ELE3104 (Real)
ELE3104 (Real)
ELE3104 (Real)
TEACHING AND ASSESSING OF WRITING SKILLS Writing is the system for interpersonal communication using visible signs or graphic symbols on a flat surface such as paper, cloth n ect. Purpose of writing: - To get thing done - To inform - To persuade - To maintain relationship - To document occurances, events, ect Types of writing: - Narration - Description - Exposition PRINCIPLE OF TEACHING WRITING 1. Understand your students reasons for writing. The greatest dissatisfaction with writing instruction comes when the teachers goals do not match the students, or when the teachers goals do not match those of the school or institution in which the student works. It is important to understand both and to convey goals to students in ways that make sense to them. 2. Provide many opportunities for students to write. Writing almost always improves with practice. Evaluate your lesson plans: how much time is spent reading or talking about writing, and how much is spent actually writing? Practice writing should provide students with different types of writing as well. Short responses to a reading, journal entries, letter writing, summaries, poetry, or any type of writing you find useful in your class should be practiced in class.
3. Make feedback helpful and meaningful. Students crave feedback on their writing, yet it doesnt always have the intended effect. If you write comments on students papers, make sure they understand the vocabulary or symbols you use. Take time to discuss them in class. Be cautious about the tone of your comments. Find one good idea the studenthas, and make an encouraging comment about it. Find a place where the student wasnt clear, and write a comment that will help her/him clarify it. Identify a grammar problem, and make a comment that will help the student see the problem in other places in the paper. 4. Clarify for yourself, and for your students, how their writing will be evaluated. Students often feel that the evaluation of their writing is completely subjective. Teachers often hear, I just dont understand what you want. One way to combat that feeling is to first develop a statement for yourself about what is valued in student writing, either in your classroom or in your institution as a whole. WRITING READINESS (1ST STEP) Building Visual Readiness Skills: Visual readiness begins with recognizing shapes and then letters and numbers and finally words. Reading books and signs and pointing out words is helpful. Here we're not concerned that they "read" or recognize the specific words so much as that they begin to understand that "oh, together those letters make a word." Also label, items and pictures along with your child so that you are role modeling identifying items with writing. Building Fine Motor and Eye/Hand Coordination: Many preschool activities that just seem like fun are actually building fine motor skills and eye/hand coordination. Here are 10 examples of good pre-writing activities: Working puzzles Building with blocks Pouring water into cups Stringing beads Finger painting Bouncing and catching balls
Cutting with scissors Drawing Matching shapes Threading "sewing" cards Super Fun Pre-Writing Activity: To build finger strength, fill clean spray bottles with water and let kids spray a surface like a fence or sidewalk. It just seems like a fun activity to them, but the trigger finger action is actually strengthening little fingers. Beginning Writing: When your child is ready to write, start with markers or chalk on a big blank surface such as a board or paper on an easel.Demonstrate the writing of letters without focusing yet on size, hence no lined paper for beginning writers. As young children progress you can offer smaller paper with crayons or felt tip pens.Educator's tip: Many parents begin by teaching young children to write capital letters and they come to kindergarten writing their names in all caps. Start from day one teaching your child to write their name with only the first letter capitalized so that he won't have to relearn how to write his name. STAGES IN WRITING LESSON 1. Generating ideas using learners' own ideas can make the writing more memorable and meaningful. Before writing a letter of complaint, learners think about a situation when they have complained about faulty goods or bad service (or have felt like complaining), and tell a partner. As the first stage of preparing to write an essay, I give learners the essay title and pieces of scrap paper. They have 3 minutes to work alone, writing one idea on each piece of paper, before comparing in groups. Each group can then present their 3 best ideas to the class. It doesn't matter if the ideas aren't used in the final piece of writing, the important thing is to break through the barrier of ' I can't think of anything to write.
2. Focusing ideas This involves thinking about which of the many ideas generated are the most important or Relevant, and perhaps taking a particular point of view. As part of the essay-writing process, students in groups put the ideas generated in the previous stage onto a 'mind map'. The
teacher then draws a mind-map on the board, using ideas from the different groups. At this stage he /she can also feed in some useful collocations - this gives the learners the tools to better express their own ideas.I tell my students to write individually for about 10 minutes, without stopping and without worrying about grammar or punctuation. If they don't know a particular word, they write it in their L1. This often helps learners to further develop some of the ideas used during the'Generating ideas' stage. Learners then compare together what they have written, and use a dictionary, the teacher or each other to find in English any words or phrases they wrote in their L1. 3. Focus on a model text Once the students have generated their own ideas, and thought about which are the most important or relevant, I try to give them the tools to express those ideas in the most appropriate way. The examination of model texts is often prominent in product or genre approaches to writing, and will help raise learners' awareness of the conventions of typical texts of different genres in English. I give learners in groups several examples of a genre, and they use a genre analysis form to identify the features and language they have in common. This raises their awareness of the features of the genre and gives them some language 'chunks' they can use in their own writing.Learners identify the function of different paragraphs in a piece of writing. For example, in a job application letter, the functions of the paragraphs might be something like; reason for writing how I found out about the job relevant experience, skills and abilities closing paragraph asking for an interview Learners are given an essay with the topic sentences taken out, and put them back in the right place. This raises their awareness of the organisation of the essay and the importance of topic sentences. 4. Organising ideas Once learners have seen how the ideas are organised in typical examples of the genre, they can go about organising their own ideas in a similar way. Students in groups draft a plan of their work, including how many paragraphs and the main points of each paragraph. These can then be pinned up around the room for comment and comparison. When preparing to write an essay, students group some of the ideas produced earlier into main and supporting statements.
5. Writing In a pure process approach, the writer goes through several drafts before producing a final version. In practical terms, and as part of a general English course, this is not always possible. Nevertheless, it may be helpful to let students know beforehand if you are going to ask them to write a second draft. Those with access to a word processor can then use it, to facilitate the redrafting process. The writing itself can be done alone, at home or in class, or collaboratively in pairs or groups. 6. Peer evaluation Peer evaluation of writing helps learners to become aware of an audience other then the teacher. If students are to write a second draft, I ask other learners to comment on what they liked / didn't like about the piece of work, or what they found unclear, so that these comments can be incorporated into the second draft. The teacher can also respond at this stage by commenting on the content and the organisation of ideas, without yet giving a grade or correcting details of grammar and spelling. 7. Reviewing When writing a final draft, students should be encouraged to check the details of grammar and spelling, which may have taken a back seat to ideas and organisation in the previous stages. Instead of correcting writing myself, I use codes to help students correct their own writing and learn from their mistakes. 8. Conclusion By going through some or all of these stages, learners use their own ideas to produce a piece of writing that uses the conventions of a genre appropriately and in so doing, they are asked to think about the audience's expectations of a piece of writing of a particular genre, and the impact of their writing on the reader.
STARATEGIES IN TEACHING WRITING 1. Objectives and Goals The lesson's objectives must be clearly defined and in lined with district and/or state educational standards. 2. Anticipatory Set Before you dig into the meat of your lesson's instruction, set the stage for your students by tapping into their prior knowledge and giving the objectives a context. 3. Direct Instruction When writing your lesson plan, this is the section where you explicitly delineate how you will present the lesson's concepts to your students. 4. Guided Practice Under your supervision, the students are given a chance to practice and apply the skills you taught them through direct instruction. 5. Closure In the Closure section, outline how you will wrap up the lesson by giving the lesson concepts further meaning for your students. 6. Independent Practice Through homework assignments or other independent assignments, your students will demonstrate whether or not they absorbed the lesson's learning goals. 7. Required Materials and Equipment Here, you determine what supplies are required to help your students achieve the stated lesson objectives. 8. Assessment and Follow-Up The lesson doesn't end after your students complete a worksheet. The assessment section is one of the most important parts of all.
INTEGRATED ACTIVITIES 1. Step-by-step instruction 2. Provision of model 3. The need to teach language (grammar and vocab) appropriate to the writing needs of student 4. Focus on the various stages of the writing (refer pg 142-145)
ASSESSING WRITING When it comes to writing assessment, there's no better judge of what your students know and are able to do than you. Assessing Writers offers practical methods for gathering information about every writer in your classroom and shows you how to create writing lessons that address the needs of individual students as well as the whole class. In Assessing Writers you'll find out: what you need to know about students to assess them as writers how to uncover and make sense of this information how to make an individualized plan for each student how to use these plans when you confer how to structure units of study to meet classroom-wide needs. With a wealth of smart Suggestions, useful charts, reproducible rubrics, and activities for professional reflection, Assessing Writers gives you powerful tools that make assessment simple and effective. EDUCATIONAL EMPHASES The Educational Emphases reflect current developments in education. These emphases are infused and woven into classroom lessons to prepare pupils for the challenges of the real world. I Thinking Skills Critical and creative thinking skills are incorporated in the learning standards to enable pupils to solve simple problems, make decisions, and express themselves creatively in simple language. Mastery Learning Mastery Learning will ensure that all pupils master the learning standards stipulated in the Standard Based Curriculum. Mastery Learning requires quality teaching and learning in the classroom and teachers need to ensure that pupils master a learning standard before proceeding to the next learning standard. Information and
Communication Technology Skills (ICT) Information and Communication Technology Skills (ICT) include the use of multimedia resources such as TV documentaries and the Internet as well as the use of computer-related activities such as e-mail activities, networking and interacting with electronic courseware. Multiple Intelligences The theory of Multiple Intelligences encompasses eight different intelligences human beings posses. These intelligences are essential in order to maximise teaching and learning in the classroom. Constructivism Constructivism will enable pupils to build new knowledge and concepts based on existing knowledge or schema that they have. The teacher assists pupils to acquire new knowledge and solve problems through pupil-centred active learning. Contextual Learning Contextual Learning is an approach to learning which connects the contents being learnt to the pupils daily lives, the community around them and the working world. Learning takes place when a pupil is able to relate the new knowledge acquired in a meaningful manner in their lives. Learning How to Learn Skills Learning How to Learn Skills are integrated in the learning standards and aim to enable pupils to take responsibility for their own learning. These skills incorporate study skills and information skills to equip them to become independent life-long learners. Values and Citizenship The values contained in the Standard Based Curriculum for Moral is incorporated into the English language lessons. Elements of patriotism and citizenship is also emphasised in lessons in order to cultivate a love for the nation and produce patriotic citizens. Knowledge Acquisition In teaching the language, content is drawn from subject disciplines such as science, geography, and environmental studies. Content is also drawn from daily news items as well as current affairs. Creativity & Innovation Creativity is the ability to produce something new in an imaginative and fun-filled way. Pupils in level two will display interest, confidence and self-esteem through performance and producing simple creative works. Innovation is the process of idea generation and utilising the creative idea in relevant contexts. Entrepreneurship Fostering entrepreneurial mindset among pupils at their young age is essential in this new world. Some of the elements that are linked with entrepreneurship are creativity, innovation and initiative, which are also attributes for personal fulfilment and success. In level two, elements of entrepreneurship are incorporated in lessons through activities.
WEEKLY REFLECTION
BY SHAMSUL ALI
WEEK 2. The second week of self learning i focused myself on lerning how to plan a teaching. I learned deeply that the most important in teaching english is about the studying and panning of the yearly scheme of work. In general planning a yearly scheme involve the understanding of the intere content of the HSP. In order to dertermines of items that need to be covered and for grading and assesment of students level , what skills to be taught, timing of items with the school calendar and the coherence within and between every items in the HSP.By good planning of yearly teaching scheme it will enable a teacher to provide the insight on what lessons need to be reacycle, reinforce and to be enriched. Beside from that, yearly scheme also will enable teacher to balance everything in order to avoid being carried away into giving enjoyable activities more of time to practice but the giving less time to unpopular activities.
According to this book, yearly scheme planning has to be prepared flowing this 4 step i. use syllabus , the text books and workbooks and the guidance given obove to break the syllabus into a number of themes or topics that would lend themselves to the effective teaching-learning of the skill perscriibed. ii. iii. iv. Use the inventory of skills, grammar items and prescribed vocaburlarly which skills/items should go with each topics or theme. Decide on an approriate sequence for presenting the themes. Decide on the amount of timeyou can fully on each topic or theme and be spelt out in term of weeks and semesters.check every public holiday and school break
WEEK 3. The third week of my dailly learning focus mainly on the teaching practice. According to my understanding teaching english have to follow this general principal of teaching english. There are four fundamentals of Language Skills: Listening (with understanding), speaking, reading and writing. Listening and speaking are primary skills, while reading and writing are secondary skills. Reading and writing are reinforcement skills. They reinforce what has been learnt through understanding and speaking. In fact, understanding and speaking speed up the reading process. Writing should be introduced after reading.
The basic principal of teaching english 1. Teach the language, not about the language. 2. Teach the language, not its written system (at the start). 3. Teach the language, as it is, not as any one thinks it to be. 4. Teach the language, not its literature. 5. Teach the language as it is now, not in term of its history. 6. Teach the language as a skill, not as an intellectual task. 7. Teach the language in varied, interesting situations. 8. Give maximum exposure. 9. Give vocabulary its due place. 10. Use mother-tongue as a tool, not a medium. 11. Immediately reinforce correct response.
WEEK 4.
The teaching of speaking skills required a teacher to follow this steps. 1. help students to enhance the speaking ability, focus on both fluency and accuracy, depending on your objectives by providing students with fluency building practice and realize that making mistakes is a natural part of learning a new language. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Provide intrinsically motivating techniques so students now their motivations in learning Get students to talks in English but encourage them to use the authentic language in meaningful contexts. Provide appropriate feedback and correction Capitalize on the natural link between speaking and listening. Give students opportunities to initiate oral communication Encourage the development of speaking strategies.
After reading this chapter I figure up that a teacher must recognize the students reason to speak and what the skills they have to improve their comunicatiion abilitieshere are some tips that can be followed when tacher try to improve your student abilites to speak . i. Encougaere them to Observe the mouth movements of those who speak English well and try to imitate them ii. Listen to the 'music' of English. iii. Use the dictionary. iv. Make a list of frequently used words that you find difficult to pronounce and ask someone who speaks the language well to pronounce them for you. v. Read aloud in English for 15-20 minutes every day. vi. Various versions of the English language exist. Begin by identifying the category you fall into and start by improving the clarity of your speech. vii. Watch the English news on television channels like Star World, CNN, BBC and English movies on Star Movies and HBO. v. Listen to and sing English songs. We'd recommend Westlife, Robbie Williams, Abba, Skeeter Davis and Connie Francis among other
Week 5.
This week I learn the fundamental of teaching writing. First I learned that writing is a way of communicating using visible signs or graphic symbols on a flat surface of paper. The purposes of writing are to get thing done, to inform, to persuade, to maintain relationship and thousands of others reason to write. The types of writing also came in different varieties according to the abilities and purposes of writing. Some examples are narrative, descriptions and expositions.
Here are the principals of teaching writing is i.Understanding your student reason for writing ii.Make feedback helpful and meaningful iii.Provide enough opportunities for students to practice writing iv.Clarify to your student how the writing to be evaluated. Stage in writing lesson. i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii. Generating ideas Focusing ideas Focus on a model text Organising ideas Writing Peer evaluations Reviewing Conclusion
For teaching writing these are the strategies and techniques that should be implied by teacher i. ii. iii. iv. v. Set the objectives and goals Tap the students prior knowlegdes and gives direct contexts. Gives direct intructions on what to write and how to evaluate the writing. Guidence and moral support ample materials and equipment required in writing
vi.
closure.
WEEK 6.
Literature is defined as the body of written works of a language, period or culture, produced by scholars and researchers, specialized in a given field. Literature is necessary for children because they should start learning how to read and write at a young age. Literature is important because it can give us information, education, entertainment, insights and knowledge. It also helps the children find solutions to the problems. So in this book I learned that in order to teach young children about literature teacher must follow this.
WEEK 7 Lesson planning is an essential part of succesful teaching. To preapare a good lesson plan thier are certains principal that needs to be followed. The general priincipals of lesson planning are as follow. 1. Knowlegde- teacher much know the background of the students, syllabus, types of activiities ,language contents, skills, intituituin and reflections. 2. Variety- adopt different kinds of lesson activities and materials for diffferent kinds of classroom varieties. 3. Coherences and cohevesiveness- all activities and the lessons objectives to be achive much be in total harmonies. 4. Flexibility- lesson plans have to be flexibale and can be easly adapted for changing invironments Practical guidance for a lesson planning. Before lesson: 1. Read trough the unit of text book as far as you can. 2. Note down every new word from the books 3. Work out the answers of every task on your own fisrt. 4. Work on supplementary material. 5. Look for and select suppleymentary material. 6. Create you owm materials 7. Write down the source of materail before unit 8. Think about what to teach and how to teach. 9. Put difficult activities earlier. 10. Put interesting activities later.cancel or replace some activities. 11. Use variables of activities During lesson; 1. Go into the classroom with smiling on your face
2. Warm up lingusitic lesson with good inductions set 3. State the objective clearly 4. Do not look into your lesson plan. 5. Give student cler instruction and demonstrations 6. Encourage students 7. Be homorous 8. Never under evalaute thier abilites 9. Write down briefly your problems 10. Leave the classroom with smile After lesson 1. Arrange your suplementary materails for future use 2. Write down brief comments either in your class lesson plan or in your profisioanal dairy 3. Work out the problem 4. Correct student homeworks 5. Talks with colleageu for more details.
WEEK 8 . The process used by teachers and students to recognise and respond to student learning in order to enhance that learning,during the learning (Cowie & Bell, 1999, p. 32) The most effective types of assessments teachers can use to make instructional decisions for ELLs are authentic performance-based assessments such as observations, journals, portfolios,and self-assessments. Performance assessment tasks allow teachers to simultaneously instruct and assess. Effective teaching, above all, is the key to the sustained achievement of all students, especially ELLs students who struggle with reading. Teachers must develop the ability to tailor instruction that helps all ELLs achieve English literacy. However, without a thorough understanding of students background and current literacy levels, teachers will have difficulty providing effective instruction to meet the unique needs of ELL students. Teachers can use assessment results to evaluate student progress and plan the direction classroom instruction and learning will take. Only when measurement, assessment, evaluation, and excellent teaching are present in classrooms will ELLs make real progress toward literacy.
WEEK 9.
This final week of my study about ESL I focus myself on the micro teaching preaparation because I want to make sure that I am ready for the big day.for this micro teaching I was grouped with three other. They are Kamarudin, Rafidah, Saliah and me. We have distributed the task of preparing for the microteaching arrcoding to the task given by the lecture. My task is to preapare for the lesson plan and as soon as I get this assingment I begun designing the lesson plan. I set the aim of the lesson plan to teach the student about the animal while integrating grammar skill and vocaburlary. The curriculum specification of this lesson plan is about the teaching of grammar and the focus of lesson is about the adjective of size and comparative form. I hope that whatever I planned here can be presented nicely and we got good review for this work.
WEEK 10.
The last week of my own lesson session I focussed to my performance during the microteaching session yesterday. I guest that I had performace well but way off from the good marks set by our lecturer. I have shown my creativity in making the lesson lively. I speak loud and clear, use interesting media in learning activities, and manage their behaviour and attitudes as a good teacher. But somehow our preentaion that day was not good enough to get full praised from my leturer. She said that some elements that needed to make the lesson lively and interestingly are missing. I am quit disappinted myself because I think that we had perform as good as the others group in term of everything. We should get good mark like them but we did not. However I admited that maybe our preperation about this activities is not good enough and maybe the supporting materials we created are not up to the mark.hopefully this can serve as a lesson to me and next time I will perform well.
TASK 2 : GROUP WORK ELE3104: LESSON PLAN Prepared by: SHAMSUL ALI PGSR SC 2009 Theme: World of Stories Topic: Three Brothers Learning Standards: 5.1.3 (a), (b) Objectives: By the end of the lesson, pupils will be able to (i) locate all the simple past tense verbs from the story. (action verbs) (ii) differentiate regular verbs from irregular verbs. (iii) rewrite sentences in the Simple Past Tense. Time: 60 minutes Teaching Aids: Word cards (Simple Present and Simple Past Tense), Task Sheet Added Values: Contextualism Steps: PRESENTATION 1. Recap the story, Three Brothers. 2. Distribute the story text to the pupils. In pairs, pupils underline all the verbs used in the story with guidance from the teacher (Task sheet 1). 3. Write all the simple past tense verbs identified on the board (or in a power point slide). 4. Categorise the verbs into two sections (regular and irregular) 5. Explain the differences between regular and irregular verbs using examples. Regular Verbs Irregular Verbs Boys play. Birds fly. Boys played. Birds flew. PRACTICE 6. Pupils are divided into two groups. 7. One group says out a verb in the simple present tense and the group replies in the past tense (This can also be done in pairs). PRODUCTION 8. Pupils are given Task Sheet 2. They match the verbs to their simple past tense form. 9. Pupils then rewrite sentences in the simple present tense to the simple past tense. 10. Check their answers.
TASK SHEET 1 Name: __________________ Year 4______________ Locate the verbs and underline them. Answers: 1. wanted 2.travelled 3.came 4.came 5.began 6.sighed
Three Brothers Once, there were three brothers who lived near a forest. The eldest was very tall and was always angry. The youngest, Jim was very short and was usually unhappy. The middle one, Jack was always calm and cheerful. One day, they decided to go on a journey. A friend in a far-away town was getting married and they wanted to attend the wedding feast. They travelled through the forest. Suddenly, they came to a log blocking the path. Just look at that! the eldest brother said angrily. Someone has put it there to block the path. Some people are so thoughtless. Well have to turn back now. No, no! began Jack but Jim stopped him. Now we cant go on, he sighed. To go around the long way through Silver City takes too long and we will arrive too late for the wedding. We might as well go home. No! No! said Jack thoughtfully. If the three of us just work together, we can move the log. Come on!! (Source: Burgess, T., Bryan, L. Teachers Manuel Reading for Literacy . Nightingale Software Pty Ltd.)
TASK 3 : INDIVIDUAL WORK ELE3104: REFLECTION Prepared by : SHAMSUL ALI PGSR SC 2009
Alhamdulillah, first and forever, I would love to thank Allah for everything. On 15th September 2012, we have been asked to apply our ELE 3104 assessment in teaching. Therefore, we have to present our lesson plan that we have prepared earlier for the English Language Teaching Methodology For Young Learners task. From my observation, many of my friends have chosen standard 3 syllabuses for their micro teaching processes. I thought, maybe it was going to be easy for them to prepare a lesson plan and at the same time to do the micro teaching as the topics are easier and do not involve complex learning such as grammar in writing. For me, I have determined to choose year 4 topic that was Lets Write and focusing on Grammar skill which was Irregular verbs. I would like to challenge my self with the difficulties that I would have faced that I saw not many of us have put this as their targets or aims. Grammar as we know it is a major problem in learning English for Second Language for Malays. So here, I really liked to have the real situation of teaching English at school. So it would be easy for me to find the problem which is to be assumed as weaknesses. There were three skills that I was focusing on and it went with three levels respectively. For the first level, it was Read aloud words, pronouncing correctly. For the second, Listen to and repeat correct words and the third were Match words to other words and write simple sentences with the words given. As stated on my lesson plan, we can refer the Learning outcomes and student prior knowledge, teaching aids, generic skills and moral values that have devoted in the lesson. I admit, it was my first time doing this lesson plan and I have faced many problems and it kept encountering me again and again. My major problem was choosing the best activity for certain stage. It was not hard to produce the idea, but it was hard when I had to rethink whether the activity chosen is suitable for students level, syllabus, time and space and many factors that could be related in the coming lesson. So the activities that really were available that time was limited. Nevertheless, the teaching was running smoothly and the problems were solved by lecturers favors. I had to satisfy with my effort even I have not done my best and I hope I can do better next time. The teaching process has really helped me in developing my skills in teaching. I
have recognized my strengths, weaknesses and a few improvements to be implemented in the future. Strengths The strengths of my teaching basically held on my chosen activities. As you can refer on my lesson plan sheet, I have provided interesting event for teaching and learning activities which were game on set induction, listen and repeat and singing at presentation, verb matching at practice, crossword puzzle at production and wheel of verbs at closure. If I was the student, I would have never been bored in the class. Kids generally portrayed with playing games, having fun and easy to lose attention. Therefore, the activities were prepared to tackle those problems from occurring during my class. My pupils would not play other games if my games are more interesting than theirs. So, the strength that I would like to high light here is the activities that I have planned were good enough to attract pupils attention to stay focus in learning. Student might not only choose what to study, but what and why that topic might be interesting one to study(Rogers 1999) Any fun activity which gives young learners the opportunity to practice the foreign language in a relaxed and enjoyable way( Martin 1995)
The fact that I have decided to use all those activities was reasonable. I thought analytically in choosing activities for every stage in steps. It is because, the activity chosen plays important role in making my pupils understand and to ensure the learning outcomes could be achieved at the end of the lesson so that the lesson would not waste time. Here is another challenge emerged as I have stated earlier. The activity must be knowledgeable, and suitable for syllabus. Therefore, here I had to use my creativity and twist my brain to adapt the lesson into games and attractive activities. What I was looking for was meaningful learning. If my interactive activities stand alone without any benefit, I should not teach English in school. But here, I have managed to make my pupils understood about the focused skill which was irregular verbs. At the presentation stage, I have well planned the activity with teaching aids usage. The reason was, the pupils will more memorize the words by reading cards than they do without it. It retain on their mental image longer then usual because of the combination of a few senses. The way I taught also
involved repetition which I asked my pupils to repeat after my pronunciation upon certain verbs in present tense and past tense forms. They were parroting me perfectly. Wozniak once said: Effective learning must be based on repetition ( Dr. Piotr Wozniak 1998) Here my goals were listening and pronouncing the words given correctly. Despite the timing was a little bit off, but they pronounced them well. The next strength of mine is the usage of interactive teaching aids and materials. I have used slideshows, words cards, envelopes of word cards for verb matching, cross words puzzle worksheet and wheel of verbs for my activities. The materials I used were suitable with the activities executed. All the materials and aids were built in good looking way and fascinating. I knew children well. They love bright colours as we can find it on television cartoons and animations. Therefore, I have made my teaching aids way too bright in colour so they would love them beside, it would be easy for them to read words on it as it is contrast. Now my teaching aids really helped them. Regarding to several resources, colours play important role in studying, memorizing words. So, they were lucky to have the aids. Children remembered colour cues better than verbal cues
( Vuontella 1999) I also have acted nice in front of my mock pupils. Acting as a nice teacher, I praised them, gave them thumb up and present to encourage them in learning. As a result, the pupils seemed happy and motivated. It is called positive reinforcement. Real children would appreciate their teachers gift even it is not big enough to be announced. It means, if a teacher gives their student a present, surely it motivates them to be good in front of the teacher and next to be good in learning. The way positive reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount. (B. F. Skinner) So, giving praise and present are one of best method to motivate and control our pupils and classroom.
Weaknesses There were lots of weaknesses that I immediately realized after I have done micro teaching. Even though the activities that have been prepared were interesting for kids, I have forgotten one important main point. If I was the pupil, I was a boy. Therefore, there are certain activities planned were sort of boy game such as wheel of verbs and game of memorizing. Mean while there were certain activities that seemed only girls involved. What am I saying is, the class involvement has not fully happened. It can be said that the boys enjoyed playing with the boys and vice versa. With that, the essence of moral values that I would like to apply to them not really worked. Singing would be one of the best activities I can include in my lesson. According to a scholar: It is an activity that may be enjoyable irrespective of age, gender, culture, ethnically or religion.( Hughes 2007) The next weakness is on me. While the teaching executed, I totally forgot about the time management. It happened maybe because I was nervous by the time I entered the micro teaching class. This is because I have never taught English before and it was my really first time applying the method taught. I have spent a lot of time for induction set and I have taken a lot of times to think and recall the steps in the lesson prepared. Therefore, the gaps between the steps looked dull and I was quite anxious at those times.
Improvement For the first problem, the boys and the girls would not cooperate nicely in doing activities which means the class involvement was weak. It was like the boys have their own activities and so that with the girls. They were not cooperating to each others as I had planned. As the problem solver, I have to think advance. The activities should not have been racial and gender bias. I should have prepared activities that would attract boys and girls to cooperate each others, play and discuss each others. The team work between girls and boys would produce excellent results. The information shared would bring benefit to each other. So, my point here is, I should have thought
more careful in choosing the best activity to avoid gender bios. Or maybe I could have combined those activities that executed so the boys and girls could play and learn together. For the second problem, It emerged because of my anxiety and reckless. I was so nervous that I have taken lots of times to calm down and recall the steps in my teaching process. I suppose this happened because I have prepared the materials just a day before the event occurred. Therefore, I was not well prepared even thought I have done the preparation before the teaching. Technically, I was not familiar with my aids and materials and I did not practice as if I was an excellent teacher. Therefore, the answer to my problem is of course to prepare the materials earlier so that I can muster the aids that I built. I should have been better prepared then my usual preparation. That is what a trainee does.