Today’s class was interesting, as we were required to do power point presentation based on the topic ‘Working with young learners’. We were divided into group of six and were assigned a sub–topic. My group presented on the sub-topic ‘Children’s capacity for indirect learning’. This topic would be a recall on the learning theories. Indirect learning refers to the way children acquire knowledge from the teaching learning process. Children acquire the knowledge without their consciousness and this referred as indirect learning.
To make things easy, an example of language acquired by children indirectly is their mother language. There were no rules learning done by the children, however they have acquired the language fluently. Therefore, it is evident that indirect learning had taken place. When children learn indirectly, they will learn more than what the teachers could supply in the classroom. Therefore, it will be a good idea to bring in activities that could encourage this indirect learning in the classroom. Language activities are most suitable to be imposed in this kind of learning. Some examples of language games are hangman, charade, word puzzle, spelling bee. Moreover, guessing games for instance is a great way to encourage the children to learn indirectly. When, they guess the right words, they would have a good control of the words and remember them better. Thus, enabling the pupils to recall the knowledge even after a long period of time.
On the other hand, the power point presentation that we have presented was good, however there were two points that were raised by Puan Foziah. First, was on the examples of the language activities. She asked us to include in some point or explanation on each language games that we had presented so that the audience would have a better understanding on the presentation. Moreover , she also asked us to include in the HTML address for each of the citations that we have put in, so that it will be easier for us to refer to the reference. In addition, from my point of view, the presentation could be improved by adding more information regarding the term ‘ Indirect learning’. We could have inserted in the definition of ‘indirect learning’ and some examples of indirect learning. However, I do believe that from the 2 minutes video that was shown in the presentation, had given an extra input to my friends on how indirect learning takes place in the primary school.
Furthermore, another group, group 6 also presented their group discussion on the topic ‘The instinct for interaction and talk’. I would say this group had done a good job as they had given us a complete presentation. They have discussed about the importance of interaction to children. Conversation is very important for the pupils in order for them to exchange their thoughts. When, they interact, they would learn more from the environment and from other pupils. Some types of interactions raised by this group are pupil-pupil interaction, teacher-pupil interaction, pupil–teacher interaction and so on. However, some pupils do find difficulties in interacting in the classroom. Therefore, the responsibility relies on the teacher to encourage the pupils’ interaction. Teachers should create a good learning environment, engaging the children into group work and carry out activities which requires the pupils to talk. This group has also recommended some activities that I think are very effective in encouraging the pupils to talk such as role-play, hot seat, magic box, circle- reading, puppet presentation, spelling-B and so on.
I do agree with this group’ recommendations of activities as children will have a chance to learn as well as to have fun when they are engaged in the activities. Moreover, from my point of view, this presentation would be better if they have included in some citations taken from researches in order to support their points. The other group presentations were postponed to next week due to lack of time.
