4th entry

 

Session 1Children are unique=Today the lesson continued with the group presentation and it was started with Flora’s group. They presented about ‘Children’s ability to grasp meaning’. Basically children’s minds are not blank slates and they are born with the innate knowledge inside them. The innate knowledge is known as the Universal Grammar. That is why children know how to speak even before they learn how to read and write. Teachers play an important role in helping children grasp meaning successfully.The use of interesting teaching aids is aimless if the teachers do not possess effective teaching techniques. Teachers can help them grasp meaning by using correct and appropriate non-verbal cues such as suitable facial expressions, body gestures, intonation and good eye-contact .

            Next, Nani’s group proceeded with the other subtopic which is ‘Children’s capacity for play and fun’. Play is not just fun for the children but play enhances learning.  Teachers can encourage them to learn indirectly without removing the play elements :Example: 

Building with blocks-this activity enhances their motor skills as well as integrating mathematics and arts elements. 

Dramatic play-inculcate cooperation, team works, and the children who involves in play are usually more creative and acquire larger vocabulary.

Puzzles-require fine motor skills because they have to place the small pieces correctly.

Cooking play-good for mathematics lesson as they learn the quantity and enhances language learning as the children will learn new vocabularies such as nouns (ingredients) and verbs such as chop, rinse and stir.

My group presented about ‘Children creative use of limited language resources.’  children are very creative in using grammatical forms and concepts. For example they will say ‘don’t unring the phone’ and ‘please switch of the dark’ when they want the adults to turn on the light. Of course their terms are grammatically incorrect. So teachers have to play important role in guiding them to use correct language.

How to enhance correct language use?  -Construct language games actively for example guessing games- allow children to practice, internalize vocabulary and grammatical structures extensively, encourage cooperation and  develop interpersonal skills.

Using songs such as action songs e.g ‘the wheel on the bus’-children learn best through drilling and repeated actions. The last group presented about ‘The role of imagination’. Imagination encourage them to practice real life skills, rich vocabulary and induce critical and creative thinking. This is in line with the new curriculum, KSSR.

Activities to enhance children’s imagination  Role play:  So they will develop verbal skills as well as real life skill because they have to act according to the situation.   Hot seating: they will practice how to ask and answer questions appropriately. Teacher can scaffold them by using model dialogues such as preparing speech bubbles.

 Session 2= prepare for a power point presentation individually. The power point presentation should consists of:The steps on how to download a song(mp3 version) by using a downloader such as 4shared ,  how to search for a song’s lyrics by using Google or other search engine such as Yahoo & how to download videos by using software such as Moyea.On that day, Pn Foziah taught us the steps to download Moyea.It is effective software to download songs and videos for example it can be used to download YouTube videos effectively. That's all for now.See you in the next entry.