INSTITUT PENDIDIKAN GURU KAMPUS TEMENGGONG IBRAHIM, JOHOR BAHRU JOHOR DARUL TAZIM

PROGRAM IJAZAH SARJANA MUDA PENDIDIKAN TEACHING WRITING SKILLS IN THE PRIMARY ESL CLASSROOM (TSL 3107) 4 PISMP TESL 4 TASK 4: WRITTEN REFLECTION

NAME IC/INDEX NUMBER LECTURER

: MUHAMMAD HILMI BIN PARHIN : 901206015805/ 2012121340163 : MISS NORAISHAH GOH BT ABDULLAH

SUBMISSION DATE : 20th SEPTEMBER 2013

MICRO-TEACHING INDIVIDUAL REFLECTION.

Based on our task given for Teaching Writing for this semester, 4PISMP is a teaching exercise so it provides a unique set of variables and consequently the possibility of problems in side of preparing us for real situation later on. Miss Noraishah observes my microteaching and give feedback regarding my strengths, weaknesses and improvement that can be made while doing microteaching. First and already introduced, is the factor of teaching. This is an entirely new idea for all of us, so the dynamics in the classroom will change completely from anything I used to. This brings up a few areas of concern that I will each have to monitor: teaching time, flow which each part flows into the next teachers part, consistency of instruction, and target on task. Second, I could run out of time because this lesson has several subsections. The section I am most concerned about is the activity that I presented. The activity asks the students not only to understand the clues, which can prove to be too abstract in nature, but also to synthesize them into a complete picture of what happened. The first part of this concern, abstract vocabulary, has the potential of bringing problematic English learning areas to the surface, but this is ultimately a good thing when students express concerns that we can address for them. Finally, the student is always a factor. Having more than one instructor will be an entirely new concept for the students, so they may not engage as well. If this is the case, I can see two options: all but the focal teacher sit at the back of the class, or outside of the room, out of view of the students, or each teacher get involved with a certain group of students that they will stick with throughout the lesson. Goes to the how lesson plan went on. The major drawback of the lesson as a whole was that it lacked cohesion and better planning. Although the individual parts of the lesson went well, they did not find the synergy from one another that they should have had in order to be effective. As an example, it was mentioned in our comments that the story was expected to come up in latter parts of the lesson, but it did not and it

slowly became apparent that it had no purpose in our lesson. Because the lesson lacked cohesion, my lesson appeared unprepared for the task of teaching, and therefore missed the goal altogether. I received a wealth of positive feedback from everyone who observed our teaching. Overall, I succeeded in most of the areas I performed poorly in during the previous lesson that I taught. However, there were parts of my teaching that I could have done better. The most noticeable was the story, which I mentioned above. I failed to introduce the story well by the time discussing the story. Also, the purpose of the story was schema activation, so it was supposed to provide the students an audiovisual to the topic of mysteries, but because the story was fast and full of humorous references, which can be difficult to understand due to their abstract nature and the students were not able to keep up. Finally, I had not made sure they understood that they were listening to the story so they could listen for the vocabulary we had just talked about, try to get the gist of it, and to discuss what was happening in it, which I also did not do. What have I should do differently is easy enough to answer, because it seems to be human nature for us to know what we should have done. I would have introduction phase better in accordance with the above mentioned points. I also think it would have been better to include the vocabulary section, the section that followed mine, in with the schema activation. Because I could not help but to include vocabulary in my introduction, I found it difficult to keep new vocabulary to a minimum. What went wrong were each of my parts turned out to be longer than expected and as a result, our lesson ran over the time limit. Sadly, the portion of the lesson that was cut short was the activity the students were supposed to have the most opportunity to use English, so they were cheated out of a great learning experience. Not to mention that without this opportunity all of my hard work was wasted. Another point worth mentioning is that since Im had never done a writing teaching exercise, I was confused about what to do with the pupils. I had not worked out the details concerning helping the student in their lessons, nor had I discussed what I would do if pupils are not interested into the story or not understand it.

I liked the content of the lesson and I think it is my strength. The idea was presented first as a lesson that pupils were familiar with, The Cinderella story. Once they saw it, they were all excited about it and began work on making their understanding right away. I also liked having some pupils members to bounce ideas off of, but the greatest part of that was being able to trigger them to discuss of their ideas, which encourage them to use the language. For me, who have no experience, this was an opportunity to learn from experience in the context Im aiming for. Benefits and drawbacks of working on this teaching assignment is which I liked about the actual classroom teaching was that it allowed teacher to spend less time planning the lesson, more opportunities to observe the good habits of one another, the flexibility to serve as both a teacher aide and a teacher, and being able to observe my own students while they are being taught. This could teach me something about myself if their reactions to the other teacher appear to be more engaged. Before the lesson I was feeling restless about doing my part. I had lot of

assignment in time which is full of hand to grab. I also have to go over any last minute details into making the lesson plan. When I was having technical difficulties with the computer, I tried to find other alternative, borrowing my friends laptop. In nutshell, I will have to plan better schedule and improvise my time management. When the class began, I had just a few minutes to clear things up, so I decided and moved on. When everything came into focus just before I began, I regained my confidence and began the lesson. During the lesson, I could feel the interaction between the students and myself, and everything felt a lot more confident. As the lesson moved on to the other part, I was no longer nervous, but I could see where I had failed to organize. After the lesson, while everyone was talking about the different things that we could have done better, I could do nothing but agree. It was one of those feelings you get when you know that youve done something wrong but have no choice but to take the feedback and try again the next time. But all in all, I was glad that we got it done because the semester is winding down with its many papers like this one. I was just happy I made it.

The activities planned reflected my principles.

The activity was meaningful

because it played on some of the great literary themes that connect with the human spirit: mystery and entertainment. So, the students were engaged and they had both meaningful and comprehensible input. They also had an opportunity to communicate with one another in the target language and continue to learn about the language through fun learning. However, as noted above, the lesson was cut short during their opportunity to interact, so in this way my teaching principles were not reflected in the lesson. What I learned in the process is no matter how much improvement I make from previous experiences teaching, there is always room to improve. Besides, keeping an open mind about self-improvement ultimately benefits the entire classroom. So, although I did a whole lot better than last time, I still learned that I can be better at ensuring that my students know what I expect from them when we begin new activities. Also, I learned that group work can be a great thing because it divides the work. However, I must note that it can also be a lot more work if the group is not organized, and this could mean that the lesson may not be taught effectively or even not at all. Other peoples observations have shown me that I can improve, and in this event they boosted my confidence in the classroom. Also, their comments about my approach during the first teaching exercise in comparison with this time give me an idea of what to shoot for. This exercise turned out all better from what they said, so I know that I am on to something here, so there in this campus is a good place to build on for a future teacher to be. (1510 Words)