LINKING THEORIES TO PRACTICE

TSL 3110

Observation Report Date Topic Class Presenter : : : : 21 September 2013 Growing Plants 2 Arif Faratina Abd. Wahab and Tan Mei Chin

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Abstract Teachers use theories to support their own philosophy of education teaching style.

Effective use of the theories results in a smooth-running classroom where learning can occur. Learning theories are conceptual frameworks that describe how information is absorbed, processed, and retained during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a world view, is acquired or changed, and knowledge and skills retained.

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Introduction For this report, I was given the consent to observe two fellow English language

teachers. They both have quite an experience dealing with the lower primary students. The lesson took about 60 minutes which focussing on Language Arts with the topic Growing Plants. By the end of this lesson, the students should be able to: i) ii) iii) iv) listen to and follow instructions on how to plant flowers correctly. describe orally the steps on how to plant flowers correctly. read 4 sentence strips and rearrange 4 pictures on how to plant flowers correctly. write 4 simple sentences using 4 sequence connectors correctly. Teachers Role Today, teachers play various roles in a typical classroom, but surely one of the most important is that of classroom manager. Based on my observation, the teachers had indeed played their role as successful classroom managers. Although my observation was only for two stages in the lesson, but they have indeed showed a high degree of confidence. According to Gerardo Valazza (2000) gaining self-confidence and developing your teaching ability are closely related, and working on either concern leads to improvement on the other. The more you develop your teaching ability, the more confident you will become in your teaching. In the same way, the more confident you become in your teaching skills, the better prepared you are to move on to the next level. Personally, I think of it as an interesting approach to gain the students interest and at the same time allowing the teacher to be in full control towards the students behaviours. 1|Page

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LINKING THEORIES TO PRACTICE

TSL 3110

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Lesson planning: Stiliana Milkova (2012), noted that a lesson plan is the instructors road map of what

students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Generally, a daily lesson plan is developed by a teacher to guide class instruction. Regardless of how good the planning is, it is no doubt that the development of interesting lessons takes a great deal of time and effort. Therefore, to ensure a successful lesson, it is utterly important for teachers to be well-equipped and knowledgeable on the topic that is intended for that particular lesson. I found out that the teacher displayed a well prepared lesson with good time management in the phases of the observed stages. The objectives of the lesson are clearly stated, measurable and most importantly achievable.

The activity carried also helps to promote cooperation and at the same time beneficial for the students to achieve the objectives. The transitions between activities are smoothly done and do not create distractions in what the students are working on. The teacher is also moving around frequently to supervise the students progress.

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Communication skill and questioning techniques: Communication skill is defined as the act or process of transmitting information

about ideas, attitudes, emotions or objective behaviour, Mirriam Webster Dictionary (2010). This definition is further supported by Ginnot (2011) as He strongly emphasized congruent communication, meaning communication that is harmonious with students feelings about situations and themselves. Good communication skill ensures the learners the opportunity to enquire and discover new information during teaching and learning process. Thus, to create such opportunity in the classroom, the teacher needs to be equipped with good communication skills which also allows for undivided attention from the students.

Communication is the key which unlocks all the doors to a successful and fulfilling school life experience. From my observation, the teachers had been promoting two way communications in the classroom. This helps the sustenance of the flow towards the lesson as it sanctions learners to participate actively in the learning process. Researchers have found that this learning style is usually one of the most effective and lead to higher productivity, better contributions from group members, and increased group morale.

Besides communication skill, I also observed how the teachers posed their questions in the classroom because I am seeing these two aspects as inter-related and help improving good comprehension towards a lesson. In fact, asking the right question is at the heart of 2|Page

LINKING THEORIES TO PRACTICE

TSL 3110

effective communications and information exchange. By using the right questions in a particular situation, the teacher can improve a whole range of communications skills with his students. I think the questioning techniques can be improved by using shorter sentences with comprehensible words that match the students level. For example, rephrase the questions whenever the teacher finds them too long so that, the students are able to follow the development of the lesson based on the questions posed. 4.0 Conclusion Overall, I would conclude the lesson as successful. The objectives are achievable and measurable which ultimately helped the teacher in their delivery. Hence, they could teach in a controlled pace and not rushing to meet all the objectives that might jeopardize the success of the lesson. Secondly, the lesson was delivered smoothly with perfect time management and smooth transitions between the activities. This enhances the effectiveness of their pedagogical approach where students are not abruptly distracted from what they are focussing on. Through this way, their attentions were not diverted and they can stay focus till the end of the lesson.

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Reflection Name ID : : Mohamad Jamil bin Hj. Ladisma 821225-12-6041

First and foremost, I would like to thank Allah for the blessings and grace upon me for completing this assignments. An infinite gratitude goes to Pn. Balkkis Binti Abd. Aziz, my English language lecturer who had provided me an undivided support and constant help, and not forgetting my partners, Mr. Tow Teck Soon and Miss Iling Frances Robert who had been very patient and helpful towards completing the whole assignment as well as friends and family members who gave me a helping hand throughout the coursework.

Through this assignment, I learnt to re-polish my knowledge in planning and teaching lessons for my students. I have also learned to develop the Scheme of Work (SOW) for a period of a week as well as planning a lesson based on our own SOW. Now, it is obvious to me that the role of instruction is central to the classroom activity that it helps me to be an all rounded than just delivering the knowledge in the classroom. As a teacher, I need to be well prepared by knowing my students background and to help them by giving suitable activities in terms of their age and proficiency level to attract their interest into learning the English language.

On the whole, this assignment is divided mainly into two tasks. Task 1 requires us to develop our own scheme of work for KSSR year 3. Then, it also calls for us to present the scheme of work in a lesson plan within 60 minutes to show the use of the designed SOW. In task 2, we are required to conduct a microteaching using the lesson plan that we have developed. Then, all of us agreed that these tasks should be done together and the division must be equal.

Scheme of Work and Lesson Planning For the first part of the group work, we were assigned to develop a SOW for a period of a week. A scheme of work is a plan that defines work to be done in the classroom. Involving learners in defining a scheme of work, whether for a short project or a long course, is an important step towards motivation and involvement. For our SOW we had gone through a few series of discussions to find the suitable year and topic that we all are familiar with. For this, we listed out several topics for each year in the KSSR which we thought are interesting and could entitle us for a bigger weightage of marks. This was done so that we can really have the general overview of how we should 4|Page

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manage the development of the SOW. When we finally reached a unanimous decision on the year and topic, we moved on to further discuss the content standard, learning standard, interesting activities for each day of the week as well as to determine whether assessments should be given or not in the lesson that we are developing later on. For the SOW, we chose to develop a week lesson for year 3 specifically for week 34th and 35th, with the theme world of knowledge for Unit 12: Fresh Fruits. As in every year 3 classroom, the week is divided into 5 days comprising five different language skills in each of them. We resourced several SOW in the internet for reference to identify the format and the criteria needed in the columns. As soon as the formats were finalised, we brainstormed for the summary of the lesson plans and the activities we thought are suitable yet interesting. What I learnt form designing our own SOW is that the focus of the content and how the lesson should be carried is clearly covered. Thus the SOW will be able to help me to avoid vagueness and irrelevance in my lesson planning. It is also an opportunity to visualize and conceptualise in advance the teaching strategies and methods. Other than that, it organises the content of the lesson especially the division of the topics and the subtopics in advance. Furthermore, I can always plan, prepare and assemble teaching and learning resources days before the actual lesson takes place. As soon as we have completed the SOW, we immediately brainstorm on the lesson plan as required in the assignment. For this lesson, we agreed to teach the language arts with the learning standard 4.1.1 (Able to enjoy action songs, jazz chants and poems through non-verbal response). The reason why we want to take language arts for the lesson plan is because it is fun learning with less focus on reading and writing activities. It is also suitable to be used later in the micro teaching session. The objectives of the lesson were: 1. Recite poems confidently and independently. 2. Name at least five out of ten fruits given in the poem. 3. Identify and categorize the correct fruits to the colour. 4. Draw and arrange the fruits creatively. We highlighted these four objectives to promote the students to appreciate poems together with some enjoyable activities during the lesson so that what they have learnt from Monday to Wednesday could be put to a good use. In other words, the language arts session is like a repetition of the other previous three days in the same week. The fun learning environment concludes the three stressful days where the teacher is really paying 5|Page

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attention to correct the students mistakes. Besides that, appreciating poems are very beneficial for them to enjoy reading as well as the language in stress free manner and without too much attention on accuracy. In fact, through lots of reading regardless of genres they can practice the language and thus improving their proficiency level. Moreover, I believe that this could be a good way to show the students that reading is fundamental in learning a language and could also be done without using their standardize textbook. Other than the reasons stated above, we purposely chose this particular day so that we could emphasize the moral value which is the importance of eating healthily. Including fruits in our daily diet is a way to prevent diseases. We also hope to show the students an easier prevention manner towards diseases and to always consume fruits as part of their meals.

Microteaching The second task in the assignment is to conduct a microteaching session during one of the interaction. For this purpose, we once again collaborated to prepare all the materials needed as listed in the lesson plan. However, due to unavoidable circumstance we were unable to present our microteaching with what we had previously planned. as our last resort, we consult our lecturer so suggestion and she permitted us to just go ahead with what we have. Based on our microteaching session, I could conclude several strengths and weaknesses. First, we found out that the activity used in the lesson was really interesting and were able to help the young language learners about new vocabularies related to the topic. In both set induction and presentation stages all these vocabularies were repeated over and over so that all year 3 students could acquire and to use them confidently. The second strengths that we found in our lesson are the selection of poems is very cheerful and simple and thus supported the learning environment. The lines are repeated and easy to remember. In the end, all students can recite the poems and name the fruits successfully. The third strength is the suitability of the teaching aids and worksheet that are really helpful in supporting the language acquisition. The teaching aids are focussed on only a few fruits to ensure success in their acquisition while the worksheet covers a few more fruits so that the students could develop even further.

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LINKING THEORIES TO PRACTICE

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Despite the three strengths that I found out from our lesson, I also faced a few difficulties. Firstly, we found that the time factor could be poorly managed especially when dealing with the low proficiency students. They might need more time to recite the poems so that they can pronounce the words accurately. Aside from that, we also noticed that the allocation of time was inefficient. This could be a potential threat that could jeopardize the success of the lesson. Another weakness was the fact that we were unable to instil more learning standard in the lesson. This cause the lesson to have lack of suspense elements that sometimes needed to make a lesson interesting and successful. After detailing the analysis of our lesson especially the strengths and weaknesses aspects, I could come up with better solutions so that future lesson in developing all language skills through the use of poems and fun learning could be conducted flawlessly and resulted a huge impact towards the students. To avoid boredom of neglected students, I thought of providing different types of worksheet to cater the different abilities in the classroom. This will ensure more productive collaboration form the students with similar ability and support more communicative task. We also suggest that teachers should really understand the students background before designing an activity. Other than that, to ensure a successful lesson a proper allocation of timing should be given a great emphasis. For this to happen, we must carefully look at the timing oftenly so that the lesson is taught according to the plan. Pedagogically speaking, developing all language skills is an on-going process. Therefore, to ensure a successful lesson in the classroom I sincerely suggest teachers to have second or third opinions from other colleagues so that the teaching skills could be developed along with the current learning strategies. After several experience in doing microteaching, I noticed that as I was delivering my presentation I was also honing my pedagogical skills especially the voice modulation and the clarity of my explanation. Normally, before any microteaching I would be jolted with enthusiasm thus making me to swallow my words. To avoid having this problem repeatedly I would try to rearrange my words so that the content of the lesson is comprehensible. Apart from that, I am also improving my organization skills especially to give a very strong opening during my session. I hope to impress the lecturer as well as the audience so

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that I would look calm and in control. Then, as the confident grows I can finally adjust the pacing according to the time management. The third benefit is having the students in mind while preparing the materials and teaching aids. This ensures the suitability and effectiveness of their use. Since I am investing a lot of time sitting and preparing them, I would definitely want to see the outcome is worth the effort I poured into it. Conclusion I genuinely hoped all that I have learned through this assignment will help me to become a good teacher and a brilliant educator for my students. Teaching listening and speaking skills is not as difficult as I imagined before, but it does need a lot of thinking and a thorough execution in the classroom. If we put our mind and heart into it, theres nothing we could not achieve. This assignment has brought me to a new realization that teaching is not as easy as I am doing now. It involves a lot of careful preparations and thoughts before delivering information in the classroom is conducted. A teacher in the classroom is not merely to teach but also to mould the young generations to become individuals with good values. The acceptance of individual differences is a way to avoid unwanted behaviours from the students. Thus, a teacher needs to be considerate in his approach so that their physical and socio-emotional are fulfilled. Last but not least, it is important to provide the young pupils who are struggling in mastering the language with lots of opportunities to practice their skills. These skills must be developed together with the understanding that the language is fun and worth learning. Hopefully, what I learnt from this assignment will make me a better teacher in the future.

(2002 words)

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