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............

Reflection Week 3

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.

Reflection Week 2 -Intro class

First week would always be an introduction week to every one. As it was the first week, it was just an ice breaking session with the lecturer Puan. Foziah. She was quite friendly and I really think that Iwould get along with her. There were nothing much learnt today as the lecturer only told us the important things that we need to have in this course.Firstly was to create a blog, then to download Photoshop CS3 and to buy a 8 GB Thumbdrive. These three thing are very important as we will be using it through out the week. I really had a goose bump as it was all about technology. I had a very tiny knowledge about technology except knowing how to use Facebook and yahoo mail. However, time will pass by very fast and i hope that i will and can cling along to this course and complete it. Hoping to get an A for this subject and will try my best for the sake of my future pupils.

Utaya Devi A/P Subramanian , PEH080071 (Introduction Week To PBEY3102)

This is the first week of study and I would say that i have gained a lot this week.Firslty is the tips on how to improve the typing skills. It really helped me even though i am facing difficulties in typins this post using the tips given. Creating and typing this blog is a good typing a excersice i would say. Besides, that our lecturer had also told us about the five modules that we are going to work with throughout this course. Moreover, she had also introduced us to Skydrive.It has a same function like a pendrive or an external drive which is to store documents and datas. Therefore she said that if we could use it as a alternative to keep our documents.In addition, a software MOYEA was introduced where we can use it to edit songs and to create our own version of songs . This new way of creating teaching aids could capture the pupils interest towards the lesson conducted. As a future teacher I found out that this course is really very interesting and can help me in my future teaching. I am hoping to learn and gain more knowledge.Looking forward for the next class.