. What I did was I let the students to get involved in the activities physically. I gave them a lot of visually reinforcement and let them discuss, moves around and tell me the answer before they write it in a book. The students loves it and I think they learned and remember better.

One thing that I noticed when I'm teaching is that, my students are capable to get their tasks done but still, they need me to assist them. For example, when doing summary or essay, they tend to have a draft or they will come and see me before they write a real one in the book. They seems to have less confidence about their works and worried a lot if they got it wrong and their marks will be deducted. So, I approach them individually and checked on their works. Usually, they will make mistakes and I will correct it and explain to them why they got it wrong. I often reminding them that just think smart, study well, pay attention in lesson and they will all ready to go for the exam. 

Besides, thank God that I have finished all my observations by my supervisor and mentor. I know that I have tried my best, and there is no regret for whatever results I will get because I know that I have given everything I got and it's not that I am not trying or giving my best.

I think I will pen off here for this 3rd reflection. Just hang in there comrades and enjoy the rest of our time in the school before the end. 

I am nervous for my students but I really hope they will be able to do their best in the year-end exam especially in English

Have a look at these photos and ENJOY :)

I draw the plot graph, let them write the elements in the space provided and each group have to paste the paper (sequence of events) into their correct elements. 

I gave them gifts before their end-year exam with hopes that they will be more motivated and do well in their exam. 

6 weeks already?!

I always thought I'd feel nothing but happy and relieved when the teaching practice is coming to an end, but when at one point it really approaches, it's hard to believe I'd feel a bit upset when I have not many classes to teach.

Our Assunta school started its PMR from last week, which emptied all our classes for a whole week except for Friday. As I mentioned, my 2A3 class had 6 chapters left when I was assigned to them and literally I had only 5 weeks to teach, I found it hardly possible to stick to what the teacher told me to do, after discusses with her, I planned my classes for 2A3 based on the themes and topics provided by the textbook with my own ideas and activities, which at the same point brought along problems: I had to compress two themes in one double period class for several times, and the students would be bored and feeling lost when they faced different contents. For this issue, what I tried to do was to design different activities to each content I intended to cover, I'd put the easier and more simple task at the beginning of class, which took around 25 minutes, then for the one I wanted to address more, I would give them group activities once I finished discussing and explaining. Finally in last Friday class, I managed to finish all the syllabus for my 2A3 class. 

Another problem I had with my 2A3 class came when I was doing revision of literature component with them, as they'd be examined based on 2 poems and 1 novel, after I finished the revision of the novel The Boscomeb Valley Mystery and the poem I Wonder with them, some of them started complaining that I was treating them as Form 1 students and they said I didn't actually have to do revision of another poem Heir Conditioning, so I decided to give them a test based on the 2 poems the week after, and when I looked through their papers, only a very few of them managed to answer some of the questions on the poem Heir Conditioning which they believed unnecessary to review, while almost all of them provided right answers for most of the questions in I Wonder. I'm going to return their papers on this coming Thursday, and before I discuss the paper with them, I'd spend around 5 minutes talking about their 'arrogance' on their studies. Or you might have some better ways dealing with this kind of issue?

As for my 2A1 class, the only problem is we don't have much time left, as I enjoy teaching and learning with them, they are all extremely active and cooperate in every single class. 

That's all from me for reflection due Week 6. All the best to all my friends, enjoy the rest of our teaching practice. 

God bless us all!

Wang Siting’s Third Reflection

Hello, everyone.

How is the teaching? This is the sixth week of our practicum. I am sure that each of us has gained the useful experience. We not only get to know the students but also know ourselves better. During this period, we focused on how to teach and considered what materials could be properly used in the classroom. The ultimate goal is to attract students’ attention so that it can help increase their interest in learning English. What I found these days was that students like colorful things in their learning process and they like crosswords very much. So, providing more visual aids or crosswords in our teaching could be a useful way to help students gain knowledge.

My supervisor and mentor have respectively observed me once. They all gave me so many helpful suggestions. My supervisor, Dr. Nanic, suggested me that I should try to attract students’ attention immediately at the beginning of the lesson. Besides that, she also advised me that it is always better to ask students to guess the meaning of the words instead of explaining the vocabulary directly. My mentor suggested me giving one or more challenging questions to the students, even though you know students’ level is not so high. I will improve my lesson based on their advice in the future.

Things will not always smooth sailing. It always has various difficulties we have to face. During the teaching, I felt frustrated sometimes and questioned myself. The things you fully prepared students may not feel interested; the lessons may not be conducted ideally. But, to the bright side, we can find our shortages in this way. It helps us be stronger and stronger. The shortages make us depressed; however, it makes us grow at the same time. Make our spiritual world more powerful.

Besides that, students’ final exam has started already. My job is to monitor the examination (Form 2 students). When I looked at them, it made me recall my schooltime. Truthfully, hope my students can do well in their exam.

After the exam, I have to continue my teaching task for two more weeks. Hope that I could be better than before. Also, all the best, my friends.

Sincerely,

Wang Siting

Another Week Goes by and I'm Still Counting the Days.

Week 5 (1/10/2012 - 5/10/2012)

Happy October fellow Teachers!! How are you? =) Wow..Week 5 already and I hope all of you are still up to the challenge. As for me, I'm still hanging on along with my partners in SMK TTDI adapting to our new life in school. As usual, we had ourselves ready top-to-toe physically and mentally in order to meet the teachers and fulfilling the students' needs. What do you expect? It's MONDAY BLUES! Anyway, the class went on as usual for the Form 3 classes (3 Rhazes/3 Curie) getting ready for their big exam (PMR!!). I had them read the revision book and answering History questions from other district and state. On the other hand, the Form 2 students are still having their final exam until Tuesday. So nothing much to say  for these couple of days until the examination were over. The following days on Wednesday and Thursday, I brought my Form 2 students to the library and we did some 'Leisure Reading'. I know how much they were stressed about their exam, so I had them learning and relaxing at the same time. Some of them read books while others played indoor games (chess, checkers, scrabble,etc). Before the class ends, I asked a few students to talk about the book they've read and the moral values the find in the story. Through this activity I find that the students enjoyed learning outside the classroom; they were very excited to learn something new as long as they are not in their classroom. They tend to get busy wondering about to get their books, talk to their friends, play games, etc. What can I say, my students are active in many ways. As long as they are under controlled, I'm okay with it.

Week 6  (8/10/2012 - 12/10/2012)

New week, new day, and a new experience to be gained by everyone. Hello everyone! Week 6 and we still have 4 weeks to go! Monday is the last preparation for all Form 3 students as they will be having their big PMR exam the next day. I remember when I had my first PMR exam, and the only person who wouldn't sit still was MY MOTHER. She would prepare everything for me; stationery, clean school uniform and shoes, making sure that I had all the important documents ready (ID card, exam slip). I LOVE YOU MAMA! By the way, last week Nurul Hanisah was assigned to prepare an 'Isolation Room'  in case there will be any medical cases that needs proper attention particularly during PMR.  The class needs to be cleaned, properly check the chairs and tables; make sure it doesn't wobble about. It was in a terrible mess!! I felt pity for Nuruh Hanisah, so I decided to help her around. We even had a few students to help us carry the unused table and chairs to the other room, which save us a lot of time to do other things as well. Moving on to the next day of the week, Tuesday I had my second observation by Dr. Pradip Kumar (Supervisor) and Madam Thien (Nurul's Mentor). Unfortunately, my Mentor (Datin Hazlin) is not available for the day because she went for a meeting. Luckily, Madam Thien volunteered to come and observe me instead. Oh ya, Nurul Hanisah was with me in my class. So I had THREE OBSERVERS at a time. ^_^ Not much to tell, I guess like everyone else there are rooms to improve and overall I had a great time teaching. Yeah!! No class tomorrow! My form 2 class (2 Hazen) won't be coming to school on Thursday since they're on leave. Even so, Nurul Hanisah and I had to complete our assignment, which is preparing the tentative booklet for tomorrow's Graduation Day (Form 5 and Form 6) *sigh*

Really looking forward to meet Week 7 and all the best to all SMK TTDI PMR candidates!!
Have  great weekend friends!!

Will U Stay at This School? O.o

Hi all!

miss you guys so much..just can't wait to get back to faculty like old days..

I'm willing to go to classes rather than conducting one..hahaha

anyway, last 2 weeks, Prof. Fatimah, our supervisor, had already came to the school for our first observation.

Her comments?

Well, she said i have the qualities of being a very good teacher it is just that i am not showing more of it.

She said I should bring more fun and fresh activities to the class. Maybe I was too nervous about her being in the class. =P By the way, she said, I'm already there (being a teacher). I only need to be a part of the school and a part of the class to feel the excitement.

Apart from that, yes... I managed to overcome my problems. the form 4 class could now write better essays and able to manage their elaboration under each main points (inside the mind-map). After having a heart-to-heart talk with them, I've gain more respect from them and I managed to know more about their worries and problems.  I've already finished my lesson with this class as they are now having their final examination, starting from 9/10 - 31/10. Good luck boys!

For the form 2 class, I managed to use their spirit and energy during the lesson. I asked them to have an acting, role play and also song writing activity. One of the most creative lyrics that the students managed to write is about recycling, using the song "I'm Sexy and I Know It by LMFAO". This is how the lyrics goes,

When I walk in  the spot, this is what i see,

Everybody stops and they staring at me,

I got paper in my hand and I ain't afraid to show it

I recycle and I know it... ;)

Basically that is how my class so far. There are some students from other classes meet me during recess and asks for tips or guide in some areas that they might find to be difficult. Latest, the principal, Pn. Chong, asked me, "Later when you graduated, will you come back to this school?" O.o.

My answer? ;)

Third Reflection Due Everybody!

Guess from which school?

Hello there leaves! What lies yonder? This is your sixth week at school, imagine that! Time really flies. Well, what has been happening since your second reflection? Remember the challenges you wrote about? What strategies have you used and did these strategies work? If they have, good for you! If the problems are not solved, what other strategies are you thinking of? Are there newer problems or those which you havent noticed but are sprouting faster than Jack's beans? Describe these for us. Don't forget to read your friends' posts and leave comments. Many of you are facing similar problems. By sharing, rading and commenting, you'll be able to support each other! Looking forward to reading your posts! Au Revoir!

Confident

After six weeks of teaching at SMK (L) Bukit Bintang, I feel more confident to face the boys in class. Before this, my lecturer and mentor told me that I am a soft spoken person and therefore the boys could easily lost their focus and if my voice is not loud enough I may face difficulties in controlling the class. I was worried about my method and my voice. I feared that they might not understand what I am going to teach them and the worst problem is they can’t hear me. I don’t like to scream. So, every time I walk into the classroom, I’ll ask all the boys to sit in front and let the back seats empty. Some of them even have to share tables.

For the teaching content, I am now preparing the boys for exam. My mentor told us (Fahmi and I) to focus on the literature component. So from week six until the exam, I will focus on ‘The River’, ‘Flipping Fantastic’ and ‘Mr. Nobody’. My aim is to get the boys to answer at least 70% of the exam questions correctly. I gave them worksheets and asked them to discuss and presents the findings of discussion. So far, they are doing quite well. As for their vocabulary, I asked them to write every word they don’t understand at the back of their books and find the meaning in the dictionary. I will ask them about the words in the next class.

As a whole, the boys are more active in classroom. They tried to answer my questions more frequently and I can see that a lot more students are volunteering to do the reading and presenting part. I can see that they are more confident and they are trying to really focus on the lesson. This contributes to my confidence. I always knew that I can make them study; I just need to find the right way.