The last assignment

Salam...

Yesterday class was such a relief for me since I have submitted my second assignment. This assessing and manipulating assignment has taught me many things. I learnt that by just using a simple, suitable video, we can manipulate it for use in classroom teaching. The exploitation of these two video clips has been able to develop my creativity and ability to think critically, as I need to consider numbers of things during the production stage. The need of young learners, the suitability of new developing materials, the time allocation and many more are some factors need to be considered by me while I am completing this assignment with my partner. Although more focus is given to the production of new developing materials, we cannot deny that some attention needs to be given to the suitability of our activity with the primary ESL classroom. Since young learners are very unique, we as ‘teacher to be’ need to immerse into their thoughts and come out with activities that match with their interest ad preferences.

In addition, there are also some new tasks given by Puan Foziah, for instance making a collage, wallpapers and using Microsoft Publishers to create business cards, newsletter, pamphlets and brochure. Although these were not a compulsory task for us, we are advised to try out and create something new so that we can put it in our portfolio. There will be extra mark for all this and I cannot just let it go since it affecting the marks for the portfolio and our whole presentation. Even though this task was quite a lot for me, I will try to spend my time wisely to explore this software since I find it very useful in producing new materials or teaching aids for teaching in the classroom, especially to attract students to experiment with the language.

Furthermore, we also receive our next assignment, which is the toughest among the all. Each of us is assigned to create four lesson plans, including all the four basic skills for a-week- teaching in the classroom based on the topic that we get. The due date is after the Raya and now is the time for me to carefully plan the lesson for a week. I feel like this is like my ‘teaching practice’, since the duration is quite long (one week) and there need to be continuation from one lesson to another. However, I will try to try my best and put more effort and thoughts for this assignment.

Portfolio...

Salam...

The lecture begins with a clear-cut explanation of the performa of this course, besides some explanation regarding our last, challenging assignment which is the portfolio. In my opinion, there are many advantages of doing portfolio, and I realised this after we have been exposed to it in our assessment class. As one type of formal assesment, portfolio has many positive sides as it records the piece of work done by the students in a systematic, chronological order. Besides providing information for teachers regarding students’ progress, portfolio trains students to be more systematic and responsible for their own learning. All the work done must be kept systematically following the dates and students has to be professional in arranging the content of the portfolio. There will be certain guidelines provided by the teachers regarding the arrangement of the content, and students need to follow the instruction in order to obtain high marks for the portfolio. In addition, portfolio also offers benefits to parents, as they will be informed about their children’s classroom activity and progression for a period of time. Looking at my context as university students, the portfolio is like a training for me to be more organised and systematic in doing all my work.

Besides that, there is also presentation of the task that has been set for us last week. Every group were asked to send their representative to present their product of discussion. The presentation trains us to select the most important points to be presented in front, and this is very helpful when we want to prepare for our exam, in which we have to select the main points for each subject learnt. The input gained for this presentation was very useful for our future teaching, since it is closely related with course book and teaching.

Discussion...

Salam...

Today's class seemed so short since Puan Foziah didn't enter the class. Initially, there has been subnission of the e-book assignment. All the tiring work seemed worthwhile when we sent the assignment to the representative of the class. This assignment actually challenge our skill in producing teaching aids that are interactive for students, besides sharpening our skill in using technology skill in preparing teaching aids for primary classroom.

After the handing in of the assignment, we received our second task, which require us to form a group of four and produce a simple learning activity that involves all four basic main skills, which are reading, listening, speaking and writing. Sincerely, this task was given quite abruptly to us, since we already have an assignment to be completed in a week time. Hence, I really need to manage my time since the due date of both tasks are close to each other. However, I do admit that this task has its own advantage, since it is like an extra training for us before we start the assignment. Fortunately, this task will be completed as a group work and this provides opportunities for us to practice all the technology skills , for instance internet skill, video editing and many more that I have learnt during the previous weeks. In addition, the way all the four skills inserted in one task gave us opportunity to use our creativity and comment on each others’ work. It also provides us opportunity to vary our scope of teaching, since all the four skills were integrated into one task.

Besides that, we also got another group task, which required us to prepare a power point presentation based on the text that we get for the day. ‘Working with the course book’ was the title of the text that we get for the discussion. Since the text was quite long, we have decided to divide the text into parts, so while the others are internalizing it, someone will be preparing the power point presentation. From the text, I got to know that course book offers many advantages in the classroom teaching. Besides served as the basis for the syllabus taught in the classroom, it can be a good reference for both teacher and students. However, we need to be aware not to be too dependent towards course book, as teacher is the real manager of the classroom. Teacher can enhance the use of the course book by guiding students along the learning process, and not just let the course book dominates the class.