Today is my third day of entering the MK2 for the course “Using and Developing Resources for ESL classroom”. Fuyoo... I don’t have any feeling of nervous, scared or tension to attend the class. Meanwhile, I’m too energetic and inspired to attend the class as I have learnt a few new things throughout the past 2 classes. Hope, today also I will learn something new in related to the technology advancement.
Once entered the Computer Lab, Pn.Foziah has distributed the whole class with the book entitle “Teaching English in the Primary Classroom” by Susan Halliwell. At the beginning, I thought that the particular book is going to be another material to be kept in my “mini museum” at home. This is because, most of the books which have been given to us in the college for the past 4 years were not use at all and they were just kept as display materials. However, my prediction was not right for this book. After distributed the book, Pn.Foziah asked us to open chapter 1 which is “Working with Young Language Learners”. Since the chapter has 6 subtopics, thus she divided us into 6 smaller groups. Each group is given a subtopic to be discussed between the members and was also asked to prepare power point slides which are to be presented at the end of the lesson.
My topic was “The Instinct for Interaction and Talk”. We in a group of 6 discussed together and collected some important points regarding the topic. Since the details given in the book for the topic were insufficient; thus we also served internet to get more details on it. Within the time limit, we managed to prepare the power point slides which consist of “Why interaction is important?”, “The types of interactions”,” The roles of teacher in encouraging students to interact” and “Activities which encourage interaction in classroom”.
The first group who presented their slides was Chin’s group which was on “Children’s Capacity for Indirect Learning”. In the particular topic they have presented about “The general idea of indirect learning (what is indirect learning?)”, Example of indirect learning activities” and “Why indirect learning is important?” After listening to the presentation, I personally feel that it is effective if the teacher provides a room for their students’ indirect learning. Conducting activities like “Guessing games”, “Puzzle”, “Hangman” and “Charade” are some examples of language activities which lead to the indirect learning of the students. This is because; in such games the mind is engaged with the task and is not focusing on the language. It means that, students do not consciously set out to learn it; meanwhile they acquire it through continuous exposure and use. Thus, it would be effective for a student to learn the language easily in a fun way.
Then, the presentation continued with my group which was on “The Instinct for Interaction and Talk”. The definition part was explained by Dahchini and later was continued with Ashraf who explained about “Why interaction is important?”. He explained very well about it as he gave a lot of details and examples related to it. Then I proceed with the “Types of interactions and The roles of teacher in encouraging interaction”. I actually tried my level best to explain about the topic by giving some additional points regarding it. Hope everyone understand better with my explanation on the particular part. Lastly, “The examples of activities which encourage interaction” were explained by Mahalinggam. He also talked about how to conduct the activities in the ESL classroom. Thus, now I understand that interaction between teacher and students is important as it will lead the students to have a good interpersonal relationship between one another which lower students’ affective filter in learning as well as improve their oral skills (fluent) of the language in the future. Overall, we are happy with our presentation and glad to receive good comment from Pn. Foziah who said that the overall presentation was quite informative.
Since the time was up, we had to stop the lesson with group 2 presentation. Hope we will finish the next 4 groups’ presentation by next week. Overall, I gained something new on “Indirect Learning” and “Instinct for Interaction and Talk”.
Yes... I have get done with all the tasks which have been given last week like installed the Adobe Photoshop CS3, bought an 8 GB pen drive (RM44....really expensive with the tight economy) and created a blog for this course (but just empty and didn’t edit anything.
This week, Pn Foziah exposed us with the background of the course and what are expected from us throughout the course. Then, she also introduced us on the importance of using virtual teaching aids as a teacher. We were also told to start collecting materials (teaching aids which can be used in the classroom) such as photos, video clips and audios that could be used for our portfolio later. So, REMINDER for me that today’s onwards I should searching for finding useful materials.
Moreover, Pn.Foziah also emphasised us on the importance of “touch typing”. Oh, no! What’s that? I never heard about it. Since everybody looked blurred, she explained us that “touch typing” is known as typing without looking at the keypad. Then, she asked all of us whether we are comfortable with our typing skill or not. It means, do we able to type text without looking at the keypad? When most of us admitted that they are not that kind of “expert” in typing; thus she encouraged us to install the “test typing” software. In the particular software, they are a lot of exercises or so call practices on speed typing that will enable us to try, practice and become master (expert) in typing later. Apart from that, Pn.Foziah also exposed us on the most effective way of typing by using 10 fingers. Before this I just use only my two fingers to type but now I have to learn typing by utilizing all the 10 fingers. So, I need practice in typing skill. Hope, within 14 weeks I can improve my skill in “speed typing”.
In between that, Pn Foziah also distributed questionnaire to us to answer. It was mainly about our competency in using the application and software in computer. After answering the questionnaire, I realised that there are still many areas such as photo editing, video editing and audio editing etc that I have to learn in order to update myself with current technology advancement.
Besides that, we also introduced to SKYDRIVE and MOYEA software. Through SKYDRIVE, we can share our documents with friends. Meanwhile, MOYEA is software which is used for video editing. To be frankly, I am not familiar with both softwares and hope that we will learn on how to use it in the future lesson. Wait!!! The lesson did not stop until that. Now comes in an important part which is our Assignment 1 that is “Blogging for Understanding”. The assignment requires us to set our own blog and it should be updated with our weekly entries which is our journals of the weekly lesson.
Overall, I enjoyed the lesson. Since the lecturer (Pn. Foziah) look friendly to everyone, I hope I can follow with the course without any problem.
NAME : VISVA A/L SOMASUNDRAN
MATRIC NO : PEH 080074
PBEY 3102- Using and Developing Resources For the ESL Classroom.
When I first heard about the course, I thought that in this particular course will mainly deal with a lot of hands on activities like creating teaching aids such as puppets, picture cards, video clips and so on. Thus, I assumed that in the first lesson the lecturer will show some examples of teaching aids done by previous cohorts to arouse our interest into the lesson.
However, my prediction was wrong. The first lesson was quite brief and short. During the lesson, Pn. Foziah just had a short introduction session of the topic. She told us that in this course we will focus on photo editing, video editing, and audio editing. OMG.....all the words she introduced were actually new to me. Before this, I only know how to see photos, watch videos and listen to audios. But, now I have to learn how to edit all these for educational purposes. I’m blurred as I don’t have any basic knowledge on it and was thinking of how to go about the course.
Anyway, I hope I can go successfully on the course since Pn. Foziah is quite friendly, nice to everyone. In the short lesson, Pn. Foziah also set up some rules such as those who are 10 minutes late to the class are not allowed to enter the room. Besides that, she also assigned to with some tasks to be done by next lesson. There are:
i) install the Adobe Photoshop CS3
ii) buy an 8GB pen drive to be used in this course
iii) create own blog.
Hope I will get done with the task by the next lesson.
My topic was “The Instinct for Interaction and Talk”. We in a group of 6 discussed together and collected some important points regarding the topic. Since the details given in the book for the topic were insufficient; thus we also served internet to get more details on it. Within the time limit, we managed to prepare the power point slides which consist of “Why interaction is important?”, “The types of interactions”,” The roles of teacher in encouraging students to interact” and “Activities which encourage interaction in classroom”.
