my reflection on blogs...

Creating a blog and maintaining it frequently is a problem for me. I believe I’m not interested in blogs. It just gave me the freedom of expressing myself but does not really help me in reflecting on what I have learnt in lecture and tutorials. I prefer participating in forums where I can read my colleagues’ postings and know more about the topic. Whereas through blogging, I don’t think everyone in the class benefit from it, this is because not everyone goes to their friend’s blog and read all the postings. Some just read the shortest posting and reply to it. So this means that not everyone is reflecting on what they have learnt.

Although I find blogs are not very useful for me to reflect on what I have learnt in class, sometimes when I read my colleagues’ postings, I can see that they could reflect on what they have studied and it really does encourage me to do better with my postings. I did try to reflect through my postings but not very sure whether my postings are really reflective.

need help with AVA!!!

Thinking about my simulated teaching again, I feel that I need to do some changes to it. I am still not satisfied with my set induction; it’s too lame for my students. Showing two pictures and expecting my students to get interest in the lesson is very much normal. I would like to do something different. I think it will be better if I change it to question based. Rather than showing a picture which might distract the students as they will get excited, I could start by using questions which are related to students.

Before I plan on what are the questions to ask to students, I would like to know whether I can use questions as my set induction. Will my marks be deducted as I don’t use any AVA throughout my lesson? Is AVA a must in a lesson? How important is AVA? Except for pictures, videos and music, is there any other AVA that can be used in classroom? These are the question that I keep on asking myself regarding simulated teaching.

I think I can find the answers for these questions if I go online and search for examples of set induction. I could just surf websites for TESL and TEFL resources to get ideas and to know what set inductions that can be used in lessons. Although I could find out for myself about set inductions on the net, I still would like to have input from someone. As lots of websites are created by westerners, I cannot be sure whether it is applicable in Malaysian context. So I would like to know from someone who is experienced in Malaysian education system and school to give me input about set inductions.

my "disastrous" simulated teaching...

i think that the simulated teaching i did on "The bear" by Anton Chekhov was not very interesting. i feel that i could have added more cartoon pictures to attract my students. however, when i taught in the classroom, i did not have any difficulty to gain students' interest in the lesson. they were attracted to the picture i showed them and gave their opinions on it.

i realise that my lesson's strength was my worksheet as it was less in words and had a worksheet with pictures in it. i feel students did feel motivated when the worksheet that they are doing does not have much words in it. Miss Kasthoori said that my voice projection was very impressive. using my voice, i could gain students' attention and maintain control of the lesson.

the weaknesses in my simulated teaching was students' were a bit passive at times and i had to keep on encouraging them to respond. i also feel that my lesson was lack of creativity. i could have used different approach to stimulate students' interest during set induction.

i believe this would be another step stone for me to improve myself and do better in other simulated teachings that i have to do in the future.

Teaching my coursemates...

For my simulated teaching two weeks ago, I chose the play “the bear” by Anton Chekhov to teach in class. This play is about Smirnov, who gave debt to Popova’s husband, wants to claim the money back and goes to Popova’s house. Meanwhile, Popova, who was widowed, don’t want to meet anyone but she had to face Smirnov as he was persistent to meet her. Popova could not pay Smirnov as she was out of funds at that particular day. A conflict exploded between the two of them and gradually Smirnov got attracted to Popova.
In the end of the play, Popova calls Smirnov “a bear” because he is like a bear; comes in and shakes her life totally. I stressed on “the bear” which was used to describe Smirnov is what I concentrated on teaching.
I started my lesson by showing pictures of a man and a bear and I asked the students to tell me the similarities and differences between the man and the bear. For my pre-reading stage, i asked 2 of the students to read the extract aloud. When their friends are reading, the other students have to highlight the lines that show Smirnov’s character. They have to list down the lines and give one word that represents the line.
For my while reading, I asked the students to fill in the chart given with the similarities and differences between Smirnov and a bear. Upon completing this exercise, students have to write an essay on why Popova called Smirnov a bear and the reason for it. They have to refer to the previous exercise to do this one.
I felt that my students (course mates) did enjoy the lesson as I was the only one who chooses to do this play. Although my friends didn’t have prior knowledge of the play, they still get to help me out to react and move my lesson. By teaching a play that is unfamiliar to everyone, I got to know the real feedback of my set induction. Now I know how my real students will react when I do set induction in real classroom. This was a new and unique experience that not everyone in class has gone through. I guess I had the advantage together with few other friends of mine who picked to teach plays that the others are not familiar with.

A step forward in the world of Drama

On the march 8 2009, my course mates and i went to The Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre, JLN Strachan, Sentul Park to watch a play as it was our EDU3217 course paper’s requirement. We when to the play “2someS: The Secret Love Life of Ophelia”.
Watching a professional play in my life for the first time gave me lots of excitement even before I walk in the theatre. Before we walk into the theatre, we got to see a glimpse of the beautiful surrounding of Sentul Park.
With a very calm mood i walked into the theatre and what i first saw after entering the theatre was a girl sitting on the floor playing with the carpet whereas a man was on the sofa looking at her. I wondered why is this two people dressed up in modern costume? Is not this supposed to be a play adapted from Shakespearean work, in which the actors are supposed to be wearing big gowns and coats?
Okay, leaving the costume issue aside, I was totally confused when the actors started talking as they were talking in old English. I could not make out the meaning of their speech until the first 30 minutes of the play. After that I started to understand what the actors are talking about.
In my opinion, watching this play really disappointed my expectations to watch a nice play. I feel that this play will be much better without the elements of sexual desire or maybe this element can be maintained but not to be acted out in front of everyone. Maybe such a play will be suitable to be staged in foreign countries but in the context of Malaysia, I don’t think this play is suitable. Maybe I am not being open-minded about this but I really don’t think this play is suitable for Malaysian context. This is what I feel after seeing some parents bringing in their kids to watch the play. If this play is considered okay to be staged in Malaysia, I think we should have rating system then to help parents to decide on which play to bring their children to.
Besides everything I felt inside KLPAC while watching the play, I really liked the environment around KLPAC. It was very quiet and calm. It gave some kind of peace to my mind and the picturesque view is something I have never seen before in my life.
My first experience watching a play in KLPAC was nice because of the environment. I don’t refuse the idea that I would have enjoyed watching play better if I watched a different play. I would like to go the place again to watch another play but this time I will try to get the summary of the play before I select a play to watch.

is my simulated teaching same as in schools???? i wonder...

thinking about wether the simulated teaching we do in our tutorials is same with how i have been taught in school makes me laugh. it is nothing similar to the way i was taught literature in school. my teachers will just come inside the classroom and ask us to copy down whatever she/he reads and we have to memorise it in order to answer in exam. they never bothered of making sure that we understood the poem, short story or novel. the real classroom situation which i studied in was totally different from what we are doing for our simulated teaching.

when we do our simulated teaching our focus is mainly on making sure that students undeerstand what is being taught. students have to put some effort in identifying liteary elements; whereas in schools, students don't have to acquire the skill of identifying literary elements.

when i was at school, i hated literature periods because i felt im just going to read aloud some boring literary work and the teacher is going to give notes for exams. it was very bad experience at school but when i went to form 6 and did literature for my STPM, i got a new perspective of literature but still it did not give me enough space to discover things myself. now, as im doing minor in english literature, i feel that im given more space to think critically. im let to discover things on my own. i love this feeling. i am having a good time preparing for simulated teaching and teaching it to my classmates.

Elizabeth the Golden Age is really gold

Elizabeth: The Golden Age is a very nice movie that we watched during our movie watching session. Queen Elizabeth died virgin as she was not married in her entire life. the only man she loved didn't really love her and married her lady in waiting.

although Queen Elizabeth's personal life seems like a mess, but her social life was very much fine. although she never gave birth to anyone but she was a motherly character for her people. she took car eof them with great effort.

i admired the way she brought herself. she look so diplomatic and beautiful eventhough she was old. the way she solved the problems she faced was very matured.

Queen Elizabeth loves her country too much to bring in her personal revenge into her responsibility as a queen. she released the man that cheated her when his service is needed in order to save Britain from France. she behaved profesionally. her love for her citizens brought her to the batllefield to fight France herself. she is a good example on how people should separate their personal life and social life and she gave us the morale value of personal revenge should be brought into social life.