NEW TASK..

23rd September 2008

Today, we received another new task which was ‘Analyzing Research Papers’. I believe this task is quite tough and it is like an assignment, not just a task. We need to search for the research materials and it must not be similar with someone else’s. That’s make it even tougher, I think. There are 78 of us and is it possible for all of us to get different research materials? I wonder..

This task was to be done in pairs and we need to search for two research materials that discuss or report on the research in using teaching aids in the classroom. We were required to fill in the table that was prepared by the lecturer regarding the research materials that we have found. There are five main aspects to be given emphasis from the research material which are:

1. Introduction to the research
2. Research quotation
3. Research methodology
4. Analysis of the data
5. Findings

Today’s class was quite boring since we have to listen to 8 group’s presentations. That was enough to make all of us lose attention and started to chat. We were just being normal..can’t stand listening to presentations for hours.

My group had presented on the topic of ‘Selecting and Developing Teaching/Learning Materials’ and I had to present my part on the subtopic of ‘Why do we use materials/ What are materials for?’
Based on the article, it is mentioned that “textbooks are too inflexible to be used directly as instructional material” (Allwright, 1990). However, O’Neill (1990) argued that textbooks enable pupils to review and prepare their lessons, efficient in terms of time and money and allow for adaptation and improvisation.

In my opinion, teachers need to be innovative and know when and how to use textbooks or other materials effectively in their teaching.

Web Publisher

We managed to submit our Assignment 2: Assessing and Manipulating videos for the ESL classroom this week.

Ma'am Foziah had introduced us another skill in using Microsoft Publisher. Honestly, I do not have any experience of using it and I'm not familiar with it. However, after exploring it myself, I found that MIcrosoft Publisher is very useful. We can design many things using the software. For example, business card, flyers, invitation card, newsletter, posters, etc.

For this week's task, we were required to work in pairs and design business card, flyers, invitation card, newsletter and posters to be included in our portfolio.

HOwever, I was wondering the importance of learning this skills. Why do we need to study this skill? Does it help us in teaching English later?

9th September 2008

I had a better view of our assignments and tasks for this course in this week's class. Mdm Foziah had shown us the content to be included in our portfolio.
The criteria to be highlighted in the portfolio are quality or quantity, creativity, extensiveness, updates and presentation. The portfolio must be colour-coded. Blue is for the tasks or products done in class while Red is for the extra products that we produced other than the tasks set by the lecturer. It the skills that we had learnt throuhout the course that includes photo editing, audio editing, video editing and downloading or internet skills.

Now, I realized that this course has reallly given me the opportunity to gain and develop new knowledge and skills every week. Starting from internet skills until designing e-book for teaching and learning activities. I love this course even though it was quite difficult for me at the beginning (because I'm not a so-called techno savvy persn)but it I enjoyed it. I love gaining and share new knowledge with others. That's what learning means. 'Sharing is caring'.

Our class for this week was basically the presentation by groups on topics of:
--> being realistic
--> working with a coursebook
--> working without a coursebook

Unluckily, I need to present my part on the topic of 'Being realistic'for my group. I admit that I am not good at delivering presentation in front of the classroom, what more that I had not done any presentations for months!But I had a little faith in me and managed to present it smoothly to class. I hope my friends can undertsand what I was presenting that day.=)

Be realistic

Be realistic. It was the topic that I had learnt this week. Actually, each group was given different topic and my group need to summarize on the topic of 'Be realistic'.

To make things easier, we had divided the subtopics to be read among ourselves and my friend, Sakina and I need to summarize on this subtopic.

Based on the article given, it was mentioned that teachers should be realistic in choosing activities to suit the pupils' mood. They need to consider pupils' emotion while conducting the teaching and learning activities so that learning can take place effectively as they are enjoying and participating actively during the lesson.

Besides that, teachers need to adjust the middle of the lesson to fit the class mood. For example, if the pupils are restless and bored, the teacher ought to conduct some fun listening practices or games like 'Simon Says' to rejuvenate the pupils towards the lesson. Yes, I agree that teachers have to be creative and inovative while conducting a lesson to ensure full participation and focus among the pupils towards the lesson. As we already know, children have short attention span, so, teachers need to be realistic enough to attract pupils' attention from beginning until the end of the lesson.

Moreover, teachers have to be flexible in teaching. They need to adjust the time allocation while conducting certain teaching and learning activities in the classroom. For instance, they can shorten the time allotted for an activity if the pupils have lost their interest in doing the activity. This is to avoid pupils from being boring and start to make noise in the classroom.

Furthermore, teachers ought to change a pair work activity into a whole class activity to enable full participation among the pupils and to avoid some pupils from being bored since they are not participating.

In addition, teachers need to keep the lesson simple, reuse materials and idea to suit with the pupils' interest.

New task

We were given another new task this week. It was designing activities for four language skill tasks which are listening, reading, writing and speaking. We were required to work in group of fours and each group member needs to decide on their topic. My group members, who are Nurul Huda Pauzi, Azliza Ramlee and Kamarul Hafizan had decided to choose the topic of "Parts of Body". Luckily, each group member only need to choose one skill and design one stage of the lesson. I decided to design listening skill while Liza is doing reading skill,Huda is doing writing and Kamarul is doing speaking skill.

Luckily, I've done with my materials for this task. I chose pre-listening stage where the teacher basically introduce vocabulary for parts of body, namely; 'eye', 'ear', 'nose', 'mouth', 'hand', 'arm', 'shoulder' and 'leg'. I have designed an e-book to be used in this stage and I hope I can upload it in ADEC successfully.

To all my group members..wish you all the best!!