‘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!