Why Do All Good Things Come To An End?

Blogging for EDU 3217.

Like what I’ve mentioned in my first post, I’ve had experience in blogging - I keep a personal blog. However, blogging for personal purposes differs from blogging for academic purposes. My personal blog is like my personal journal, presenting my daily life and thoughts. I get to talk and share anything and everything that I want and best of all, I get to vent my anger or frustrations there.

On the other hand, blogging for academic purposes is a completely different thing altogether. I find it beneficial in a way that it enables me to reflect on my learning experience. I mean, come on. How many people would actually take the time to sit down and really think or reflect on what they have done or learnt? Most of us are too preoccupied with other things to actually reflect on what we have learnt. Thus, blogging enables me to actually sit down and critically think about what I have learnt or gained through lectures and tutorials then put these thoughts into words.

If I were to choose between blogging and commenting on forums, I will definitely choose blogging. It requires effort to create and maintain a blog, and that is what makes it more special (though some might find it a chore). The effort that goes into editing the blog layout as well as the blogskin to make it more attractive makes me appreciate blogging even more. I get to personalize my own blog, upload photos, songs, videos, as well as interesting links and this makes blogging more fun than commenting on forums.

“There are changes that have made life more fascinating. Technology and the Internet, for instance. They have made our lives as teachers so much more exciting! We can do things we never dreamed of before. How quickly we connect! How small the world has become. We are no longer the centre of our students’ learning. We are now just one of the sources of our learners’ knowledge. In fact, we are in competiton with the outside world to keep our learners’ in our classes. We must make it worthwhile for them to attend our classes.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Malachi Edwin Vethamani

The role of blogs has become increasingly mainstream, as tools for outreach and opinion forming. I strongly believe that it is only wise for us future teachers as well as current teachers to equip themselves with this skill in order to keep up with the growing trend. No student would want an ancient, out-of-date dinosaur as their teacher, would they?

Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.

Baltasar Gracian
Spanish Writer and Jesuit
The Art of Wordly Wisdom

‘Tis time to… REFLECT THY MICRO TEACHING!

Finally it’s over. *breathes sigh of relief* I’m pretty sure my tutor, Mr. Harold is also glad that it is over, too. It must’ve felt like hell for him to endure and evaluate our micro teaching :P

My favourite part of micro teaching has got to be the set induction stage. This is where everyone gets to be creative and come up with fun and interesting activities to initiate the students’ schemata.

This time’s micro teaching taught me a lot on the do’s and don’ts when it comes to teaching. One of them was related to the selection of the kinds of materials that are appropriate for students. One of my coursemate chose a song as an aid for his set induction activity. However, the lyric to the song he chose contained vulgar words which I thought was not appropriate if he was teaching school students. I learned that choosing the right kind of material is very important. As a teacher trainee, I must always bear in mind that the students whom I will teach will be secondary school students and the materials that I choose must be appropriate for their viewing. Through my own observation, I also learned that variety in teaching materials is also important. For this time’s micro teaching, I noticed a lot of similarities in terms of the types of materials and concepts among my coursemates’ micro teaching. On a brighter note, I learned new ways to carry out the pre-reading and while reading activities. For example, some of my coursemates asked the students to role-play and draw pictures. Some asked students to create picture or word cards to present their answers. Though time-consuming, such hands-on activities can be fun for students. Evaluating my peers enabled me to improve my analytical and critical skills which will come in handy once I become a teacher.

I agree that micro teaching is important for us teacher trainees to prepare us for our role in the future. We get to practice our teaching and learn the many ways and approaches to teaching. Through this experience, I learned the many ways of controlling the class and getting students’ attention. Through my peers’ evaluations, I learned my strengths and weaknesses which I did not realize myself. By taking note of their comments and feedback, I can slowly improve myself. Micro teaching should be carried out more often. After all, practice makes perfect. And that will make practice will make us better teachers!

Sequel to the Set Induction

Pre-Reading.

I made up my mind to teach one of the themes of the play I chose. Mr. Harold mentioned that he wanted to see variety in our micro teaching. I figured that most of my coursemates will be doing on characters (and my prediction was right), so I chose to do on the theme instead.

For my pre-reading activity, I selected two extracts from the play The Ring by Vincent Jeremiah Edwin. Extract A is about Raj who cuts his arm with a razor to feed Leila and Extract B is the part where Raj’s mother approached him about his condition and expresses her intentions to take him to the doctor. I chose these two extracts because I wanted to show the students about Raj’s inability to differentiate between illusion and reality which is the theme that I chose to teach.

For the activity, I distributed printed handouts of the extracts to the students and briefed them on what they are supposed to do. I assigned them to highlight the characters in the extracts and then underline words, phrases or sentences of the things that they do. The purpose of this activity is to guide students to identify the theme through the portrayal of the characters in their speech or actions. Before I ended the pre-reading stage, I discussed the answers with the students to ensure that they are on the right track and that they understood what I was teaching.

I believe that the length of the extracts that I chose were appropriate and not too lengthy. The task was within the students’ ability because they could attempt the task without problems. My instructions were loud and clear and I chose to use simple language to instruct. The task which I assigned the students was also student-centered and I checked if they understood what was being taught by asking them questions.

While Reading.

For my while reading activity, I designed several questions for students to attempt. These questions were then printed as worksheets which were distributed to the students. The questions that I designed were based on the extracts and activity carried out earlier during the pre-reading stage. I designed my questions in a manner that will lead students towards the identifying the theme that I wanted to teach.

I believe that the questions that I designed were appropriate and within the students’ ability. The task which I assigned the students was also related to the pre-reading stage earlier. I believe that the task was well-connected since I sequenced the questions in a manner that would direct students towards the theme that I wanted to teach. The task was also student-centered.

In my opinion, both my pre-reading and while reading activities were different from what I was taught in school. Back then, my teacher would get us students to read the selected literary text without assigning us any tasks. Instead, she would spoon-feed us with the important elements related to the text. All we had to do was read the text aloud and then answer the comprehension questions that came along with it. Mine required the students to identify a few elements in the extracts that I have chosen on their own. Then, they were required to answer the comprehension questions which were connected to the previous activity I assigned them.

I found my strength to be my loud and clear voice projection as well as my clear and straightforward instructions. I noticed this when I asked the students seated behind the class if they could hear me and their answered in the positive. I also noticed this through my peers’ feedback and evaluation.

As for my weakness, I remained static throughout the entire activity. The layout of the lecture hall refrained me from walking around to facilitate students. Therefore, I lacked physical interaction with my students. In order to overcome this problem, I used interactive language by asking students questions and also their feedback.

If I were to deliver my lesson again, I will definitely choose to do it differently. For instance, I would include other teaching materials such as manila cards or word cards for students to use to present their answers. I believe that students will find the lesson more fun and interesting if they get to do hands-on activity.

In a nutshell, my pre-reading and while reading stage for my micro teaching went on smoothly though there were instances where I could improve on in the future. However, I wished that the lecturer or tutor would suggest or introduce other types of activities for pre-reading so that there would be variety instead of the usual use of extracts.

I cannot believe I have met Kee Thuan Chye and even shook hands with him!

Yes. Like my shoutout in Facebook, I cannot believe I have met Kee Thuan Chye and even shook hands with him. Many would think “So what?”, “Big deal!”, “Cheh, Malaysian playwright only, ma!”. Let me tell you this. He is not just a Malaysian playwright. He is THE Malaysian playwright. And oh, not just a playwright alright! He’s an actor. He’s an author. He’s a journalist. He’s a columnist. Take that!

To be honest, I never liked politics. It is downright dirty. It is corrupt. Enough said. I’d better keep my mouth shut and my opinions to myself or I’ll end up being detained by the ISA. Whenever I read the news, I choose not the read anything related to politics. It bores me to death. It disgusts me. Except when there is sex scandals involved. That, I like.

Alright, back to the topic. Kee is a humble man, albeit full of wit and wisdom. A man who is so passionate in what he does. And I salute him for his balls, his biting sarcasm and caustic criticisms in his writings. Darn! I should have Wiki-ed him earlier. Then, I could have answered his question and win the book he was giving away. I did google him up but I forgot to check out his works. I even watched the video of Kee’s interview by The Edge, which Dr. Edwin recommended. What caught my eye in the interview was Kee’s decision to name his children Jebat Arjuna and Soraya Sunitra. He revealed that it was his contribution to Bangsa Malaysia. The answer to the question which he asked us students was - The Situation of the Man who stabbed a Dummy or a Woman and was disarmed by the Members of the Club for a Reason Yet Obscure, If There Was One. A ridiculously long and difficult name to remember for a play, if you ask me. Taught me a lesson there – always perform a thorough research prior to meeting someone.

I’ve watched him act on Kopitiam, Anna and the King, read his poem A Figure Not Forgotten In Hours Not-Of-Need, his short story A Sense of Home, as well as his play The Swordfish, Then The Concubine. I loved all of them. His play, The Swordfish, Then The Concubine made me realize that drama is not just a form of entertainment, but also an intellectual activity. The issues he highlighted in the play are sociopolitical comments about what is happening in contemporary Malaysia. And the approach he used to highlight these issues challenges one’s intellect.

Indeed, the session with Kee was very awe-inspiring. He is definitely one of those few people who managed to teach me a thing or two about the importance of being truly passionate in what we do, that we should practice what we preach, and not just pay a lot of lip service to it. Mr. Kee, thank you for taking some time out from your busy schedule to meet us students when you could have used it to take some rest. And to Dr. Edwin, thank you for making it possible.





p/s: An error occurred when I was transferring the video of Kee reading from his book, March 8: The Day Malaysia Woke Up into my computer. By the time I discovered it, I have already deleted all the files from my camera! Grrr...