You have had a beautiful opportunity (a rare one) to observe an English lesson at school last week. After organizing with the Department of Education, KL, and getting a letter of approval for you to go to SMK Sultan Abdul Samad, Petaling Jaya, I look forward to hearing what you've discovered from the observation you did. I've written in Spectrum (University Malaya's online instructional support system) the things that you need to take note:
The lesson stages, teacher's classroom management, students interactions with teacher, activities in the classroom, the scaffolding done in the classroom, age appropriacy, suitability of activities with the students' level of proficiency. weak vs good students, good points and aspects to work on.
Please reflect on all or some of the above. Most importantly, what you've learned from a lesson conducted by a real teacher in a real classroom setting.
*Update*
Some photos from Samad School shared by Hemah and Shahrul
Sample advertisements on the board
The students like they really enjoyed being in the classroom
An adverstisement created by students
Hemah, Teacher Jegateeswary and Shahrul
The school we went were Sekolah Sultan Abdul Samad. The class we went was a form 2 class. From 2 Bakti, was conducted by madam Jegateeswary. She is an experienced teacher for almost 11 years. The topic is about an advertisement. The main skill was speaking. The activity is to create an advertisement in groups and present it infront of the class. There were no ICT,the class gets noisy but the teacher able to control with her loud voice.The teacher were strict. She mentioned to word "LISTEN" loudly.The teacher constantly walks around and she helps the student when it is neseccary in their discussion. The teacher shows them some examples of newspaper cutting. The teacher gives a clear instruction. The student present their work which to create the advertisement. Teacher ask if the student are willing to buy the advertisement, it is a two way of communication. The teacher help one of the groups to present because the student have difficulties in speaking. As far as we concern, the kids are into technology and some of them are really good. There are some students who don't have grammatical mistake. The teacher couldn't finish all of the presentations. The teacher rewards the students. Some chocolates for the best group. The teacher gives them some homework. The teacher gives some simple worksheet so that she can collect from them. The teacher mentioned that she has to be strict and it depends on the situation. Overall, shahrul and me enjoy the observation. The teacher were very kind and the students were cooperative.The school observation was a good experience and we learn a lot through observing.
ReplyDeletePei Pei and I attended a Form 4 class in the afternoon taught by a pleasant, and experienced teacher, Madam Sue. She had a mixed class of approximately 30 students. At the end of her class, she mentioned that it was one of the higher proficiency class (second best in the school). The English class was right after recess and we guessed the class before was PJ because some of the boys were in normal T's and shorts. Madam Sue allowed them to go out and change after she have covered her lessons and the students are left to do the exercise she gave them.
ReplyDeleteMadam Sue did an induction set by writing 'special people' on the white board. The class were filled with energetic boys where they listed out a number of superheroes and celebrities name. Madam Sue wrote those mentioned on the board regardless but after a while she erased them away and hinted that 'special people' were actually people with handicaps.
They did some discussion on a list of disability before Madam Sue call out two students to explain on some of the disability. The students were reading from printed notes; Madam Sue had practiced scaffolding in her class by telling her students to research a certain topic before the class that day. As the students present to the class, teacher and the rest of the students prompt questions and had a discussion among themselves.
Even so, the girls are noticeably quieter in this particular class. In my opinion, teachers should encourage the girls to participate than just letting the class run its course too freely. there are also two boys sitting far back in the classroom, which seem to be disconnected from the class- but Madam Sue made sure to keep them attentive by calling them out once or twice.
It was an 80 minute class and the other half, students were given exercise based on the English textbook and did their own work till the end of the hour.
According to the students, Madam Sue does not rely on the textbook most of the time and she gives handouts too. Classes move and discuss freely among themselves and Madam Sue during these period.
At the end of the lesson, Madam Sue remind them to finish their folio project and left. Before we return to UM, we had a chat with Madam Sue and she told us other ways she tries to encourage her students to speak English.
Madam Sue had set up a blog and because she has 30 students, each student takes a day and is required to post an entry on his/her designated day about anything at all. Students are free to update as much/often as they like on any other day too but on their designated date, it is a compulsory. We could see there were some posts about their days -this is a clever way to create opportunity for the students to write more English and know them/each other better. Madam Sue says that she gives marks accordingly.
They also have an FB page where they update each other freely, and talk about general topics as long as it is in English.
According to Madam Sue, she does not focus on a single skill for her lessons because they were all integrated into one. Although it may seem tempting but I believe it is better to keep track on what focus skill you have taught a classroom so they would have a balanced lesson/exposure of skills over a certain duration.
You can check out photos that we have taken here: http://s167.photobucket.com/albums/u152/mauvemarionette/TESL%20UM/
The class that I attended (yes, only me..hehe) 2 Adil for the observation. The teacher (I'm very sorry i forgot to jot down her name and now i cannot remember) greeted me and invited me to enter the class. Before I entered the class it was very noisy already.
ReplyDeleteThe lesson started with the big "F" written on the board. The student guess it very easily. F for Facebook. So the topic was about Facebook. At that time, of course Facebook sounded interesting for a topic but I question about what can the teacher teach about facebook?
Next, the teacher went on by asking if they knew any famous people who have FB. Student was very active and all was putting up hands to answer and the class started to get out of control. She went on by giving a little bit information about FB and only the student sitting in front were listening,the rest did not.
Then, she distributed a very short article with numbers about FB. I thought that the teacher was going to discuss about the article and maybe focus on the grammar or something. But instead she asks to pick out the numbers in the article and asked< "what the number refers to?". Student at back did not participate at all and the teacher just simply ignores it.
Next is writing. The task was, "Facebook to me is..... (not more than 30 words). She did not even discuss it or asked a few student to read what they have wrote. There was a new class at back. A group of student were talking about something,turn their chair around and did not do the task given at all.
Then there was the speaking part. At the back of my mind I was already thinking about wearing an ear plug because I knew it was going to sound 10x noisier than a fish market, and I am very correcto! My, my.. The speaking task was a pair work. They need to imagine as if they were chatting on FB, and it did goes so well at all. They get carried away, I also heard cursing word from the student like "WTF" and "WTH".. The teacher was walking around checking the student and many are not so interested with the activity.
I pity the teacher, felt like helping her.. I asked the teacher does the student always behave like this and this noisy?. And she answered "yes, it's hard to control them. They are all very clever, this is the first class btw.." No wonder the student got bored at the very beginning already. The activity was very super easy for them.
Overall, I was quite disappointed with what I saw. Topic was interesting but the activity was not. Classroom management was bad. It gets noisy towards the end and the student end up playing around and they were walking around the class sitting at their friend’s chair. The skills for the lesson are reading, writing and speaking. I think it’s better to focus to one skill only so that teaching will be much more effective. Her instruction was clear. Oh and some student do not have FB, so it's kind of hard for them. I'm sorry if I sound all negative and stuff, but this is really what I saw. I'll try to email the pictures. That's it from me. xoxo.