An old pic of BBBS
You are provided with a beautiful opportunity (a rare one) to observe an English lesson at school this coming week. After organizing with the Department of Education, KL, and getting a letter of approval for you to go to Bukit Bintang Boy's School, Jalan Utara, Petaling Jaya, I look forward to hearing what you discover from the observation. 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.
Thank you very much Mam.
ReplyDeleteThis is really important for us, and I'm sure that it could help us a lot. I would like to share my feeling here after the observation.
We went to the school last Friday. Interestingly, Wang Lin, Wang Siting and I went to the factory beside the 'real' school in the first place. We were so amazed at the 'school's' beautiful lawn, clean area and a tiger statue, and three of us were discussing how 'lucky' we were to get the opportunity to visit this boy school. However, our fantasy was broken by the calling of Siew and Rujin who told us we waited at the wrong place. The real school was actually beside this factory as we guess. No wonder! As we entered the school, we were 'amazed' again as to how different it was from what we imagined.
ReplyDeleteAnyway we were introduced immediately and following a local Indian teacher to the class. There were around 20 students in the beginning. It was a revision lesson about the poem 'He had a such a beautiful eyes'. The teacher asked students the message, theme, incident of the poem. Students were not active at all except one boy sitting at the back who was the only active and inquisitive student in the class. Since no one was willing to answer questions, the teacher called their names and students gave some short answers.
Along the class, I noticed the classroom was dirty with small trash on the ground and the tables were broken and old. What surprised me most of all was the sharp, long nails on the students' table. This active boy was sitting at that table, and I was constantly worried about him being hurt by that nail. Minutes later, Wang Siting told me he was hurt by it. And I don't know how many nails are on those tables in very classroom, and how many students will be hurt every day. Why will that even happen? Shouldn't it be avoided if the teachers are bit more cautious, caring and considerate of their students' well-being.
Later on, the students were doing the exercise on the book. And the teacher who is a female told those boys they should not cheat the girls (the main theme of the poem). At this moment, this active boy asked the teacher a very interesting question
"Teacher, sometimes we boys are cheated by girls, not always we cheat them, what do you think?" (something like that, I can't remember his exact words). I was astonished by this question because it was so funny and provoking. Unfortunately, this teacher showed her unsatisfying face to this boy and didn't give explanation. Maybe she doesn't know what to answer. But let's think about it, isn't this boy correct? In reality, only girls are cheated in a relationship? No. I don't think so. Therefore, as a teacher, he/she has to be open-minded and positive as to those interesting and realistic questions raised by the students.
Besides that, students in the classroom would walk while the teacher was still giving the lesson. One boy was going back and forth to borrow a correction from his classmate sitting three rows before him. One particular student was late for the class for nearly one hour, and after arriving, he went out to get a chair and came back again.
The last point I want to emphasize is that the class is very academic. The teacher emphasized that how many mark per question and how to get the most mark out of each one. She said each question one mark and students have to refer to the poem, or they will only get a half mark out of the each one.
Overall, it's great experience for me to observe the class, but to be honest, I'm disappointed at the class environment.
I think Wendy has almost covered every single detail that we observed last Friday. Personally, I felt it was an unforgettable and impressive experience in my life. There was nothing special about the lesson because it was just a literature revision lesson. The teacher went over every poem that they had learnt with the students. Fortunately, I have to admit that the students in this class were not very naughty. And as far as I can see, they were friendly and well-mannered when compared to the students in other classrooms where I passed by.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I was overwhelmed by the learning atmosphere in this school. First of all, it was very noisy outside the class room. Secondly, some students were late for the class, and as a result, the teacher was disturbed when they came into the classroom. Some students were even singing or walking around during the class. I was just wondering how it was possible to study well under such an environment. The classroom was in a mess. And I think the school was still not what they should be. It left us to concern deeply about the quality in school education.
That day was the first time for me to step into school in the early in the morning after I left my secondary school for 3years. I was nervous when I saw the students since all of them were boys and some of them were even taller and bigger than me. Before we entered the class, we went to the office to meet the PK, Puan Siti Aminah first, unfortunately she was busy at that time and she just asked us to wait for the English teacher, Madame Sheila. Me, Rou Jin and Fifi talked with Puan Siti before when we went there to get the schedules, she was really helpful and friendly. She even gave many tips and told us stories about the students there. The main thing that she kept repeating was when you are in school, do not ever feel shy to ask any question if you are not clear about something or when you are given a task.
ReplyDeleteBack to the day of our observation in school, we went there in the first period of the class which was at 7.30 a.m. When we entered the class, it seems quite spacious with only 20+ students in the class. It was the first period, so I think actually it was normal for the students to be noisy because in certain classes maybe their teachers were not in yet. There were several students that came in late, but I was sure that they were punished by the discipline teacher already before they came into the class. I didn’t deny the fact that actually the teacher was not so strict with her students because she allowed them to walk in and out easily during the lesson, one of the students went to the toilet for almost 10minutes, however the students were still respected her and didn’t against her instructions. The students in that class were considered as quite good compared to the students from another class that we passed by. Almost all of them were able to speak in English when the teacher asked them questions. The lesson was quite dull because they only did revision on literature for about 30 minutes and after that the teacher asked them to answer questions in the exercise book. The students were quite pampered by the teacher because when they were doing the exercise, they just the definition of the words that they didn’t know from the teacher and she told them the meaning. During my time as a student, it was compulsory for me to bring an English dictionary during English lesson and we had to search for the definition of unfamiliar words by our own. The teacher did mention about what kind of answer they should give to score marks, I think it was normal a teacher should guide her students so that they were on the right track.
Wendy and Wang Lin have mentioned about the facilities in the classroom. Actually I was also shocked by the condition of the class. The tables were really in bad conditions, I believe even the schools in the rural areas have better facilities. Just like what Wendy said, there were nails on the table that obviously very dangerous in case the students accidentally hurt themselves. However, that depended all on the school’s management to improve their facilities.