How it is to be evaluated by others in simulated teaching

I think the peer evaluation section help us in our future presentation, it tells what we should or should not do in our presentation. Sometimes, we do not realize our weakness until someone points it out, or sometime we know our weakness but we take granted that it will not affect our presentation but in fact it does, I have presented on the first day of simulated teaching and appreciate all the praises and comments given by my friends. I get some good comment such as, dress-up appropriately, loud and clear voice projection, interesting activity, well-prepared, and chose the text at appropriate length. I also get some comment to help me to improve in the next presentation, such as lacking of vocabulary and grammar error. This kind of approach is very helpful and effective to the improvement of my presentation. One think I do not agree is putting our name in the evaluation form so that it will not turn out to be personal attack.

How it is in evaluating others in simulated teaching

There are some aspects that I will take into consideration in evaluating others in their simulated teaching.

First, I would consider about the set induction. It should be interesting and attractive to get the students attention on the lesson of the day. If the set induction is bored, the students will lose the interest and concentration from the beginning of the class. I notice that most of us enjoying watching some colorful images and video clip in the set induction, and I believes that our future students will like this kind of input also. Do not prepare some activity that even you yourself do not like it at all. Besides interesting and attractive, a set induction should also able to open the correct schemata of the students. Do not prepare something that is interesting but not related to the topic.

Second, I would consider about the activity prepared in pre and while reading stages. The extracts chosen should be at appropriate length. The exercise should not be too hard not too easy for the secondary students. Put in some pictures that related to what you teach may make the worksheets look more interesting to your students, it will somehow motivate them. The exercises that the teacher prepares should also relate to the previous activities so that the lesson will be considering as a smooth flow.

Third, I would consider about the teacher’s presentation. Their voice projection should be loud and clear and they should give simple and clear instruction to the students. Besides that, they should know how to handle the class, for example, if the students do not know how to answer the teacher’s question, teacher should give them some clues and guide them to the correct answer instead of giving out the answer to them directly. This is also a reminder to me; it is not because we do not take the class seriously, simply because we are still in the process of practice. Sometimes, we have well prepare for the presentation but our mind blank when some incident happen out of our consideration, so we will be nervous and just vomit out everything that we have prepare without consider whether our students understand about the lesson.

At last, I would consider about the teacher’s appearance, whether the teacher dress up appropriately is important so that you are able to set up the image of a teacher. The teacher appearance will give impression for the students; they will look more pleasant to the students if they dress up nicely.

Reflection of Movies

"Shakespeare Walla", "Macbeth", "Pygmalion", and "A Streetcar Named Desire"

After watching few movies, I would like to write some reflection. The first movie that I watch was “Shakespeare Walla”, it was bored for me, not only because it is a black-and-white movie, mainly because I do not understand the content and the language used in the movie. When I’m watching the movie, I just feel like the ‘sleeping angel’ visiting me.

Then the second movie, Feb 25, 2008, “Macbeth” is the most violent movie that I ever watch, I feel like vomit after watching the movie. By the way, I seldom watch war movie because I think it is bored and violent. However, the drama “Macbeth” is an interesting play despite it violence. The development of the plot increases my curious to know the ending of the play. The cruel of Macbeth let me see the evil part of human; he is willing to kill anyone in order to maintain his status of a king. This action lead to his tragic fall, not only destroys him, but also destroys his family and his country. Furthermore, I feel that Macbeth’s wife also need to take responsible to his action, she is the one who encourage him to kill people from the beginning. If she had stop Macbeth earlier, the story line will never be the same. This also reminds me of Oedipus’ wife, when Oedipus started to concern about the oracle, Iocaste ignore it. She is giving assurance to him that there is no reason to believe in prophecy.

Last Monday, March 3, 2008, we watched “Pygmalion”. I feel that the story of the play is much like fairy tale. A poor ugly lady eventually become a princess and found her true love. Then, March 10, 2008, we watch the third movie, “A Streetcar Named Desire”, it was the most interesting drama compared to the previous three dramas that we watch. This is the first play that we have already study before we watch it, Although some of the storyline changed, but the play do helps me to impress more on the story compare to just reading the text. I realized how well the writer used a text to describe something that just appear for few second, and how impressed there are to see the real action in the entire story. Both the presenting style helps us to get into the world of literature and comprehend the story better. Without viewing the film, I hardly imagine how is the real situation due to the lack of knowledge about the historical background about the story. The film has helped me to understand the story much better, especially the portrayal of characters. I can see from their costume, the speech of the characters, their action, gesture and facial expression. Besides that, I can see the setting of the house of Stanley and Stella; it helps me to understand their social-economy status.

In short, I gain something from all the movies we watch, I am looking forward to the next movie.

Set Induction in Simulated Teaching

Importance of Set Induction

I think set induction is a very important stage in opening the correct schemata and getting the students interest. A poor and outdated strategy might be boring to our students; in contrast, an attractive and interesting strategy will help us to get our student attention easily. We are now in our fourth semester, we have learned different types of skills or strategies that we can use in our micro teaching or simulated teaching for the set induction stage. For example, playing a song, telling a story, write the main topic on the board and ask students to think about the topic, playing game, or let them watch a short animation flash.

In the previous simulated teaching, I feel bored about some of the set induction, but I think some are very interesting that I can learn from them. I think getting student to move around can consider more interesting strategy. I remember one of my course mate set induction clearly. Min Hui asked student to play games in her set induction, many people like to play. She got four volunteers. She is also encourages the students to join the games by giving out present to the winner, I think this is also a strategies that I can use in the future because the people who plays game always expecting some reward. Hezelynn is the winner in her game, she was happy showing her reward to others. The whole activity not only involved the few people in front but the whole class was excited.