Reflection week 4

Hello,every one. We meet again. As usual, we learn different things this week in the Resources class. The two things are:

1. Group presentation ( continuation of last week’s class)

2. How to download songs and videos

3. Introduction to Moyea Flv Player

This week was a continuation of last week’s topic ‘Working with young language learners ‘.The first group presented on the sub-topic ‘Children’s ability to grasp meaning’. This topic was so informational as I found out that ‘Children understand the meaning of words even before they know the individual words (written). How could this be possible? .It is possible according to Bloom’s (2000) that children grasp aspects of the meaning of a word by using paralinguistic features. Paralinguistic features are expressions and gestures and children make connection to words by using these expressions. Therefore, as a teacher must firstly identify the learning styles of the pupils and then create appropriate teaching aids and instructions in order for them to be able to understand the lesson. An example would be giving visual learners instructions using E-Toys and puppets. Moreover, teachers also play an important role in employing appropriate paralinguistic features in order to carry out lessons. Some children would get bored by just learning through words, thus teachers should integrate different tools to teach that integrates paralinguistic features.

On the other hand, group 4 presented on the topic ‘Children’s instinct for play and fun. At a very young age, children do have a great passion for fun and play. Therefore, we as the teachers should actually relate this behaviour into the teaching learning process. Teachers should engage the pupils into activities where they can actually play and have fun. For example, singing songs, dramas, movements and performing arts. Thus, we could actually encourage the pupils’ creativity and to help them to learn English. In addition, this group has also given a list of activities of interesting activities that could be carries out based on these concepts such as:

‘circle time, creative movement, art projects, outdoor play, snack time, building with blocks, dramatic play, manipulative toys, co-operative play, sand/water table, clean-up session, puzzles and cooking activities’.

In addition, another topic presented is ‘Children’s creative use of limited language resources’. Children may not have enough vocabulary to communicate. However, that does not constrain them from communicating. This eventually results in them over generating the rules, for example the use of negative suffixes like ‘Switch off the dark’ for ‘Switch off the light’. The teachers may face this phenomenon, as children in the primary school are still not familiar with the rules in English. Therefore, teacher could actually encourage children’s language skills by carrying out language games that integrate the speaking skills. Language games would encourage pupils to communicate as they will practise and internalise vocabulary when they talk. Group work is among the activities that could encourage the pupils to talk and to improve their language.

Whereas, the last group presented on the subtopic ‘the role of imagination’. Imagination is a wonderful catalyst that teacher could integrate in the teaching and learning process. Young children are usually are delighted when they play with their imagination. Therefore, it would be a wonderful idea to integrate imagination in the instruction to teach language. Teachers could carry out in the classroom many imagination activities. Examples of these activities are the hot seat, story and drama. In the hot seat activity, teacher could ask a pupil to imagine that they are of any characters and the other pupils will post question to the person who is sitting on the hot seat (chair).

All these 6 concepts are very useful for us as teachers-to-be. This is because by knowing all these we could actually understand our pupils better and thus, come up with instructions that suit their need and preferences.

Besides the presentation, we were also taught by Pn.Foziah ,about one of the fastest software to download, which is using the Moyea Flv Player. This was a new knowledge for me as I am not expert in downloading .In addition, she had also introduced us some sites where we could download free songs and videos such as 4shared, You tube, and other websites. In order to put this knowledge into practise, she asked us to download the mp3 song and the video of ‘Waka-waka’ by Shakira and to do the tutorial on how to search for a song, video and lyrics. She was quite kind to demonstrate to us on how to do ‘Print Screen’. This class was very beneficial for me as I have learnt many things in a day especially about the ways to download and to do tutorials.

hOpe ThAt I cOuLd sToRe ThEsE KnOwLeDgE fOr ThE fUtUrE uSe............