Ray E Yu Jun

6.4
Task 1
I had successfully completed the second phase practicum last month. The school
which I went to was SK Kampung Batu, Jalan Ipoh. From my past teaching and learning
experience of the second phase practicum, I was able to solve some problems which
enabled me to identify my strengths and weaknesses. There are four issues which I will like
to highlight.
The first issue is regarding the misbehaviour of the Year 4 Delima pupils, the class I
taught during the practicum. Before I entered the class for the first time, the English teacher
of that particular class had advised me to be strict towards the pupils because they were
really mischievous. She also told me that most of the pupils in the school came from lowincome families and their parents were not educated. Later on, I learned that pupils from that
class were often punished for disciplinary problems, including playing truant and disrupting
the classroom lessons. When I first entered the class, I introduced the basic classroom rules
and got every pupil to introduce themselves.
Although some of the pupils were not proficient, they tried to introduce themselves
which was a good sign of response. I felt that the students could more or less
understand what I was saying. It was just that the pupils were having a hard time to
put their thoughts into speech because they were so used to thinking and speaking in
Bahasa Malaysia. As for the aspect of classroom management, I set some basic
classroom rules which they need to follow throughout these two months.
(Journal Entry 3, 28th July 2015)
However, I immediately found out that the pupils could not be bothered about the
classroom rules the next two days. Perhaps I was not being strict enough in class because I
personally did not like scolding and punishing pupils, as how I did in first phase practicum.
Therefore, throughout the following weeks, I changed the pupils seating arrangements for
three times and raised my voice when giving instructions and reprimanding them to have a

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classroom control. I also rewarded the pupils a few times as a source of motivation for them
to continue behaving decently.
Next, another issue which I encountered during the second phase practicum was
pupils could not reply to questions in English well. Instead, they often answered using
Bahasa Malaysia, their mother tongue. It was due to the low level of proficiency among the
pupils. Sometimes, they did not even know simple words such as chair and bottle. They
also often misspelled certain words when answering the worksheets despite the answers
being provided at the top for them to copy and fill in the blanks.
The only thing I noticed was certain pupils did not know the meaning of some simple
words such as chair and bottle. So, I showed to them what is a chair and a bottle in
the classroom.
(Journal Entry 4, 31st July 2015)
Therefore, I addressed the problem by using gestures and facial expressions to
explain certain vocabulary words to them. For example, when I was teaching prepositions
beside and near, I showed to the pupils the difference between the two using my hands
and eventually got the whole class to demonstrate. They could demonstrate the prepositions
correctly using their hands, which indicated it was an effective way to enhance their
understanding of a particular lessons content. It also showed that the pupils learn better
through actions, rather than sitting down and listening to facts. Hence, I was able to identify
that most of the pupils had kinaesthetic and visual learning style. They were hardly the aural
type of learners because they could not learn well by only listening to the teachers
explanations.
Besides that, another issue which I encountered was the pupils often got confused or
could not understand my instructions. For example, I once told the pupils to draw a mini
playground on a piece of mah-jong paper in groups. They did not start drawing because they
could not understand what I told them to do and they asked what they were supposed to do

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6.4
with the paper in Bahasa Malaysia. I realized this problem and my mentoring lecturer who
observed the particular lesson provided constructive suggestions. Based on her feedback,
instead of explaining what the pupils were supposed to do in complete, grammatically
correct sentences, I should resort to shortening and making my instructions much simpler by
mentioning only the key words such as this paper, draw playground. I eventually began to
give short instructions when I wanted them to do something. The results were pretty positive
as pupils began to understand things better and some of them could eventually answer my
questions in English. This taught me that it is unnecessary to use complete and
grammatically correct sentences when telling weak pupils what to do because they just
cannot comprehend such long instructions. Therefore, the quality of the teaching-learning
experience improved during the following weeks of the practicum as the pupils got used to
the flow and style of the lesson.
In addition, most of the pupils had a hard time in comprehending certain words which
I explained verbally. Most of the time, pupils would nod their head to show that they were
clear with what I had explained. As I questioned them, I found out that a majority of them did
not understand what I explained, especially those vocabulary words which were abstract in
nature. The reason I asked them questions was to test if the pupils really understood what
had been taught to them. However, I noticed that they usually could not answer what I was
trying to ask. Perhaps they could not grasp the key contents because I explained them
verbally. Most of the times, I noticed that they could understand and mention the vocabulary
words if I showed them pictures.
Pupils could not understand certain words. Some of them asked their neighbouring
friends what I was explaining to the class. Therefore, I explained the meaning of
those words to them using concrete examples and pictures.
(Journal Entry 5, 5th August 2015)

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6.4
As solution to this particular problem, I ensured that I made full use of pictures when
explaining things and vocabulary words to them especially abstract ones. I searched for
pictures of situations to aid their understanding. For example, during one of my lessons, I
had to explain the words hatred and caring by using pictures of certain situations. My
explanation which was backed up by the pictures allowed the pupils to have a better
understanding of the abstract vocabulary words. This made me realize that the use of
pictures was really helpful and beneficial when it came to teaching pupils of low proficiency. I
only had to ensure that the pictures were printed large enough and with colour to enable
pupils to have a clear view of them as well as to attract their attention. This would also
indirectly contribute to the classroom management aspect whereby there would be fewer
pupils disrupting the lesson because they were immersed in the learning and paid full
attention to what was being taught in the class. Hence, pictures had been a great source of
help when it came to making the pupils understand the key content of a particular lesson.
Another prominent issue which I encountered during the practicum was the wrong
usage of prepositions among the pupils. Specifically, the prepositions of place such as
beside, next to and near. During the second phase practicum, I was teaching the Year 4
Delima pupils these prepositions one of the days. When I first explained the concepts of the
prepositions to them, they seemed lost and confused. I found this out when they could not
answer the questions I threw at them. In order to aid their understanding of the concept of
prepositions, I used hand gestures and pictures in the later part of the lesson. For example, I
got the pupils to put both their hand palms next to each other for the preposition beside and
next to. I also asked the pupils to draw a few objects based on the prepositions given on the
worksheet. Towards the end of the lesson, pupils understood the concept of the prepositions
by being able to do the hand gestures and drawings correctly.
In conclusion, I must admit that the second phase practicum was much more
challenging compared to the first phases because the pupils were more mischievous.
However, it provided me the perfect platform to try out many classroom management

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6.4
approaches and instructional approaches to address the difficulties and challenges which
occurred along the way. It would indeed be a great experience to me as a teacher-to-be.

Task 2

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6.4
In the local primary ESL classroom, pupils often have difficulties in using the correct
prepositions in their writing. There are a few possible causes to this problem, such as lack of
exposure to the English language, insufficient practice of the language and the frequent use
of mother tongue among peers. Therefore, it has always been a challenge for the local ESL
teachers in making the pupils understand the concept of prepositions clearly. In this study, I
will focus on prepositions of place which my pupils could not understand in the first place.
As mentioned earlier, the pupils have a tough time in understanding and applying the
prepositions of place in their writing because they do not have the clear idea in their mind.
They cannot decide on the correct preposition to be used to fit into a particular situation or
sentence as they cannot differentiate how each preposition works and differs from one
another. The unsure usage of prepositions of place among the pupils is obvious especially in
their spoken language and written work. They do not know how to match the specific
preposition of place to a particular situation.
Pupils could not understand the concept of preposition of place clearly. When I first
asked one particular pupil this question Who is sitting next to you?, his answer was
the table. This indicated that the pupils were facing problem in prepositions.
(Journal Entry 6, 31st July 2015)
When I had done the presentation stage whereby I explained the concept and correct
usage of the prepositions, I asked a few pupils to come to the front. I requested them to
arrange themselves in such a way that indicated the meaning of beside, next to and near.
They seem rather confused and could not complete the formation. I then proceeded by
guiding them in arranging themselves according to the preposition. They acted as a source
of realia, or specifically human resource.
At this point, I found out that the pupils could not understand what had been taught
during the presentation stage. Thus, I quickly came up with the idea of using hand gestures
to explain the usage of the prepositions of place to the pupils. I put my hands closely

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together for the prepositions beside and next to. As for the preposition of near, there was
a slight gap in between my hands. I then allocated some time for the pupils to carry out the
hand gestures based on the prepositions I mentioned. Pupils began to show some
understanding of the difference among the three prepositions of place as some of them
demonstrated the correct arrangement of hands. This indicated that the pupils could
understand better through the use of hand gestures, which is particularly linked to Total
Physical Response approach (TPR).
In the later part of the lesson, I distributed the worksheet to the pupils for them to
practise the usage of prepositions. The worksheet that I had prepared required the pupils to
draw the arrangement of objects based on the statements and prepositions given. I allocated
some time for the pupils to complete the task. To my surprise, a majority of the pupils
managed to complete all five questions correctly. Only a few pupils had one or two mistakes
which I guided to do some corrections to their work. Below are some examples of the Year 4
Delima pupils work during the lesson on prepositions of place.

This clearly showed that the issue of wrong usage of preposition of place could be
addressed using gestures and drawings. They help the pupils to understand better as they
are more concrete and involves the pupils actions. When pupils do, they tend to learn and

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6.4
remember better. Pupils who just sit and listen to abstract explanations of the teacher will
often not learn well, thus leading to the issue of wrong usage of prepositions among pupils
which is common nowadays.
A few days after the lesson, the cooperating teacher met me to discuss certain things
regarding the pupils I was teaching. She highlighted the weakness of the pupils especially
English language due to the reason of pupils social background.

: Why are the pupils weak in the English language? Some of them did not
know certain simple words.

Teacher

: Most of them come from low social background and status. Thats why they
cannot speak and write well in English. They are weak in their grammar
especially prepositions, tenses and subject-verb agreement.

: What do you usually do to make them understand the lessons better?

Teacher

: As you could have noticed by now, the pupils learning style is more towards

kinaesthetic and visual. They just cannot sit down quietly and listen to long
explanations. They will get bored easily and begin to misbehave in the class.
(Interview on 4th August 2015, 11.00 am)
In conclusion, based on the feedback and response by both the cooperating teacher
and pupils, I realized that the methods which I used for the prepositions lesson were
effective. They cater to the needs and learning styles of the pupils, thus allowing them to
have a better understanding of the content of the lesson.