THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES



INTERNSHIP REPORT
Topic: Reflective writing in service learning

ORGANIZATION: NGOC QUY CHARITY SOCIAL CENTER

SUPERVISOR: ĐỔ THỊ QUÍ

LECTURER: LÊ HOÀNG KIM

STUDENT: PHẠM THỊ HỒNG NHUNG STUDENT CODE: 1722202010242

MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS: D17AV05

COURSE: 2017-2021

Duration of the internship: 21/02/2019 to 21/04/2019

Thu Dau Mot, April 25th , 2019

 TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1.Introduction about Service Learning (SL)...................................................................1

1.1 Definition ....................................................................................................................1

1.2 Activities of Service Learning ...................................................................................1

2. The Purpose and Goals of Service Learning ..............................................................1

3. Children at center and teaching English in real life ..................................................1

3.1. Children at center......................................................................................................3

3.2. Teaching English in real life.....................................................................................4

4. Difficulties in service –learning....................................................................................6

CHAPTER II: REFLECTIVE WRITING

1. Week 1: February 23rd, 2019 & February 24th, 2019

2. Week 2: March 2nd, 2019 & March 3rd, 2019
3. Week 3: March 9th, 2019 & March 19th, 2019
4. Week 4: March 16th, 2019 & March 17th, 2019
5. Week 5: March 23rd, 2019 & March 24th, 2019
6. Week 6: March 30th, 2019 & March 31st, 2019
7. Week 7: April 6th, 2019 & April 7th, 2019
8. Week 8: April 13th, 2019 & April 14th, 2019
9. Week 9: April 20th, 2019 & April 21st, 2019
10. Week 10: April 24th, 2019

CHAPTER III: CONCLUSION

CHAPTER IV: RECOMMENDATION

REFERENCES
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION:

1. Introduction about Service Learning (SL):

1.1 Definition:

Service learning is an education approach that balances formal instruction and

direction with the opportunity to serve in the community in order to provide a
pragmatic, progressive learning experience. Service learning offers students immediate
opportunities to apply classroom learning to support or enhance the work of local
agencies that often exist to effect positive change in the community.

1.2 Activities of Service Learning :

One of the great challenges for educators is ensuring that the skills students learn in
the classroom are carried out into the world. Key to ensuring knowledge retention is
the concept of transfer — that students understand there are practical applications for
what they are doing. Rather than relying on students to create context for transfer,
teachers can help students engage with real-world problem-solving through service
learning projects.

However service learning projects are developed, it is essential that students are
allowed to take the lead. They should be involved in the creation both of solutions and
curriculum design. When challenged with uniting curriculum with their service
learning projects, students’ passions will drive them to see the interconnectedness of
what they learn in class and what they do in the community.

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2. The Purpose and Goals of Service Learning:

Service learning is a process that connects student learning to civic and social
responsibilities. Service learning projects require a high level of engagement and
leadership and should include research and reflection. They allow students to create
meaningful change outside the classroom. Above all else, service learning creates a
fun

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environment in which students actively engage these skills without the perception that
they are completing busywork.

This act of reflection is perhaps the most important aspect of service learning and a great
opportunity to align community engagement with learning standards and educational
expectations. Asking students to reflect on what their service means to them and then
unite their experience with what they learn in school helps solidify skill transfer and
clarify the usefulness of classroom skills. Whether they have done individual, group, or
class-wide projects, students should be able to reflect on their academic, personal, and
social growth as well as any connections they have made to their future career path or
general civic responsibility and involvement.

Service learning is grounded in experiential education—learning by doing. Service

learning differs from “pure” experiential learning in two essential ways: (1) The goal of
service learning is to direct the learners into practical settings where the primary
motivation is service, and (2) learning takes place in two ways—as students take part in
the experience and as they reflect upon what happened during the experience and as a
result of it. It is also democratic as it requires students to work together with their
teachers in planning educational strategies for the students' own learning.

Service learning outcomes are very much like the goals established by all successful
schools. Service learning is simply a better way to do the things good schools have
always done. The following goals, practiced by most effective schools, are also goals met
by service learning programs:

-intellectual development (e.g., problem solving)

-basic skills acquisition (e.g., communication)

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-moral and ethical development

-social and civic responsibility

-career preparation

-personal growth

The most important questions to ask as you embark upon this journey through service
learning are: (1) What are students likely to gain from this expenditure of time? and (2)
How will students be different for having experienced service learning?

CHAPTER 2: CONTENT

1.Children at Center and teaching English in real life:

1.1 Children at center:

We help children by looking at more than a single issue. We treat the whole child. We
examine the barriers in the home, school or community. We work with the family who
raises them. And we bring all our learning together to support their healing and get them
on the road to a happier, more fulfilling childhood. What makes The Children’s Center
unlike any other place? Within the answer is the magic of who we are.

“I was fortunate to take a experience of this wonderful period. What a fantastic facility
that does amazing this for children and families in our community! Children without
families are the most vulnerable people in the world. Become a part of their family and
help improve their social and academic skills through our Teaching project. The project is
concerned with teaching orphan kids and youth in orphanage as well as creating activities
and games to engage with them for 10 weeks anytime between February 2019 and April
2019. Volunteers must be willing to work with children, at the start of the program. Have
an open mind and flexible attitude towards working in new and different environments
and be prepared to do some manual work in their placement.

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1.2 Teaching in real life:

I had the opportunity to teach the children who are orphans in Tan An Ward. That was
very interesting, because I was not only to help them, but this is my chance to test their
knowledge and confidence in yourself.

My job at the class of love is to teach English for children. In addition, I also support to
teach about these useful subjects and these social subjects such as : math ,Vietnamese,
color, science….Because the number of primary class is so much , so I sometimes help
children learn literacy and check their homework exercise.

There are about 10 children in class and especially with 2 twins. I very loved them.
Different from my thoughts prior to class, they were very lovely and friendly. Their eyes
were innocent and affectionate as are ready and waiting to be learned.

Some educators believe that kids learn best through play. And what is true of English-
speaking children, in this case, will also be true of your English-learning students. Here
are some ways you can make learning more fun with your students:

+ Play Games:

Games are a great way to make learning fun. Not only do games play on the competitive
nature of most children, but games also give them a goal to accomplish. When you win a
game, you have really done something, and you can feel good about your success.

There are so many games that can be used in an English classroom such as vocabulary
guessing game, drawing pictures, singing English songs,...
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+ Be Creative:

Doing the same things in class every day is boring for your students, and you’re liable to
fall asleep on the job, too. So be creative with your plans.

You can keep the same basic schedule every day, but vary the types of exercises you do.
Rotate between doing exercises from the textbook, having students listening video about
different English themes.

You can also have students come up with their own games, activities and exercises. Have
your students write quiz question for each other, or give them some simple game supplies
and let them make thier own review game for the latest grammar point. You might be
surprised at how creative students can be.

Have you ever tried taking a class outside? If not, you’d be surprised at what they can
learn in the great outdoors. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Scavenger Hunt: If you want, you might have them look for items that begin with each
letter of the alphabet, or items that are each color of the rainbow. You can have them look
for certain shapes, too.

One of the most important things to remember when you teach children is not to put
pressure on them. Remember that children learn some apects of foreign languages more
easily than adults. So no matter what you do in class, they will already be on the road to
fluency in English.

Because language is abstract and children are concrete, they may not be able to articulate
grammar and other technical aspects of language, and that’s okay. Just keep things fun,
active pressure-free, and your students will be fluent in no time!

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2. Difficulties in service learning:

I began teaching many kids at center. My classes were with a group of 10 five year olds –
although there were many times when it was great fun and very memorable, there were
also times when it was challenging.

As a teacher of very young learners you find yourself dealing with children who start
crawling under tables or throwing bits of paper, others who don’t want to say or do
anything, constant trips to the toilet, and others crying because they don’t want to be
there! And, of course – while all this is happening – trying to teach English!

In one of my first lessons, I wanted to tell a story, but I found it hard to maintain attention
and keep everyone in the same place. I decided to try a different strategy for the next
lesson. We all encounter challenges in the classroom, especially with very young
learners. Our challenge is to continue being perseverant and patient, spending time
organising and reorganising both the children and the activities, and not getting frustrated
when the children don’t do what we ask them the first time.

If you want to teach kids English because you think it’s easy, then this is not the job for
you. Teaching children demands a great deal of creativity and energy. They will amaze
you and surprise you, but don't think that just because you'll be teaching colors and
animals, it'll be a breeze. You'll most likely feel exhausted after every class, but oh, so
happy!

If children are bored they won’t pay attention, and they won’t learn. You don’t have to
clown around all the time, either; they're in class to learn, not to be entertained by you.
Your job is to make learning engaging and fun.

Here are some ways to do this:

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Once they’ve been sitting and focused on a task for a while, get them out of their seats for
a more active game. They should never remain seated for the duration of the class, unless
they’re teens.

Use real life objects in class. No matter how colorful or big, students sometimes get tired
of learning everything through flashcards.

As it is clear that this is not the learners first language, but it has got the status of second
language in our region. A very few students are capable and understand the core value of
English language but rest of the students those are in large number are quite unable to
understand and manage with the learning English. Even the regularity of students affect
the learning process most of the students belong to the village.

One of the major obstacle in teaching English is students lack of interest and fear which
do not permit them to take initiative role in language learning and automatically shyness
is imbibe in them. This shy attitude of students restricted to use the communicative
approaches i.e. communicative language teaching, cooperative language learning, task-
based language teaching etc..

In teaching speaking the teachers faced some problems in their class. Some their students
had different ability and age. The teachers get problems in giving appropriate topic to
their students. For example: some students have low ability in English, some students
have high ability in English, and some of students are older than the teachers.

The teachers faced problems of their student in which some of the students were shy and
afraid to speak English. for example: when a student was asked by the teacher to speak in
front of the class, he/she said that he/she was shy and afraid to speak.

In conclusion, I hope that the other generations of the service learning projects will be
trained much more to be better and better both teaching skills and knowledge. I expect

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the service learning project of the University of Thu Dau Mot will be expanded and more
and more developed strongly.

CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

1. Conclusion:

I have to admit I was so stressful when I just start to join in the service learning group in
my internship period at this center. Service-learning classes can benefit academically,
professionally, and personally. Service learning help you increase your understanding of
the class topic, gain hands-on experience (possibly leading to an internship or job later),
explore or cement your values and beliefs, develop critical thinking and problem-solving
skills...

Joining this project is the first time that I walked out of my safely life to learn and
become more confident. This was the big challenge and I did not think I could pass, but I
have achieved beyond my expectation.

Besides that, I hope the service learning group will be more and more developed strongly
so that we can help them and bring them more knowledge both English and the other
subjects. Teaching for kids is really important thing, so we not only have to give them
knowledge but also teach them how to be a good person and a nice kid.

After finishing the internship at the center I learned a lot of internships. Because this was
the first practice, I had many mistakes in teaching skills as well as guiding students.
Apart from the limitations mentionaboved I were very flexible in handling problems, I
had great negotiation skills. I had always preferred to work in groups and find that my
collaborative nature was one of my strongest attributes. On projects that I directed, I
worked well to inspire diverse team members and worked side by side with them to

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achieve the project goals. I believed that my greatest strength was the ability to solve
problems quickly and efficiently.

Moreover, I had challenges to prepare a lesson plan for each lesson, anticipate students’
questions, maintain discipline, and involve my students in the lesson. Taking everything
into conclusion, I believed that after this internship I have learned a lot and improved
many specialized skills, hopefully after the internship will support my learning and future
career.

I would like to thank all people supporting me to finish my internship course.

2. Recommendation:

I think that the time for my internship course is so short. Six weeks is too short for me to
get enough experience in teaching skills in new environment. Service learning is a
process that connects student learning to civic and social responsibilities. They allow
students to create meaningful change outside the classroom. Above all else, service
learning creates a fun environment. All universities should promote the introduction of
the internship student teaching at the class of love.

Everyone is needed to connect together in helping the kids and have a sense of
responsibility to our community. Teaching for kids is really important thing, so we not
only have to give them knowledge but also teach them how to be a good person and a
nice kid.

In short, during the time working at the center where there is both advantages and
disadvantages, I have a lot of experience for myself.

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So, I realized that internship is very useful for me before entering a professional working
environment in the future they have a need to improve their skills.