INTERVIEW QUESTION TYPES

1. Professionalism and Understanding:

1. Please give a brief description of the school, i.e. boys/girls, size, location.
Curriculum and texts used What different subjects are taught?
I went to Al Amwaj kindergarten, which is in Umm Al Quwain. It is a sophisticated
kindergarten that provided with technology, wide classrooms and many games for
children. In this school there is about 190 boys and girls. Their curriculum is MOE.
The subjects taught are Arabic, English, Islamic, Math and Science.

2. What did you enjoy most about your practicum?

I enjoyed teaching children twice a week which made me improve my way in
teaching and I have learned more about managing classroom especially behaviorism
management.
3. What challenges did you face?
I faced many challenges one of them is planning a lesson and apply it. This was the
most difficult challenge to me because I still dont have the ability to do what is
written in the lesson plan. Moreover it is difficult to do the transition specifically
when doing the three levels activities, because children are divided into groups and
they are all moved from the circle time so it is hard to focus on the three groups.
4. What did you do to show your commitment to your job as a teacher in the
school?
What I did to show my commitment as a teacher is that I always
came to school early and before the assembly. I sign when entering
the school. I do what the teacher and the principle tells me to do. I
was always kind to children and I help the teacher while teaching a
lesson and doing activities.
5. How did you collaborate with your MST and other teachers in the school?

I have been with my MST the whole day from the beginning until the end of the day. I
helped her in many things like: doing activities, explaining lessons, guiding children
to do worksheets and many other things.
I collaborate with other teachers by discussing with them about teaching the lessons. I
also asked them about the strategies in their classrooms. Moreover, I took permission
from them to take photos of their classrooms for my E-portfolio.
6. Describe a typical day in your school.
- Assembly 8:00am: students go to the assembly with the teachers
and sing the national anthem, do the morning exercise.
-

2. Planning for Learning

1. Talk about the process of planning for lessons. How did your MST go about
this? How did you plan to ensure you worked within the curriculum?
Before planning for a lesson, I discussed with my MST about teaching a lesson. I
asked her how to plan the lesson, how to start explaining it and what do |I need to
provide in my lesson. She gave me some tips about planning a lesson and she
suggested me for good activities that will make children enjoy. She also showed me
the MOE curriculum of the English subject so I knew what are the lessons and the
learning objectives. Sometimes I used the MOE curriculum for my lesson plans and
other times I used the ADEC curriculum.
2. What did you learn about planning during the practicum?
I learned that I should plan a suitable lesson for children, I should provide everything
I would do in my lesson plan, I should always plan three activities to do for the three
levels of students (high, middle, low) after sitting on the carpet, I need to bring all the
materials that are needed for the activities and I have to plan a lesson for the required
time of the class.
What challenges did you face when preparing your lesson plans?
In the beginning, it was hard to mange the time and specify what things I need to do
for the lesson. Also it was difficult to think about three activities for the three levels.
3. Explain how you planned for teaching speaking and listening.
In speaking, I gave students the opportunity to talk more in the lesson by showing
them flash cards of the letters and let them name each picture. I also give them a
chance after the lesson to talk and express their feelings and thoughts.
In listening, I played a video story about Handas surprise to listen and watch it, I
also play the song of sounds at the beginning of every lesson to engage the students.

3. Implementing and Managing Learning

1. What strategies did you use to manage the children?
To manage childrens behavior, I used the bell to grab their attention when they
lose it. I ask them about the rules of the circle time before explaining a new lesson

and they say the rules and do the their action. I also motivated them to behave
well during the class by giving them stickers to stick it in the reward system or by
praising them and say nice words to those who behave well.
2. Which were the most effective strategies you observed your MST using in the
classroom?
Using the reward system was the most effective strategy. I observed that it was also
hard for the teacher to control children who misbehave, and when she used the reward
system, all the children sat well and listened to her to get a sticker.
3. Describe a lesson you taught and the way in which you implemented the
lesson class work, group work, and individual work. How successful was
this for you?
Teaching students to read and write the letter /n/. I started by playing the song of
sounds for students as an engagement, then I showed them the flash cards of the
previous letters they learned. And to introduce the letter for them, I read a story about
the letter that includes three words start with n then I modeled writing the letter on the
white board and asked some students to draw. After explaining the lesson, I did a
whole class activity on the carpet to make sure they have understood the concept, and
the activity was letting each student take one egg(toy) from the basket, they opened
it ,they saw if inside the egg the letter /n/ or another letter, they put the egg that has /n/
in the n basket and the egg that has another letter in the x basket. For individual work,
they had a worksheet according to their levels, tracing for the low, circling for the
middle and writing the letter for the high level.
4. Explain the stages and how you taught listening and speaking as an
integrated process.
Listening: I played a story video to let students watch and listen. And by asking them
questions to make sure they have listened well to the video.
5. What strategies did you employ to teach speaking /listening activities?
For speaking, I let students sing the song of sound two times. For the listening I
played a story video two times then I asked them questions about it.
6. What

do

you

have

to

take

into

consideration

when

teaching

speaking/listening activities?
In speaking I have to pronounce the word correctly so children know how to
pronounce it. In listening I need to play story videos in a kid friendly language that
children understand it, and play it for more than one more time.

4. Organization
1. What did you do to appear well organized when in the schools? (refer to
organizing your time, portfolio, tasks etc).
I planned at home what Im going to do for the next day/this week and I set the
appropriate time to do my tasks. At the school, I sit and observe the teacher when she
explains the lesson in the circle time, I write some notes and when she let them do
activities I help her in guiding the students to do the activity. I took photos while the
teacher explains or do an activity with them for my portfolio.

Why do you think its important to be well organized when in the school?
Being well organized is important because I only spend four hours and half in the
school and in these hours I need to finish my duties as I planned (explaining,
observing, writing notes, helping the teacher, dealing with students, etc.) So we as
trainee teachers need to know how to manage our times well and start doing the most
urgent things then we do the other things.
2. Have your organization and planning skills improved? Yes - in what way? No
- what steps can you take to improve in this area?
Yes, in the beginning it was hard to organize things but then I knew how to organize
my time and plan my duties well. Now, I can do my work on time instead of wasting it
for nothing. I have known how precious my time is.

5. Reflection
1. What has been your most powerful learning throughout the practicum?
The most powerful learning throughout the practicum was managing behavior. In the
beginning I had no skills in managing students who misbehave but at the end of the
TP I knew how to deal with them because I practiced a lot and I observed the teacher
when she deals with them.
2. What was the most helpful feedback you received during the placement?
Raising my voice, using appropriate body language and make an eye contact with
children.
3. What challenges did you face when writing your reflections?
It was hard to find out the areas of development. In most of my reflections I wrote
behavior management because in my vision it was the biggest struggle.
4. Were you able to make links between what you did at college and what you
observed or experienced during TP? Give an example.
Yes, in the EDU 2303 (language & development) course we have learned the causes
and types of errors that students make in speaking and I have observed this in several
students e.g. some students say cheacher instead of teacher so the type is
phonological and the cause is hypercorrection.

5. What do you think are important things to study at college to ensure that you
are well prepared for TP?
I think that we need to study more about behavior management to deal fairly with all
students and not abuse anyone of them, and what are the appropriate consequences
that will make the child well behave and how to apply it. We also should have a
course of how to deal with special needs students.

6. Communication
Did you face any problems or challenges in dealing with _____________ and how
did you manage these?
Refer to one of following:
MST
Other staff
Administration
Students: the problem was in behavior management. I set consequences for
those who misbehave and I used the reward system to motivate the good
behavior.
What skills do you think are important for trainee teachers to have when dealing
with _______
MST: be respectful and help her if she asked.
Other staff
Administration
Students: deal with them nicely, if they misbehaved dont punish them
immediately try to be nice with them first and if they didnt listen set an
appropriate consequence for the misbehaved students.

7. Portfolio and Observation tasks

1. Show how your portfolio is organized.
2. Choose one task that you found interesting and tell about it. What did you
learn from doing this task?
I liked reading story in the local UAE task, because I have analyzed all the details
of reading a story and I knew the things that are important to do before, while and
after reading a story and the proper activities to do.
3. What changes would you make to the observation tasks?
I would make all the tasks direct questions to answer instead of writing notes because
questions will help us concentrate on specific points and write about them instead of
writing in general.
4. Refer to one artifact / other task / journal you found interesting and tell
about it.

I liked the collage activity in the Math class, the teacher gave them a paper that has
the shape of the calendar and she allowed them use colorful scraps to stick it on the
shape in the way they like.
5. Portfolio-Assessment Criteria to be completed post interview.

ASSESSMENT COVER PAGE

Course Name: Practicum 2a

Course Code: EPC 2401

Instructor Name: Antoinette Wiseman

Task Title: Coursework Interview
Due Date: Nov 21, and Nov 24, 2016

Instructor Name:

Date Submitted:

Antoinette Wiseman

Student Name:
Student ID:

Section:

Late Penalty:
Unless special circumstances are agreed with the course teacher regarding late submission,
work submitted 1 working day late will be deducted 10%, 2 days late 20%, 3 days late 30%
and any work submitted more than 3 days late will get a zero mark.

Academic Honesty:
Breaches of Academic Honesty will be treated with the utmost seriousness. You are
reminded the penalties for cheating or plagiarism include dismissal from the HCT.
(for more information please refer to Academic and Student Regulations , HCT Academic
Honesty Policy , Student Handbook )

Student Declaration:
This assignment is entirely my own work except where I have duly acknowledged other
sources in the text and listed those sources at the end of the assignment. I have not
previously submitted this work to the HCT. I understand that I may be orally examined on
my submission.

Signed:___________________________

Date:______________________________