My 2nd Week

On August 18, 2008 was the second week of my teaching practice. Like a week before, English was my first period. I was still observing Cikgu Dalela. On that day, I went earlier before the class began. I took some picture, to study how the teachers did classroom management. I had realized that the student tables were rearranged. Last week, their seating was clustered into 3 groups to facilitate group interaction and communication. It helped them to enhance small group discussions and cooperative learning, but also invited chatting and socializing among themselves. But then, their seats were back into traditional arrangement but lined up next close to each other horizontally. Unfortunately, it made me difficult to remember them as I already tried to memorize some of the pupils according to the seating.

Few pupils were posing as I took few shots. More pupils were anticipating the crowd and the noise was becoming louder and louder as they were starting to argue who should be line up in front and back. I was so scared that the next classroom would be annoyed with the noise until I exclaimed that I would put away my camera and stop taking their picture. Some of them were complaining but I kept on quiet, ignoring them. Later, Ckg Dalela, the English teacher came. Everyone was standing straight and greeting her.

She asked them, what she was doing few minutes ago. She was kind of doing a role playing in front of the classroom. Some of pupil answered correctly, “Teacher is walking in to classroom”. Ckg Dalela was performed next actions like sweeping the floor, swimming, drawing and writing. The pupils very excited and concentrated on what their teacher was about to do next. The teacher drew few pictures on the board to recap their previous lesson. By this way, she knew and could assess her pupils on their understanding. Below were some examples:

1. A piece of biscuit.

2. A carton of milk.

3. A packet of sugar.

4. A bottle of vinegar.

Ckg Dalela was using herself and objects around the classroom as the material of her teaching aids. Few minutes later, after giving the pupils some exercises, Ckg Dalela went out of the classroom as she was called by the headmistress. I was totally in charged. The pupils were very good as they could do the exercise quickly. They were starting to move everywhere in the classroom and disturb their friends. I asked them to go back to their seats because I was going to point at pupils who could give me the correct answers by rising up their hands. They were very competitive among themselves indeed.

* During Mathematics period with Ckg Norizan. *

I had realized that whenever Ckg Norizan came into the classroom, all the pupils would behave. After they greed her, Ckg Norizan would ask them to read Multiplication of 4, 5 and 6 altogether. She would then ask few questions of multiplication before the pupils could sit. They were really giving full attention to her.

Move on to topic of their lesson, it was under “Measurement – Date”. Ckg Norizan had asked them to bring a calendar. By referring to the calendar that they brought from home, she asked her pupils on what they had found in the calendar. There were days, months, years, weeks, date and time of prayers. She asked them to check how many days are there in each months as well as total days in a year. There was a lot of interaction between the teacher and the students. It could stimulate their critical thinking as well as improving their skills on problem solving.