Web 2.o

On 20th October 2008

I was told that my TP school was having a revision week. There is not a lot of thing to do except for preparing test, recapping previous lesson, etc.

This picture showed Ckg Dalela was writing few questions which the pupils needed to copy in their exercise book. Then the teacher would recap and discuss how they expected to answer it during their final exam. At the end of the class, teacher was collecting their books and marked and corrected any mistakes.

My 3rd Week of TP

My third day in school, I was totally wacky and exhausted. I was being informed by a teacher that I was going to take over Ckg Dalela’s period. I was not ready for any of that. In addition, I haven’t had any teaching experience. My first period was with Primary Two Green (average level). As I came in, I set up a simple icebreaking. I started introduced myself and tell them a brief description about me, continued by each one of them. As I tried to memorizing their names, it looked like they started to communicate with me, like telling me the one who cheated a lot in a class, troublemaker and etc. It lasted for about 10-15 minutes before I started the lesson.

With today’s experience, only then I understood the importance of preparing lesson plan before you came into the classroom. A teacher needs to have this to guide on what and how to teach a lesson. I could also help teachers to teach confidently and feel more secure, reduce uncertainty and anxiety. With lesson plan, various teaching methods/ strategies can be prepared to suit the needs of the pupils.

My Excel Drawing Project

On 4th September2008, Dr Leong asked all of us to draw a picture using Microsoft Excel. The aim of this activity was to attract our students in order to learn how to use this program. Below was what I had created. The character was taken from a carton called "FUTURAMA".

My Very Innocent Students

My 2nd week of TP

On August 18, 2008 was the second week of my teaching practice. Like a week before, English was my first period. I was still observing Cikgu Dalela. On that day, I went earlier before the class began. I took some picture, to study how the teachers did classroom management. I had realized that the student tables were rearranged. Last week, their seating was clustered into 3 groups to facilitate group interaction and communication. It helped them to enhance small group discussions and cooperative learning, but also invited chatting and socializing among themselves. But then, their seats were back into traditional arrangement but lined up next close to each other horizontally. Unfortunately, it made me difficult to remember them as I already tried to memorize some of the pupils according to the seating.

Few pupils were posing as I took few shots. More pupils were anticipating the crowd and the noise was becoming louder and louder as they were starting to argue who should be line up in front and back. I was so scared that the next classroom would be annoyed with the noise until I exclaimed that I would put away my camera and stop taking their picture. Some of them were complaining but I kept on quiet, ignoring them. Later, Ckg Dalela, the English teacher came. Everyone was standing straight and greeting her.

She asked them, what she was doing few minutes ago. She was kind of doing a role playing in front of the classroom. Some of pupil answered correctly, “Teacher is walking in to classroom”. Ckg Dalela was performed next actions like sweeping the floor, swimming, drawing and writing. The pupils very excited and concentrated on what their teacher was about to do next. The teacher drew few pictures on the board to recap their previous lesson. By this way, she knew and could assess her pupils on their understanding. Below were some examples:

1. A piece of biscuit.

2. A carton of milk.

3. A packet of sugar.

4. A bottle of vinegar.

Ckg Dalela was using herself and objects around the classroom as the material of her teaching aids. Few minutes later, after giving the pupils some exercises, Ckg Dalela went out of the classroom as she was called by the headmistress. I was totally in charged. The pupils were very good as they could do the exercise quickly. They were starting to move everywhere in the classroom and disturb their friends. I asked them to go back to their seats because I was going to point at pupils who could give me the correct answers by rising up their hands. They were very competitive among themselves indeed.

* During Mathematics period with Ckg Norizan. *

I had realized that whenever Ckg Norizan came into the classroom, all the pupils would behave. After they greed her, Ckg Norizan would ask them to read Multiplication of 4, 5 and 6 altogether. She would then ask few questions of multiplication before the pupils could sit. They were really giving full attention to her.

Move on to topic of their lesson, it was under “Measurement – Date”. Ckg Norizan had asked them to bring a calendar. By referring to the calendar that they brought from home, she asked her pupils on what they had found in the calendar. There were days, months, years, weeks, date and time of prayers. She asked them to check how many days are there in each months as well as total days in a year. There was a lot of interaction between the teacher and the students. It could stimulate their critical thinking as well as improving their skills on problem solving.

* I was planning to upload some of clips. Still working on it.... Hey, I'm still learning here....*

My very 1st day of teaching

OMG, I can't believe some kids just called me "Cikgu".... :)

On August 11, 2008 I came to see the principal of Sekolah Rendah Kiarong, Brunei III to report myself as a Teacher’s Assistant. It was a beautiful day as the traffic is on the low tide. After I parked my car around 7:15 am, I asked a nice and friendly lady, school cleaner where the principal office was. Later, I found myself in the office explaining myself to the new and only school’s clerk named Dyg Suhaila the purpose of my attendance.

It was already 7:50 am and yet the principal was not around. I must say that their school’s principal was giving a very long day speech. As I was shuffling my file unintentionally, a man named Ckg Kassim, the vice principal came into the office. I was called into his office and explained to him where I need to be posted for my TP period. After few minutes of discussion, he decided to give me four periods of Mathematics and English subject for Primary 2 which they indicate with color purple. In that school they divided their pupils into few classes/categories. For example in Primary 2, they put purple class as the most brilliant and outstanding pupils, green as the normal pupils and pink as the slow learner pupils.

My first mentor was Ckg Dalela, the English teacher. That day, she’s having a reading class where she had read two big books, “Houses” and “Ginger Bread man”. It was around 8.45am I was amazed by how the pupils can read after their teacher with a good pronunciation. The pupils were able to count all the houses, windows and even differentiate colors. I found it very interesting to know how well these children can understand the meaning of the words in Malay. Below are the pictures which were taken during the big book reading class.

The pupils were having a pleasant and happy time in this class especially where the teacher needed to do different intonation for the fox and the ginger bread man speeches. The teacher corrected their wrong pronunciation by repeating the words. At the end of the session, the teacher closed the book and began to ask pupils on the spelling. And once again, I was amazed by them. They can spell a long word like “ginger bread man” correctly.

During their exercise’s time slot, Ckg Dalela asked the pupils to open up their exercise book. They had been tested on spelling of 15 English words referring to the earlier class activity. I walked around to see how far they can spell words. I was feeling a little bit relieved as I found few wrong answers on their books. Soon I realized the girls were much more intelligent and quick on writing down answers correctly. They competed with each other on how fast they could spell out answers. On the boys’ side, I found out they were less battle with each other. But they much more careful to secure their answers from being flick through by their friends. It did explained how much boy’s behavior on how protective they are started on their growing up periods.

After the exercise, I build up my gut to approach the boys’ crowd. They were having discussion on the stickers they bought from the library. When I was interrupting their discussion, a boy was being friendly to me and showed me his stuff. It was some “DOA”. I read the contents one by one both the Arabic words and the Malay explanation. I explained to them the purposes of the DOA and why they need to practice them in everyday routines. The group was getting more crowded from time to time as they were interested on my explanation and began to ask question. Therefore, I was successfully becoming visible to them as they were starting to communicate with me. I was making friends with them. I felt a little satisfaction in me.

My next period would be around 11.30am. So, Ckg Dalela brought me around the school so that I will be familiar with some of the teachers, staffs and pupils. Later, we went to the school’s hall to have a break. We were having cold Milo and “mangga muda” with “kicap pedas”. I sit with some teachers and school’s kitchen staff. I felt like I was being a part of their family now.

Around 10.00 am, I went back to the office and got myself ready for the next class. I was having a fun on that day but not for Dyg Suhaila, the clerk. She was having difficulties on Office Words where she did not know how to insert lines for the urgent “minute paper” that was asked by the principal. She felt really hopeless and at the peak of panic time. Kindly, I assisted her through the trouble she had. By the way, I had a plenty of time to kill. It was a perfect time for me.

At 11.35 am, I went for the Mathematics period. They were having an activities using ICT. (As the school’s computer labs are both under renovation, the teachers need to take turn on borrowing the laptop and projector for the classroom activities). On the classroom’s whiteboard was projecting the multiplication of 5. Every pupil was standing and reading multiplication of five (5). They looked very much happy and enjoying the activity using the ICT tools. Later, the teacher asked them why they need to know multiplication of five (5)? What does it use for in real life situation? Frankly, I asked myself, why do we need to learn & memorize it? What is the importance of it? I could find the real answer for it. Then, a student confidently raised her hands and answered “We need to know it to read time". I was half laughing with myself for not realizing it at all. Gosh!