Week 3:Reflection 3

This was my third class for PBEY3102.Pn.Foziah told us to sit in a group and prepare for a presentation about our text book entitled ‘Teaching English in the Primary Classroom’ by Susan Halliwell. Then Pn.Foziah told us to open chapter 1 which is ‘Working with Young Language Learners’. My group was assigned to take the second subtopic entitled ‘Children’s creative use of limited language resources’. So, six of us divided ourselves into 2 small groups after reading that part. Three of us prepared for the power point presentation while the other three browsed for additional information as Pn.Foziah asked us to insert the URL as our referent if we quoting others information. Based on this subtopic, I understand that children are very creative in using grammatical forms and concepts for example a four years old British child said ‘don’t unring’ the phone and ‘switch off the dark’ when he wanted the light put on. 

The first presentation started with Chin’s group. They presented about ‘Children’s capacity for indirect learning.'they emphasized on the definition of indirect learning, the examples of indirect learning and the benefits of it. I realized that teachers should encourage indirect learning for example by using games such as hangman and charade. Indirect learning means that the teacher uses different method such as using games  instead of just using words and text books. Therefore the children will participate more in the lesson and this leads to student-centred learning. Moreover the children will not focus on the language but they will use the language indirectly and acquire will occur. So games will assist learning because it is fun yet meaningful. 

The next presentation was continued with Dhachaini’s group. They presented about ‘The instinct for interaction and talk.’they touched upon the types of interaction such as teacher-student interaction, student-student interaction and student-resources interaction. They also discussed about the example of interaction and the importance of interaction for students. I realized that students should be encouraged to interact and talk because by talking they will practice using the language and at the same time develop their verbal and interpersonal skills. Besides I realized that as a future teacher I should possess good interpersonal skills so that I can build a good relationship with my students. A good relationship between teacher and students is important so that the students will trust the teacher and once they have the trust on their teacher, the students will feel more secure to learn. So  they will feel more comfortable and will not feel shy to share the problems and seek for advice.

The other group including my group will present on the next class. I have learnt a few things from this class. Firstly is the benefits of cooperation among the group’s members. By sharing ideas, we can produce a good output and share our information with the other groups. The presentation will create a good cooperative learning. In addition, I also learned about the importance of videos and images in the power point presentation. By using videos and pictures, the facts or the information can be made clearer and interesting. So next time I will prepare a better power point presentation by using variety materials including appropriate videos, images and of course useful information regarding the presentation’s topic.