Week II of practicum

Dear blog,

The second week ended very fast. Now, after two weeks, I was quite comfortable with the school environment. I could feel that I could work smoothly and my relationship with the pupils was starting to establish. However, my confidence in teaching still not satisfied me. I could feel that I lost in developing my lesson. I do not know why I feel like I never learn anything in the college.

My big concern was to my year 2 pupils. I am sorry for them for not being a good teacher and I was not creative as my other two partners. I saw them bringing their big teaching aids every day for their pupils. I guess, I need to learn from them. Furthermore, this week I gained a new experience. That is how to manage 440 pupils during the ‘Sambutan Ambang Hari Raya’ event. I was selected to become the Emcee for the program. So I was honored to do so. Even though I had the experience becoming the emcee before in college, I felt so much different when handling the event.

This week also was my first observation by my supervising lecturer. He really helped in improving my teaching because he pointed out my strengths and weaknesses. I have to be open-minded and receive his comment positively. I hope, I can learn more while I am in this school. On top of that, I also hope I can get a better idea on how to improve my teaching and I hope I can be strong enough to face the upcoming weeks in the practicum period.

During this week also I encountered some problems especially in my teaching lesson. I have figured out some of the solutions to the problems and I hope I can address the problems as soon as possible. This is important as it will help me to get a smooth and effective teaching and learning process.

My first week of practicum II

Dear blog,

This first week was quite okay as the teaching and learning went on as usual. After a week in this school I never thought it will be as this tough and tiring. It is like 180 degree of turning from my college life. The very first time in this school, I was so pleased that the headmaster and other staffs are being very good towards us.

Besides, my first day at the school started with assembly. We were being introduced to the school community by the PK HEM. The theme for that week is ‘Discipline week’. Moreover, the way they lined-up during the assembly was also a new experience for me. My first experience walking into class is when I have to replace my mentor’s class.

I was quite blurr on the first day because I really did not know what I should do. However, I applied my experiences during the first practicum to control the classroom. Firstly, I did the ice breaking activity with year 2 Bestari. I introduced myself and get to know each other. It took me 15 minutes to do the ice breaking session with the pupils. After that I carried on the lesson where the teacher had stop. Through ice breaking session, I realized that the pupils’ language proficiency is fairly good although there are some of them are weak. Hence, I started to plan in my mind what kind of activity that I can use to cater with their level of language proficiency.

I realized that this would be a challenge for me to teach because I need to use many teaching aids to aid them to understand my lesson. The next day, I introduced a few class rules to them. One of my rule is they need to listen to teachers in the class. As soon as I imposed the rules and regulations in the class, I find that they are hard to follow the rules because some of the rules were not being practice since the beginning of the school.

On top of that, the very first week, my friends and I were given schedule during our time here. I was quite excited and happy to get the time table. Besides that, I got the chance to be in the meeting with other senior teachers and feel like I am being part of the school. I hope that the upcoming weeks will be good one to me.

Practicum II

Dear blog,

I haven't posted anything since I left this blog and it made my hands numb from the lack of use.

Seriously, I have been neglecting this blog for quite a long time. I feel sorry about it. There were so many things going on in my life but I couldn't write every single thing here. Am so lazy to transfer all the pictures and write anything about them. Anyways, today I just want to share my thoughts about my practicum II for this semester.

Practicum is one of the components in the professional practice for the Program Ijazah Sarjana Muda Perguruan (PISMP)’s trainee teachers. This practicum should be the medium for the trainee teachers to gain more understanding and prepare themselves in become a real teacher.

I have always known that I wanted to work in education line. The idea of having a job that would develop over the years, allowing for progression and expansion really excites me. I am always willing to listen to new ideas and welcome a challenge. Having my own class, getting to know each student as an individual and witnessing them advance through their primary education, I believe, teaching would undoubtedly be a worthwhile career.

Furthermore, pursuing my study at IPG Ipoh helped me to have better understand of the true colours of teaching profession. I learnt lots of theories in education, I also learnt teaching and learning styles, preparing lesson plan, did microteachings.

We were given a briefing on the documents that we need during practicum and what is our focus during the practicum. After listened to the briefing, there were several questions linger in my mind. How about the school, the teachers and the pupils in the school? What should I teach, how to teach English to the pupils if their language proficiency were very weak? How I want to let them understand my instruction in English. However, I keep remind myself to be positive and do not put any expectation on that school.

I have to go there with an open heart and mind to learn and gain as much experience that I could. Nevertheless, I feel quite ready to face the second practicum because I am able to picture the true situation during the practicum based on my previous practicum.

My partners and I have visited the school, Sekolah Kebangsaan Tanah Hitam, Chemor, Ipoh. The school is stated not very far from our campus. It only takes 15 minutes to reach there. Thus we decided to stay at the hostel for the two month. For this second practicum session, we are going to be observed on our major subject including listening and speaking, reading and writing skill as well as language art. As this will be our second practicum, so there will be so many things to prepare including lesson planning as well. It is going to be a busy practicum ever. A complete preparation should be done early.

However, all the knowledge and experiences I gained in IPG are only in theoretical aspect. Even I did microteachings; it is totally different with the real scenario that I need to face in future as an English teacher in primary school. I really hope that this two month of practicum will equipped me with every necessary skills needed by someone to be called certified trained teacher in the future. 

I hope that this practicum will be a platform for me to gain more knowledge and experience. I believe that this is a learning process for me to become a good teacher. Hopefully, this practicum will be the most meaningful one.

Talk again sooner.