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. 

35 Days Later... :)

SMK (L) Bukit Bintang. I never realized that it has been over a month Syazwan and I have been teaching in this school. However, the end is not near as our mentor, Pn Sithira has been giving us heads up on School-based Assessments and Final Exams of our school after the PMR examinations. phew!

Alhamdulillah, my observations from both the lecturer and mentor has been conducted. I can say I tried my best and still, there is a lot of room for me to improve my lessons. I take it as a challenge as I always give my 100% commitment to the boys, even though they might be easily lose focus and always love to play instead of study, I don't give up and tried to cater all of their education needs. 

In my opinion, my 1st class is more proficient and active students. They respond swiftly and always giving out opinions and trying out answering my questions. However, my 2nd class is the last class of  Form 1. They have very low proficiency as they do not know even simple, basic words. So, I tried to split the class by putting them to sit with different race. It works as they now are more focus towards the teacher instead of their own activity. Speaking of activity, I given out them more simpler tasks compared to the 1st class, and giving out translations in BM of every word I said and asked them to repeat after me. The similar task that I given both class is I always introduce the 'Word of the Day' for every lesson to enrich their vocabulary.

Sorry for the late post as I only just got connected. All the best folks!

Greetings everyone! Hope all of you are doing well, and still have the burning passion and excitement we did at the very start of the practicum. I'm doing alright, just a little worn out I must say. But hey, I'm enjoying the littlest moments in SMK TTDI with my students. For starters, my form 2 kids have just finished their final exams so I was the one who marked their papers after my mentor told me to do so. And let me tell you guys, I really feel at a lost. They are not close to getting 40% in their overall marks, and I just feel really sorry for them. I got the chance to invigilate their English exam the previous week, and I saw that some of them didn't even try. The moment they received their paper, they glanced through it and they slept! Hence, me marking some VERY empty papers with practically only their names and sentences they copied from the instructions. With that, I came to class this week with just the exam papers and their marks, and I went through English Paper 1 with them. With only about 10-12 students in the class (the troublemakers don't even bother to come to school now), the class was quieter and calmer, so that made it easier for me to explain the questions and answers one by one. My second observation with Dr PK was much better than my first one. I planned some 'speaking' activities with the kids and they tried to speak more in English. I took them to the media room to show some videos and they enjoyed it. I even learnt that one of the most problematic student can actually pronounce sentences in English clearly. I asked them to do a simple role-play which I've already prepared the scripts. So all they had to do was practice the pronunciation and memorize some of the sentences. Thank goodness, they were able to do that. However, Dr PK said that I still need to improve on my classroom management as they were still walking about and made too much noise. Oh well, with only one month left of practicum, all I can say is.. "Hang in there, comrades!" All the best to all :)