When I first began my practicum at SK Kampung Tunku, Petaling Jaya, I was terrified with what to expect from the school, teachers and primarily, the students. In the first week, we were bombarded with all these information on how the students would behave in class, how they would correct a teacher’s English, how they would observe what we wear to school every day and many more interesting things. At the beginning, I was quite nervous thinking about these and whether the students would accept me or not. Yet, I tried to keep an open mind regardless of all the information that we received from the teachers. I did not want to swallow and retain all these perceptions without really getting to know them first. As such, the first time I entered both my classes, I entered fresh, without any prejudice towards them, yet at the same time, trying to be careful with my words and actions. Praise to God the Almighty, everything turned out to be fine even until the last day of my practicum at the school.
Throughout the 12 weeks, I could see that I have really grown and developed in all aspects, especially in the teaching of the language to the students. This training period was a good platform for me to experiment with the many teaching and learning strategies that I learnt theoretically in class and lectures. I also took this opportunity to put into practice my teaching beliefs that effective teaching and learning will only take place when the students enjoy their learning. I find that some teaching strategies worked best with the students while some did not. For example, I once experimented teaching grammar in isolation whereby the whole 30 minutes lesson was geared towards the teaching of the simple past tense. However, I find that the lesson was dry and boring in which involved very little participation from the students since I was the one who did most of the talking in the class. As such, from the lesson, I decided that I should not opt for the teaching of grammar in isolation.
Nevertheless, from my experience, I also discovered that the students really enjoyed their learning through activities such as the hot seating, creative writings, singing songs and playing games that I conducted in class. This is because the activities were mostly enjoyable and fun, which motivated the students to take part in the teaching and learning and eventually contribute to an effective and memorable learning. I also incorporated the teaching of the language contents such as grammar items through the activities conducted. For instance, through hot seating, I integrated ‘Wh’ questions in the lesson. The students enjoyed the lesson and they were excited to ask questions to the person in the hot seat without realizing that they were actually practicing ‘Wh’ questioning. In fact, when I did revision with the class, they could recall on what I had actually taught for that particular lesson, i.e. ‘Wh’ questions, as the activity was memorable to them.
In addition to that, I also learnt on organizing classroom activities. Throughout my practicum, I tried out different ways of organizing group work such as individual work, whole class, pairs and also group work. The groupings were mostly random. From experiments, I discovered that the students enjoyed and learnt best through group work. However, the group works that were mostly carried out were developed from individual work and pair work. For example, in one of my literature lessons, the students were required to compose a shape poem on food. To start of the lesson, I asked the students to individually write two sentences using two different adjectives to describe the food that they were given. Then, the lesson developed by asking the students to share the sentences they had written with a person of a similar food item. After that, all five students with the similar food item were grouped together to share their sentences and to come up with a poem on the food item. From the activities, I learnt that the development in the organization of the activities helped to create active participation among the students. Everyone were involved and contributed to the activity. They also learnt from one another as they tried to complete the given task. Furthermore, the students enjoyed carrying out group work and they would request for me to carry out group work more often.
Classroom management wise, I had no major problems in handling the students during the teaching and learning even though there were three or four students who constantly needed to be reminded and reprimanded to stop talking and to complete the tasks given. In tackling this sort of situation, I would normally call out the students’ names and look at the misbehaved students. They would then stop talking and continue with their work. In terms of managing the class, I believe that the teacher should not be strict and put on a stern face at all times. Students are human beings with feelings. Thus, I believe that humour should also be injected in the lessons at intervals of time in order to create an enjoyable and stress free learning environment. Therefore, in all my lessons, I tried to keep a balance between being strict and laughing at jokes with the students so that they enjoy my English lessons. I think it paid off as I received motivating and good feedbacks from the students who commented that they really enjoyed my lessons.
Apart from that, I also believe that at certain times, I should not control myself from being friends with the students since I can get to know them better by doing so. I tried to loosen up a little so that the students can see me as an approachable person. Thus, this made way for the students to see me as somebody who they can trust and share about their worries and problems. For example, one of my students confessed that before I taught her English, she would always play truant since she was too scared to come to school. This was because her former English teacher is a very strict person who would scold and even slap students on the face if they do something wrong. However, as I took over the class, the student admitted that she enjoys coming to school and learning English during my lessons. I never realized such an impact I made on the student’s life. At least, I hope, as she attends school and sits in the class during my lesson, she will acquire and learn something rather than being afraid of the teacher, resulting to absenteeism and eventually learning nothing. Thus, I develop a belief that a teacher should be reasonable and humanistic in managing the students so that they will develop a love towards coming to school.
Besides teaching and learning aspects, I also acquired new skills and knowledge in handling co-curricular activities. During my practicum, I joined scouts, environmental club and also ‘Kelab Olahraga’. The activities were carried out on Saturdays from 8.00am to 11.30am. From the activities, I was exposed to how to lead a club, planning out activities, writing reports, training the students and many more. For example, since I am quite active and familiar with track and field events and had represented IPBA in the events during KAGUM, I was asked by the club advisor to train the club members in relay. So, I tried to apply what I know and what I had experienced in training the students in relay. I discovered that it was rather difficult to do so since I had no experience in training students in sports. But I tried my best and did some research in advance to help me with the training. I also learnt from observing the teacher as he trained the students in other events. In general, it was a good and beneficial learning experience for me to help me in handling co-curricular activities.
Apart from that, in order to maximize my learning experiences during the training, I also managed to make other contributions to the school. For example, I became the emcee for the Independence Celebration day, I was one of the judges for the fashion show and choir singing competition in conjuction with the Independence Celebration month and I also took relief classes and taught the weakest class when my cooperating teacher was on medical leave for a month. I also performed on stage in conjunction with the Eid celebration, which was a very interesting experience. In addition to that, we were also asked to produce a script for choral speaking as a project with the school.
To encapsulate things, I had the chance to experience and learn a lot of things from various aspects all throughout my 12 weeks of practicum at SK Kampung Tunku, Petaling Jaya. This was partly due to the help and guidance that I received from different parties such as my parents, the school administrator, the teachers, lecturers, my supervisor, my cooperating teacher and mostly from my experiences with the students; my heartiest gratitude to all. Though I am still an amateur in this teaching field, I hope that all the knowledge that I have acquired from my practicum will be of great help as I start my teaching career early next year. I hope to learn much more as I go and eventually become an expert in the field when the time comes.
Especially that this is our final last 2 months together as an undergrad before we go our separate ways next year (aigoo..sad mode la~ huhu).