INSTITUT PENDIDIKAN GURU

Kementerian Pelajaran Malaysia

KAMPUS IPOH, 31150 HULU KINTA

COURSEWORK
LINKING THEORY TO PRACTICE
TASK 3
(TSL 3013)

NAME : LUEI LEE ZIE

MATRIX NUMBER : 29550

I/C NUMBER : 931212-08-6260

UNIT : L3 (TESL SJKC)

PISMP : JAN 2013 INTAKE

LECTURER’S NAME: MDM. SURAYA BINTI HARUN

MDM. KANAKAMBAL A/P VELUSAMY

SUBMISSION DATE : MARCH 2015

LUEI LEE ZIE (L3) TSL3103 TASK (III) 931212-08-6260

Task 3: Critical Reflection (TSL3103 LINKING THEORY TO PRACTICE)

I have carried out a simulated teaching on a language arts lesson with two other
group members on last Wednesday, 25th March 2015. Generally, it was a bittersweet
experience of carrying out the simulated teaching. From the experience, I have reflected
on my strengths and weaknesses of the lesson carried out. Besides that, feedback and
suggestions provided by my mentor and classmates also gave me a lot of insights into
ways for improving my teaching skills.

There are several strengths which can be identified from the simulated teaching.
Firstly, the teaching and learning activities in the lesson are pupil-centred and engaging.
For instance, the unity concept was introduced and highlighted through the integration of
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as well as a catchy action song. There
were also two interesting activities which carried out both in the practice and production
stages, which are ‘Making Hand Puppets’ and ‘Role Play Using the Hand Puppet’
respectively. Both activities created supportive learning environment where pupils were
given adequate opportunity to experience the learning as well as language through
individual hands-on activity and collaborative work. Rogers (1994) stated that pupils would
grow to love learning when they were engaged in a pupil-centred lesson. He also found
out that most young learners preferred pupil-centred learning environments where they
could be active learners who have more time in collaborating with their peers and learning
from each other.

From my previous reading on some teaching related articles, short attention

spans of pupils are one of the issues faced by most teachers in the ESL classrooms.
Hence, I realised that instead of being a traditional chalk-and-talk instructor who
dominates the lesson, we should adopt and adapt our roles to become a facilitator in the
ESL classrooms. This means that the direct teaching should be minimised appropriately
while purposeful and meaningful hands-on activities should be maximised adequately to
engage the pupils. By maximising the interesting hands-on activities, it could captivate as
well as retain the pupils’ attention easily by motivating them for their active participations.
According to Rogers (1994), when the pupils are intrinsically motivated to learn by the fun
activities, their learning would be more significant and lasting.

Secondly, the management of the lesson flowed well according to the lesson plan.
There was also smooth transition between activities as I managed to link the previous

LUEI LEE ZIE (L3) TSL3103 TASK (III) 931212-08-6260

practice activity ‘Making Hand Puppets’ to the production activity which is using the hand
puppet to perform a role play. Before assigning the role play activity to the pupils, I used
some “personal warmers” to direct the pupils’ attention to me. I invited the pupils to wear
their production of hand puppets and show me. Genuine compliment was provided as
encouragement for pupils’ efforts of their production and some pupils’ were also asked to
share their individual opinions of name given to their hand puppets. Dunne (2000)
indicated that making the pupils’ work visible to others tells the pupils that their piece of
work is being taken seriously and making pupils to talk about their work gives them the
impression of their work is being valued by the teacher too. I was also being approachable
and sensitive as I walked around in the classroom to facilitate pupils’ learning progress.
Pupils were given adequate freedom to participate in the activity as I did not interrupt
pupils’ progress. However, immediate guidance was provided to the pupils who had
confusion and raised questions.

Then, the group role play activity which conducted during the simulated teaching
was one of the pedagogical methods applied to instil the value of unity among the pupils
in a meaningful context. It raised the awareness of the importance of unity by requiring
pupils to experience the context given through the role play activity. Pupils were given
freedom of choice to make any changes to the story. This is because I believe that in the
preparation of a role play activity, pupils might entail some extra thinking beyond the actual
content of the targeted topic to generate new ideas based on the story (Howell, 1991). In
addition, the elements of competition and reward were also incorporated into the role play
activity to create a purposeful and competitive ambiance that motivates the pupils to put
more efforts in thinking creatively and intensively, which also enhances their unconscious
acquisition of knowledge during the activity. Not only that, it also maximises the
opportunity of pupils practising the targeted English language skills, particularly on
Listening and Speaking skills.

Furthermore, the classroom management was well-controlled. I was playing the

role of an assertive teacher in the lesson where established rules and guidelines were
given in a clam and firm way to direct pupils in attaining my expectation of goals. The
established rules were described and modelled to allow pupils to clearly envision what
was expected of them before they are required to comply with it. For instance, pupils were
expected to keep quiet and stay focus on my instructions with putting their hands on the
knees. When some pupils did not follow the class cues, I immediately repeated the

LUEI LEE ZIE (L3) TSL3103 TASK (III) 931212-08-6260

instructions given with glancing as well as mentioning the name of the pupils. By doing so,
pupils would feel self-conscious and consequently become well-behaved when they knew
that I was aware of what was really going on within the classroom (Charles, 2011). When
the instructions were being delivered, I also frequently scanned and made eye contacts
with the pupils to enforce the idea to them that everyone should follow the established
rules and not to create interruptions which prevent me from teaching as well as prevent
anyone from learning. Through the implementation of assertive discipline including student
compliance in maintaining an optimal learning environment, I believe that academic goals
could be attained effectively where disruptions were handled assertively and minimised to
allow pupils to have better concentration on my lesson.

However, according to one of my peers, Sabira binti Rhosin (Refer to Appendix

1), I was being a hostile teacher during the simulated teaching. In this context, Canter
explained that hostile teachers often have the misconception of being assertive and
mistake their role as instructional leaders as a call for harshness and hostility. These
hostile teachers believe that the only way to maintain authority in the classroom is through
pupils’ fear of the teacher’s reprisal (Teach for America, 2011). I agreed to peer Sabira
that I was being a little too much of assertive when managing the classroom discipline. As
compared to other peers’ simulated teaching, the positive noise levels from my pupils were
kept to be minimal. For instance, my pupils were too afraid to talk when I was around. In
that case, I realised that it was my misconception to think of a silent classroom as the mark
of classroom management success. Hence, from my previous reading on classroom noise
management articles, I found out that classroom noise should be managed appropriately
as adequate positive classroom noise is regarded as an important factor in classrooms
which promotes effective learning (Alexander, 2014). Hence, when utilizing assertive
discipline in the classroom, I realised that I must learn to handle discipline problems and
disruptions assertively instead of aggressively as well as learn to control my impulses to
prevent the using of any hostile comments which could threaten and demotivate the pupils
from learning.

In addition, I realised that instructional language is as equally important as loud

and clear voice quality in delivering the comprehensible instructions to pupils. Despite that
I have loud and clear voice projection, I used lengthy and sophisticated instructions in
explaining the activity rules to the pupils. From the microteaching, I identified that the
complicated instructions were not clear for the pupils to comprehend and hence it caused

LUEI LEE ZIE (L3) TSL3103 TASK (III) 931212-08-6260

some confusion among the pupils to understand what they required to do in the role play
activity. To overcome this problem, I think I should put more efforts in improving my
instructional language. I must shorten and simplify my instructions to suit the language
proficiency of my pupils. I also need to make sentence pauses between the instructions
to allow some time for the pupils to comprehend better and ask related questions to clarify
any uncertainty. I should also extend the explanation of the activity rules by demonstrating
the utilisation of teaching materials in order to enhance pupils’ understanding of the activity
requirements.

Not only that, I also need to be prepared and increase my confidence level to
overcome my nervousness when conducting the lesson. Firstly, I should identify and bear
the pupils’ prior knowledge and sociocultural background in mind in order to relate the
unity concept effectively with their familiar real life situations and experiences. I should
also gain sufficient background knowledge about the value of unity so as to be able to
create and organise a list of relevant questions to be asked during the lesson. I must
constantly remind myself that not to pose too many questions at one time, instead I should
pose the related question one at a time and allow sufficient time for pupils to think and
respond. When pupils have difficulties in comprehending the question, I must also keep
calm to rephrase and simplify the question. With the full preparation before the lesson, I
believe that I will be ready to anticipate any impromptu questions from the pupils and
answer them accurately and confidently.

Besides that, I also faced problem in managing the time for pupils’ preparation
and discussion of the role play activity. The pupils took longer time than expected to finish
writing their dialogues on the cards given. From that, I found out that the story scripts
which provided to the pupils were not effectively utilised by them as reference due to the
text was not fairly organised and it was too wordy. Therefore, I realised that the text could
be improved by shortening and simplified to allow pupils to have ease in exploiting it.
Moreover, I should also prepare extra teaching aids and materials such as functional
marker pens before the lesson. This is because I used a marker pen which has low ink to
write on the whiteboard. The words written were unclear and it caused pupils to have
difficulties in reading the words written. From that, I realised that it is important to prepare
extra materials as well as alternatives to cope with the problems encountered. This is
because I believe that due to the malfunction of the teaching aids and materials, the

LUEI LEE ZIE (L3) TSL3103 TASK (III) 931212-08-6260

knowledge might not be effectively delivered and hence the learning outcomes of the
lesson might not be attained.

In conclusion, this reflection allows me to do critical evaluation based on my own

teaching. From that, I hope that I could improve my weaknesses as well as utilise and
adapt the suggestions to suit my teaching in the future.

( 1793 words )

LUEI LEE ZIE (L3) TSL3103 TASK (III) 931212-08-6260

References:

1. Alexander, B. (2014). How noise and classroom management can promote

learning in the classroom. Retrieved 31st March 2015, from http://www.classroom-

management-success.org/noise-and-classroom-

management.html#sthash.9fJGiiCT.

2. Charles, C.M. (2011). Building classroom discipline. 9th Edition. Boston: Pearson
Education

3. Dunne, D. W. (2000). Children’s work – Visibility leads to value. Retrieved 31st

March 2015, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr274.shtml

4. Howell, J. (1991). Using role-play as a teaching method. Teaching Public

Administration, 12. (1), 69–75

5. Rogers, C.R. & Freiberg, H.J. (1994). Freedom to Learn (3rd Ed). Columbus, OH:

Merrill/Macmillan.

6. Teach for America. (2011). Classroom management and culture. Retrieved 31st

March 2015, from http://www.teachingasleadership.org/sites/default/files/Related-

Readings/CMC_2011.pdf

LUEI LEE ZIE (L3) TSL3103 TASK (III) 931212-08-6260