Can't believe that we are already entering week 12 next week [26/11/2012] and we have 4 weeks left before the semester ends.
I hope I've covered the chapters well enough for this first time of teaching. I must admit that I fall short on grammar so instead of teaching, I make them do exercises straight-away and we will discuss as a class.
So far we've already done assessments for impromptu speech, note-taking and summary writing and we still have essay writing and group discussion. Might be playing a movie and they will need to write the essay based on that movie....ngehehe [the best part of an English class I assume? :p]
That's all for now.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Where Are Your Manners? ++ Game Day
Salam and Hi to all,
So I guess my writing is a bit sequential ain't it? Because I just want to sum up the whole week into one entry...tehee :D
We started the week with the first chapter in their text-book which would be the MOST LOVABLE topic for all teachers/lecturers/instructors!~
As the title goes: "Where Are Your Manners". Basically this chapter discusses about the declining of manners among tertiary level students, so the examples would be from actual current real life happenings. It mentions about students coming to class late and do not have the common sense to apologize, keeping quiet in class [i olls terasa tau uolls] or chattering while the instructor is teaching, playing with their fancy smartphones and gadgetry, so on so forth. The good thing about this chapter is, I can use it against them whenever I feel they are doing the same thing that annoys me after this. Kudos to the team who came up with this chapter in the book :D
*******************************************************************
Game Day
I wanted to test their knowledge on certain aspects of English without having to go through the boring old stuff from primary school so I came up with an idea to do it in a form of game. During the weekend, I cut the A4 paper into small sized pieces and wrote down questions. YES, MANUALLY [huhuhuhu]. I bought jajan [snacks] as a form of reward because I know, their motivation to participate would increase because of positive reinforcement [hey, aren't we all like that??? :D]
Questions varied from tenses, spelling, pronunciation, idioms, prepositions and also singular/plural and I divided them into three categories; EASY, MODERATE and CHALLENGING. I put them into three different envelopes [detailed explanations for future reference :p] and conducted my first game for FKE students. What I wanted was; everyone to answer so I called up one by one to the front and they had to choose an envelope, I pick a question and they have to answer it, correctly. So we can see that sometimes, they make silly simple mistakes but I truly appreciate their effort and participation in the activity. For the second class, I changed a bit where I told them to get into groups of 4-6 but the same rule applies because I want everyone to attempt answering a question, once. I also asked them to jolt down the words that they don't know so they shouldn't be making the same mistakes over and over again in the future. Got one more class to go for this game. I really hope they enjoyed the game and drill some new words into their minds, inshaAllah :D
***********************************************************************
For research class, we have covered until research methodology and now I am waiting for their first draft which comprises of; Introduction, Literature Review and also Methodology. I hope they have understood whatever being presented and explained in class and come for consultations so that they won't get lost in the process :) I'm not worried about these students because they come from the most toughest faculty in this university and they do their work well [hopefully]. Let's see whether they really understood what they have done...ngehehe
Till next week,
KEEP CALM AND TEACH ON~~~
Thursday, October 4, 2012
One-Monthsary
Alhamdulillah,
I managed to survive up until one month and hopefully for many more months ahead inshaAllah :)
This week [week 4] marks the end of impromptu speech assessment which carries 10% from the overall marks for this subject. Only one class left with a set of students who are not yet finished.
Overall impression by me:
There's a gap between those who really know English well and those who experience a bit of a difficulty in apprehending simple rules of English, for example; singular vs plural, tenses, pronunciation of basic words.
It's a bit tricky because I need to pay extra attention to those who understand less but at the same time, not keeping the better ones bored. Nevertheless, I need to come up with lots of activities so that they can brush up their English, like on a 360 degree scale. Pray for me!
I want to leave an impact to these people so that they will be prepared with the real world. They need not remember me but they must have a little bit of motivation once they face the real THING. From what I heard listening to their speeches, some of them are still living in a fairy-tale and that is not so good.
On another note, I gave a second chance to re-DO the speech if anyone was not satisfied with their performances. I didn't reveal their first mark and turns out, voila! All of those who wanted a re-DO, managed to get higher marks than before. Congratulations to them!
I don't know what they think of me though. Maybe I'm the most boring-est teacher they have ever encountered but yeah....DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE? *vain me iz vain*
Having to face these people, men especially, is a tough challenge for me. I'm awkward being amongst them but I try really hard to keep cool in front of them. I think that is my X factor...pretending to be calm and cool while inside.....gahh!
Next week is another new chapter. Not sure whether I want to straight away start on chapter two or do some beneficial game-related activities with them.....game lah kot kan?
That's all for Y1 students....Moving on with Y2 class, we have started on Literature Review and the group I assigned to present did a great job. The reason I made them present is because I wanted to see whether they could understand what they read or not so I just interjected in certain aspects. Added a little bit more and asked them (all the students) some questions and all of them seem like they understood. Let's see the outcome in their first draft...ho..ho
We will start on Research Methodology next week and hopefully after that, they can start with their first draft and instrumentation, inshaAllah. I like this class because they understand things fast...hi..hi...senang hidup i olls yg xde pengalaman ni. It's a good thing the one who taught me R.M was a very good lecturer!
Till then,
KEEP CALM AND TEACH ON~~
I managed to survive up until one month and hopefully for many more months ahead inshaAllah :)
This week [week 4] marks the end of impromptu speech assessment which carries 10% from the overall marks for this subject. Only one class left with a set of students who are not yet finished.
Overall impression by me:
There's a gap between those who really know English well and those who experience a bit of a difficulty in apprehending simple rules of English, for example; singular vs plural, tenses, pronunciation of basic words.
It's a bit tricky because I need to pay extra attention to those who understand less but at the same time, not keeping the better ones bored. Nevertheless, I need to come up with lots of activities so that they can brush up their English, like on a 360 degree scale. Pray for me!
I want to leave an impact to these people so that they will be prepared with the real world. They need not remember me but they must have a little bit of motivation once they face the real THING. From what I heard listening to their speeches, some of them are still living in a fairy-tale and that is not so good.
On another note, I gave a second chance to re-DO the speech if anyone was not satisfied with their performances. I didn't reveal their first mark and turns out, voila! All of those who wanted a re-DO, managed to get higher marks than before. Congratulations to them!
I don't know what they think of me though. Maybe I'm the most boring-est teacher they have ever encountered but yeah....DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE? *vain me iz vain*
Having to face these people, men especially, is a tough challenge for me. I'm awkward being amongst them but I try really hard to keep cool in front of them. I think that is my X factor...pretending to be calm and cool while inside.....gahh!
Next week is another new chapter. Not sure whether I want to straight away start on chapter two or do some beneficial game-related activities with them.....game lah kot kan?
That's all for Y1 students....Moving on with Y2 class, we have started on Literature Review and the group I assigned to present did a great job. The reason I made them present is because I wanted to see whether they could understand what they read or not so I just interjected in certain aspects. Added a little bit more and asked them (all the students) some questions and all of them seem like they understood. Let's see the outcome in their first draft...ho..ho
We will start on Research Methodology next week and hopefully after that, they can start with their first draft and instrumentation, inshaAllah. I like this class because they understand things fast...hi..hi...senang hidup i olls yg xde pengalaman ni. It's a good thing the one who taught me R.M was a very good lecturer!
Till then,
KEEP CALM AND TEACH ON~~
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Week 1-3
For the first year classes, We started our class with impromptu speech. I gave them a brief overview on what is impromptu, how to go about giving an impromptu speech. Funny thing here, while saying that your must pause if you feel nervous whatnot, I kept on mumbling....the irony of telling people "try to calm down first" while you're as nervous as a chicken going to be slaughtered!
After covering the topic, we did some activities..to see whether they are comfortable or not with English, with their classmates. I googled some activities [oh mi amor! ] and I also utilized a game that my buddy gave me. Didn't know whether it will work or not, would they understand the instruction or not but alhamdulillah, it turned out great for all the classes that I am teaching this semester. I hope they had fun as much as I did watching them have fun :)
The activities were:
1) Vocabulary Chain Story
For this game, they had to pick a piece of paper given by me. On that paper, there is one word. As a class, one person will start making a sentence using the word he/she has. I participated in this game so I started the sentence. Then I pin pointed to any random student and he continued with his word and this went on until the last person. So along the way, the story became humorous and that was the point anyway! Nothing made sense but we were laughing while listening to the sentences...hahaha
2) Pull Out An Object
Made them pull out any object they had from their backpacks, pockets or stationary case [pensil box lerr]. Then I randomly called any names and they had to come up front and talk about their item. Thing is, in Malaysia, most students are not active learners. Meaning to say that, when teachers ask who wants to volunteer, no one will raise their hands. I was one of them and I observed that most of us are like that too.
3) Consequences Role-Play
This was the activity that made the whole class speak in loud voices. Why so? Because they had to walk around in class, meeting their friends whom are now famous people and they must introduce themselves to each other with the new identity given. Prior to the game, they had to list down some points [ie: fav movie actor/actresses, fav fruit, number between 1-9, name of veggies, job they hate, job they love, country they would love to be in] and afterwards, I explained to them what each point mean [ie: name of husband/wife, family's name, number of children they had, names of children, their current job, their partners job, where they are from]. Funny things occurred. At first they were not sure what to do so I came to the rescue [cewahhh nk jgk]. I went to some students and introduced myself as Mrs.Passionfruit, my husband is Rob Pat, so on so forth so they finally understood how to go around introducing themselves. So much fun!
For week 3 [24/9-27/9]
Started doing impromptu speech practice. Gave them the freedom to choose any topic they like last week, prepare a 5 minutes speech and come to class this week all prepared with their speech. First class did well. Some of them had their awkward blank moments in front but they tried their best. I asked the class what they think about the speech in terms of content, body language and all and made them give marks to their friend who's presenting. Was a bit disappointed with the second class whom I loved at first because of their enthusiasm but when the practice day came and I called out a name, they were not prepared! Like come on, I gave the task last week and it wasn't a difficult task at all. You could have just talked about your pet cat, your best friend, your hostel, etc but no....you chose to answer me "I didn't prepare miss]. Kept my cool but was boiling inside. Gave them a small lecture tho...hew hew. Third class was fine although some of them were extremely nervous in front but they still made the effort. Actual assessment will start from week 3 onwards until everyone finishes. Topics will be given by me...Simple ones like; my hobby, 3 surprising facts about me, my best friend, fav sibling]...Easy peasy, right? :D
For the year two research class that I am teaching, we started with what is research report writing, steps of doing a research, what is a proposal, what is a research topic, how to narrow down your topics, how to write your proposal and they have already done their oral presentation for proposal. I really don't have any problems with this class. They are said to be the most brilliant people on campus because the CGPA needed to enter that course is a bit higher than other courses [so I was told] and surprisingly, they live up to their reputation! Sometimes we face snobbish goody good good students especially if they think that they are clever enough but for this class, they are really passionate on what they are doing. I am the one feeling a bit ashamed because I don't know whether what I've taught them so far makes sense or not...gahhh! Luckily there are consultation sessions so I can explain better when they are in their groups...I hope all of them will do their best so that I can give them an A :D
That's all for now......
Salam and goodbye :D
After covering the topic, we did some activities..to see whether they are comfortable or not with English, with their classmates. I googled some activities [oh mi amor! ] and I also utilized a game that my buddy gave me. Didn't know whether it will work or not, would they understand the instruction or not but alhamdulillah, it turned out great for all the classes that I am teaching this semester. I hope they had fun as much as I did watching them have fun :)
The activities were:
1) Vocabulary Chain Story
For this game, they had to pick a piece of paper given by me. On that paper, there is one word. As a class, one person will start making a sentence using the word he/she has. I participated in this game so I started the sentence. Then I pin pointed to any random student and he continued with his word and this went on until the last person. So along the way, the story became humorous and that was the point anyway! Nothing made sense but we were laughing while listening to the sentences...hahaha
2) Pull Out An Object
Made them pull out any object they had from their backpacks, pockets or stationary case [pensil box lerr]. Then I randomly called any names and they had to come up front and talk about their item. Thing is, in Malaysia, most students are not active learners. Meaning to say that, when teachers ask who wants to volunteer, no one will raise their hands. I was one of them and I observed that most of us are like that too.
3) Consequences Role-Play
This was the activity that made the whole class speak in loud voices. Why so? Because they had to walk around in class, meeting their friends whom are now famous people and they must introduce themselves to each other with the new identity given. Prior to the game, they had to list down some points [ie: fav movie actor/actresses, fav fruit, number between 1-9, name of veggies, job they hate, job they love, country they would love to be in] and afterwards, I explained to them what each point mean [ie: name of husband/wife, family's name, number of children they had, names of children, their current job, their partners job, where they are from]. Funny things occurred. At first they were not sure what to do so I came to the rescue [cewahhh nk jgk]. I went to some students and introduced myself as Mrs.Passionfruit, my husband is Rob Pat, so on so forth so they finally understood how to go around introducing themselves. So much fun!
For week 3 [24/9-27/9]
Started doing impromptu speech practice. Gave them the freedom to choose any topic they like last week, prepare a 5 minutes speech and come to class this week all prepared with their speech. First class did well. Some of them had their awkward blank moments in front but they tried their best. I asked the class what they think about the speech in terms of content, body language and all and made them give marks to their friend who's presenting. Was a bit disappointed with the second class whom I loved at first because of their enthusiasm but when the practice day came and I called out a name, they were not prepared! Like come on, I gave the task last week and it wasn't a difficult task at all. You could have just talked about your pet cat, your best friend, your hostel, etc but no....you chose to answer me "I didn't prepare miss]. Kept my cool but was boiling inside. Gave them a small lecture tho...hew hew. Third class was fine although some of them were extremely nervous in front but they still made the effort. Actual assessment will start from week 3 onwards until everyone finishes. Topics will be given by me...Simple ones like; my hobby, 3 surprising facts about me, my best friend, fav sibling]...Easy peasy, right? :D
For the year two research class that I am teaching, we started with what is research report writing, steps of doing a research, what is a proposal, what is a research topic, how to narrow down your topics, how to write your proposal and they have already done their oral presentation for proposal. I really don't have any problems with this class. They are said to be the most brilliant people on campus because the CGPA needed to enter that course is a bit higher than other courses [so I was told] and surprisingly, they live up to their reputation! Sometimes we face snobbish goody good good students especially if they think that they are clever enough but for this class, they are really passionate on what they are doing. I am the one feeling a bit ashamed because I don't know whether what I've taught them so far makes sense or not...gahhh! Luckily there are consultation sessions so I can explain better when they are in their groups...I hope all of them will do their best so that I can give them an A :D
That's all for now......
Salam and goodbye :D
Monday, September 24, 2012
Introduction
Salam and hello everyone!
I'm W and you can call me Miss W. I'm currently teaching English in a university somewhere in Malaysia :)
Truth be told, this is my first time teaching....meaning, first time ever! Never in my life had I thought that I would land on this profession. Why so?
Long story short, I am a well-reserved person who was very passive in class when I was a student. The character somehow was imprinted on me after I graduated and landed on my first job....which was way different from teaching....way way different. It was something I'm confident in doing.
What were my emotions having to know that I will start teaching a bunch of university students?
Terrified! Felt like dying! Butterflies, bees and cockroaches in my stomach! Upmost nervousness I tell ya!
But I just went my with guts, recited my prayers and walked into my first class LIKE A BOSS. I was all shaky, nervous, making monologues while students were staring at me like I'm an alien who just came down to earth...or so I thought, LOL! Did some introductory regarding the course, had ice-breaking session and voila! Nervousness started to reduce little by little. Entered my other classes and did the same with slightly little modifications from one class to another [first class made me realize where I should improve on so I'd try to avoid certain things during the next class]
I have been blogging since 2008 but this is my first time to actually create a special blog dedicated to my present journey as a teacher.
I would love to record my amazing [tettttt] experience so that one day I can look back and see how far I've gone from this point onwards :)
Till then,
KEEP CALM AND TEACH ON <3
I'm W and you can call me Miss W. I'm currently teaching English in a university somewhere in Malaysia :)
Truth be told, this is my first time teaching....meaning, first time ever! Never in my life had I thought that I would land on this profession. Why so?
Long story short, I am a well-reserved person who was very passive in class when I was a student. The character somehow was imprinted on me after I graduated and landed on my first job....which was way different from teaching....way way different. It was something I'm confident in doing.
What were my emotions having to know that I will start teaching a bunch of university students?
Terrified! Felt like dying! Butterflies, bees and cockroaches in my stomach! Upmost nervousness I tell ya!
But I just went my with guts, recited my prayers and walked into my first class LIKE A BOSS. I was all shaky, nervous, making monologues while students were staring at me like I'm an alien who just came down to earth...or so I thought, LOL! Did some introductory regarding the course, had ice-breaking session and voila! Nervousness started to reduce little by little. Entered my other classes and did the same with slightly little modifications from one class to another [first class made me realize where I should improve on so I'd try to avoid certain things during the next class]
I have been blogging since 2008 but this is my first time to actually create a special blog dedicated to my present journey as a teacher.
I would love to record my amazing [tettttt] experience so that one day I can look back and see how far I've gone from this point onwards :)
Till then,
KEEP CALM AND TEACH ON <3
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