INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGES CAMPUS, KUALA LUMPUR

PISMP

TESL

INTAKE JANUARY 2013

SEMESTER 4

TSL 3073

TEACHING OF WRITING IN PRIMARY SCHOOL

NAME OF STUDENT : MUHAMMAD RIDZUAN BIN ZINON

INDEX NUMBER : 930825085637

DATE OF SUBMISSION : 13 OCTOBER 2014

NAME OF LECTURER : MADAM OOI SAY TIN

Reflection

On the 2 October 2014, my group and I have conducted a microteaching and

we are prepared for the microteaching. My group and I were given feedback by

lecturers and based on the feedback given; there is some strength, weaknesses that

I managed to gain.

One of the strength that I managed to identify in my group’s microteaching

was the good use of teaching aids. Before the microteaching, my group and I

discussed on the lesson plan that we are going to use. The topic that we choose is

‘Healthy Food’ and vocabularies that we taught are ‘fresh, ‘sweet’, ‘salty’, and ‘fat’.

After the discussion, we prepared the teaching aids in order to help the teaching and

learning session. From this, I have learnt that we need to be prepared before the

teaching even happens and this helps me as future teacher to be fully prepared in

future. Examples of teaching aids that I use in my group’s microteaching are

recycled paper plates, pictures of foods, and food menu. The purpose of these

teaching aids is to help arouse and attract pupils’ attention and so that they respond

well to the lesson. Thus, teaching aids is very important as it act as ‘teacher’s helper’

in the teaching and learning session.

Apart from that, my group and also include pupils’ participation in the teaching

and learning session. We brainstorm activities based on the lesson plan that we

have choose and within the activity, it is integrated with their past knowledge and

their understanding of the topic. For example, in the production stage, they were

needed to produce a healthy food menu based on what they have learnt before. In

my opinion, when they produce a healthy food menu, they are able to differentiate

between healthy food and unhealthy food. Thus, it helps them to eat only healthy

food and avoid from taking unhealthy food which are bad for their health.

Aside that, another strength that I managed to identify from the feedback

given by the lecturers was the resources used in the teaching and learning session.

We were given credit on the resources that we used as it relevance to the topic

learnt. We use big pictures of healthy and unhealthy food. The resources also

attractive and creative as it are colourful and allow pupils to work on their own in

creating the food menu. Teacher can see what in pupils’ mind when they are

completing the task given. In my opinion, a creative and attractive resource plays an

important role in teaching and learning session as it will attract pupils and focusing

them on the task.

However, there are also weaknesses listed by lecturers and one of the

weaknesses was the vocabularies used. Lecturers made a decision saying that our

lesson is not synchronised as the vocabularies that we taught in presentation is not

present in the practice and production stage. Vocabularies like ‘sweet’, ‘salty’, and

‘fat’ was not included at all in the 2 stage as it is emphasised in our lesson plan. We

were disappointed with the comments given and know that it is a big mistake from

my group. In my opinion, the activity that we choose in the presentation must be link

to practice and production stage in order to make sure that learning is occurring.

Another weaknesses that was stated by the lecturers was the lacked of

facilitation skills and lack of teacher presence. Based on the feedback given, a good

eye contact, voice projection, time management and relationship between teacher

and student is important as a teacher and we lack some of it. I found that I do not gel

well with pupils and this causing them to not interested in the lesson. In future, I need

to improve my facilitation skills and teacher skills as it is important for a teacher in

order to have an effective classroom management and finally become an effective

teacher.

Apart from that, another mistake was made in practice stage. The stage was

similar to a reading activity as the teaching and learning session was writing. It was a

huge mistakes made by us and I admit that we lose a lot of marks in this stage. A

writing activity should not have a reading session and it is clearly a reading activity

when the teacher reads aloud to the pupils. In my opinion, as a group, we should

check our lesson plan careful enough in order to avoid a big mistake like this. I

realised that I need to be more particular during lesson planning so that this kind of

mistakes is not continuously happening to me and my group mates. In order to be

more particular, I have decided to myself that I must create a checklist before lesson

planning. The checklist must include all the criteria of an effective lesson plan that

contains activity that link and related to the teaching objectives. A checklist will help

a teacher to achieve the goals of a good lesson plan based on the skills that the

pupils need to learn that day.

In conclusion, there are many things needed to be look upon in order to

overcome the weaknesses listed by the lecturers. It is not easy to become an

effective teacher as it requires a full commitment and good skills. I need to improve

my teaching and facilitation skills as I lack both of it. The microteaching managed to

teach me on how to become a good skilful and competent teacher. In future, I hope I

can improve better and will not repeat the same mistakes that I made in this

microteaching.