Kokkhuan's Micro Teaching Reflect

            According to  Kokkhuan's micro teaching, I would like to reflect her teaching to see what pros and cons. At the first teaching step, Kokkhuan started the lesson by greeting and checking students' attendance and then, she taught some vocabulary that will meet in the lesson. 
           Kokkhuan taught students vocabulary by using pictures and let students what does it mean? it makes students exciting to guess. She gave students to speak loudly for practice. Second step is gave handout and worksheet for students. Her lesson is about global warming. She emphasized listening and speaking skills. She played the audio about “ A university student writes a letter from the 21th century” 3 times. The first times, after listening students tell what did they get from story. The second, Student listen again. The third times, teacher gave worksheet to students. Students can read the story while listening after that teacher gives students works in pair to answer the question from the story.
Third step,teacher checked the correct answer with the students. Lastly, she gave work in group and lets each group do group work and then students in each group explain and discuss their opinions about how to stop global warming and write short slogan to persuade people to save the earth. Slogan is the good way to share their idea.
               To sum up, she speak loudly. Her personality is perfect, she walked around classroom and try to observe students in class. The important thing is praise, she always gave to students when they did a good job. Moreover, she used appropriate authentic materials such as word cards, picture cards..

Reflect (15/ July 2014)

        The class room activities was about how to teach English effectively, the problems in learning English and the ways to solve the problems . The class begins with the test of teaching of one of my friend. She does not so good, so the teacher gives her the suggestions. The ways to teach English in the 21 century classroom is also important things that the person who is going to be the teacher in the teacher needs to know and understand it. Moreover, most of students in these days are still have problems in learning English. Then, finding the ways to improve English skills are needed.

                Many of students in the class still lack of the fluency in teaching method. The ways that can help the according to the teacher recommendations are to find the trusting information, to select the appropriate information with the content and objective we will teach, to improve the language skills, and to develop language structures like "grammar". Grammar is one of the problems in teaching process. Many students is weak at grammar and language structures. Accordingly, when they use the classroom language in the classroom, their language uses are always wrong. Moreover, the teacher in 21 century has to good at selecting the contents with the students, and the events in daily life. Integrating English with the useful information is effective for students. For example, integrating English with the Environmental Care, ASEAN, Ebola and so on. Not only, the students learn English from the lessons, they will learn the events in the society also. However, teacher has to select the trustiest and the most appropriate information with the lessons and the students'level. Besides, teacher suggests us the level of the question that can be applied to teaching process. 

They are; Yes/No Question  = Low Level

                 Wh-Questions     =  Medium Level

                 Why, How            = High Level

In addition,  the teacher asks students who are going to be the English teacher in the future one by one about their barriers in learning and teaching English. Most of the barriers found that the students are lacked of speaking and writing skills. Most of them solve the problems by watching the English media and read the English books. Moreover, the confusion in the lesson plan is the one of the most popular problems. Many of the students solve it by asking the ones who good at English or the native speaker to help.

               To sum up ,language skills and the process and the structure of the lesson plan are the problems that need to improve.  If we have the lesson plan which passes the right process, we could enhance and improve students’ learning as well. In this lesson plan, we who will be the teacher in the future focused on the listening and speaking skill to encourage students’ communication skill. Besides, task-based learning is the essential ways to help students in language learning. They can learn and comprehend the content and the language structure by themselves. The tasks will be meaningful, if the students finish the products and the learning outcomes with their enthusiasm.

Reflect: Classroom Discussion

Reflect 18th April 2014

                The class room activities of 18^th April 2014 was about testing teaching English in the course syllabus that we have submitted to the teacher. The popular topic was about the nature and the way to save the environment. Most of students in the class were ready to have a test. When the class began the depressed atmosphere covered the class. However, after the teacher saw the error in the teaching of the first students, the content of the lesson plan was discussed.  The parts of the lesson plan that emphasized in were the aim or goal, objectives, and other details in the lesson plan. Here are some useful ways to write the effective lesson plan.

                The main topic of the class was how to write the lesson plan productively. The syllabus that my fellow students and I wrote is emphasized on environmental conservation and public mind. Moreover, the teacher suggested us the way to write the lesson plan that make students’ learning is meaningful. The way to write the lesson plan we have to consider many factors.  How do the objectives come from? How to do the objectives? These are mainly focused on lesson plan and how to teach the students effectively. First, we have to consider to the curriculum what it want us to teach students in the level that we want to teach. Second, we have to find the standard that appropriate to the students. Third, select the indicator which appropriate. Next, we have to think how to apply the indicators to the objectives. Then set the objectives by relating to the performance, condition, and standard. The objectives can be categorized to be the terminal objective, the enabling objective and learning objective. Afterwards, we select the way to teach and write the lesson plan. The process that is very important in writing lesson plan is searching the content that is suitable to the objectives and level of students’ knowledge, processing the lesson, synthesizing  the contents that we have selected, finding the tools to evaluate the students outcome, and then ready to write the lesson plan.

                In conclusion, most of the problems of my fellow students and I were the process and the structure of the lesson plan that we do not know it clearly.  Accordingly, we have to improve it to be an effective lesson plan. If we have the lesson plan which passes the right process, we could enhance and improve students’ learning as well. In this lesson plan, we who will be the teacher in the future focused on the listening and speaking skill to encourage students’ communication. In addition we use the task-based learning to help students in language learning. Accordingly, if the lesson plan and teaching process is well used, the students will get the English skills of listening and speaking skills through the environmental conservation and the public mind. Therefore, the students can bring some of the knowledge in English classroom to use in their daily lives.

Classroom discussion 4

Classroom discussion 4

Reflect

          According to the tasks teacher has given, members of each group did the tasks by researching the many details and contents. Then, class’s activities are presentations the tasks teacher given. The presentations of the ways to teach English are discussed in the classroom.  Four groups of presenters show the information in front of the class. There are teaching listening, teaching reading, and teaching writing, and assessing and testing. One of them is my group, teaching writing. Our groups worked very hard to study the details and search for the more information for the topics we are given. Here are some learning outcome from both presenters and the audience.

         Teaching speaking can help students in communication a lot. However, the old style of teaching might makes students get bored and do not want to learn. This can make teacher’s teaching is not effective enough. To Teach speaking skill, teacher should be aware the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts. Teacher has to focus on students practice with both fluency and accuracy. Besides, teacher should give students the group work and pair work in speaking activities and limit teacher’ s talking, The less teacher talks the more students learn. Then, students’ task should be related to the speaking lessons. There are many kinds of learning speaking activities that could apply in classroom; information gap, jigsaw activities, building the speaking habit, the hot seat, interview the picture, turning inner voice, buzz groups, from the sentence discussion, prompt cards, telling story, role play, and so on. In addition, while students are doing the activities, teacher is everything to help students accomplish the difficulties. Nevertheless, teaching speaking can use the technology in teaching activities also. Then, take consider which kinds of technology can be applied in speaking teaching activities.

            Teaching English with technology is a useful way of teaching English. It helps teacher up to date the new information. There are many ways to teach English with technology. One of them are IWB or Smart board that can be the audio or video and easily to use with sensor touching technology. Teacher can introduce the various kinds of content on the IWB or smart board while students are attending to learn with these attractive materials. Furthermore, there are the tools that can be used in classroom activities such as, flip charts, overhead projector, computer, and so on. The kinds of activities that students learn through media technology could be the recording. With recording, students can interview people online and can create plays, film, oral presentation, etc. Students can use the social network or online website to learn and show their learning. However, the picture, cards, strips of paper are still useful in teaching English. Teacher can easily create the materials and students also easily understand what teacher is going to teach them.

          Listening skill is the first and the basic skill for every learner. However, many ESL classrooms in Thailand are not focused on this skill at the initial step. Then, teaching listening skills is one of the most difficult tasks for any ESL teacher. This is because successful listening skills are acquired over time and with lots of practice. It is quite difficult for students because there are no rules as in grammar teaching. Speaking and writing also have very specific exercises that can lead to improved skills. This is not to say that there are not ways of improving listening skill; however they are difficult to quantify. The activities that help in teaching listening can be the dictation, short dialogues, short text, comprehend sentences, listening to the stories, or listening for the newscast. Moreover, it can be integrate with another skill also.

          Teaching reading is one of the most important basic skills that teacher has to teach the students effectively. Reading skill is very for the students in learning language all other language all over the world. There are many kinds of reading for example skimming, scanning, reviewing, extensive, intensive reading, and so on. For this topic, we will focus on extensive and intensive reading. Extensive reading is a kind of reading by looking up the words roughly and without translating to every word. It consist of three main principles of extensive reading: do not look up words in dictionary, skip over parts you do not understand, and if you are not enjoying one book, toss it aside and get another. Next, intensive reading is a kind of reading that focused on the language rather than the text. The procedures of intensive reading consist of pre-reading: prediction activities, reading for the gist of “skimming” for main ideas, reading for specific information(scanning), ask students to try out the techniques, and give students the tasks before asking them to look more details.

          Teaching writing is also useful for students ‘lifelong skill. If they can learn writing productively, they can apply in their business or other life’s activities. For teaching writing, we will discuss three main ideas: being accurate, encouraging students to learn writing, and producing a finished product. The first import thing is accuracy. In the beginner step, teacher will start at teach ‘nuts and bolts’ of writing.  Nuts and bolts is the way to teach student to write with the lines with the correct forms. After that, the use of punctuation will be taught to the students. If they learn in more advanced step, the process of writing will be taught. Writing process consist of planning, drafting, editing, revising, and publishing. Sometimes, writing steps can be changed the ways, we can go back to correct and add what we want to write. Moreover, it is not easy to make students enjoy with writhing, so in teaching writing teacher has to find the way to encourage students ‘writing. Teacher can find the interesting teaching activities by using games, songs, picture, and other writing activities, such as folding paper. If the students’ learning products are finished, teacher can help students to keep it advantages ways. For example, portfolio, writing journals, blogs, wikis and lots of online medias which are very popular these days. 

          Finally, assessing and testing are the major tools in teaching. It can be shown how well students learnt and how effective the teaching methods were. The types of assessment consist of formative, summative, informal, diagnostic, placement, progress, achievement, and proficiency test. Formative assess students ‘performance during instructions, usually occurs throughout the instruction process. Summative assessment measures students’ achievement at the end of the instructions. Informal assessment decides what to do next on a lesson. Diagnostic assessment assess students’ strength, weakness, knowledge, and skills prior the instruction. Placement test is a test that measure when they first arrive at language teaching institution. Progress assessment is a kind of assessment that to see how students are getting on. Achievement Assessment is the test set in the end of something, such as a semester, a year. Proficiency assessment measures a students’ language ability.  Besides, one of useful assessment tools is rubric. It is a multi-purpose scoring guide for assessing students’ products and performances.   

     

          In conclusion, all of teaching methods and assessing and testing are tools in English language teaching. There are many ways and tools in teaching. Teacher has to evaluate the contents with the students’ knowledge appropriately.  Not only the teaching techniques that are the influential for learning, but assessment and testing tools are also important. It is the tools to show what’s the students background knowledge, how students’ progress in learning, or how the teaching methods teacher used. All of those techniques and instruments can be applied in real classroom situation. If teacher could apply the techniques and the tools appropriately, the more effective learning  students receive. 

Teaching Writing

Reflect

Writing is not an easy skill in languages, however; it is not too difficult to learn. Writing competence in a foreign language tends to be one of the most difficult skills to acquire.  The key to successful writing classes is that they are pragmatic in nature targeting the skills required or desired by students. It is important for the students to be personally involved with the task in order to make learning experience much more value. The teacher should be clear with the skill he/she is trying to develop. Next, the teacher needs to decide on which kind of the tasks can facilitate learning of the goal. Moreover, the essential things that teacher has to focus on are being accuracy, encouraging writing, and producing finished products. Here are some of useful techniques of them.

                First of all, being accuracy is the heart of writing.  If you make a mistake in writing, you cannot correct it when you have already finished it. At the initial step, teaching ‘nit and bolts’ need to be emphasized. Teacher need to give students the training how to write the symbols and the alphabet correctly by using special lined paper to help them. Next, teach students how to use the punctuation, explain them the rules. On the other hand, writing process is also essential for the students for the next steps. It helps students to think and to write more reasonably. There are four main stages that students have to do. Firstly, planning stage is the step that students think what they want to write and who are their audience. They could do it by making notes. Secondly, gather the ideas from the first stage to write roughly. Afterwards, review the draft’s error. They can ask teacher to help. peer check, or do it themselves with the tools called ‘checklist’.  Finally, finished the final version.  However, writer can rethink and go back to correct at the previous steps.

                Accordingly, many students are not enjoyable in writing much, so the teacher’s task is to make them comfortable and enthusiastic about it.  The techniques that can help students in writing, one of them is spontaneous writing. Teacher can encourage them by asking them to write instant sentence about someone in the class. Then pass it around the class and identify the people in the sentences. Expanding the sentence by using adjective, clauses and so on are a good ideas, but the sentence they made need to make sense. Besides, the kind of activity called ‘students writing together’ can provoke collaborative writing. There are interesting activities that helps students write together, such as folding paper or story circle. It helps students how to work in group.  In addition, the materials that can encourage students can be the picture or music. These things are very useful. It depends on teacher how to apply it appropriately.

                Lastly, producing a finished product is the step after the writing process have already finished. Nowadays, it is the limitless of communication. There are many ways for the students to publish or put their products on. For example, portfolio, blog, wikis, website and so on. Portfolio is a collection of writing. They will see their progress in writing with it. Writing journal can be used in reflecting of their learning. Moreover, it encourages students to use real communication. Then, their writing skill will be better. Wikis, blogs and contacts are the useful place for correcting the error or the feedback of writing widely. Hence, all of these are great choices to produce a finished product. Students can learn and use it with their writing effectively

Classroom Discussion 3 (Teaching with Technology)

Reflect

       Nowadays, the world keeps changing all the time. Many people never stop learning. Accordingly, the education in the 21st century are developed from many tools. One of the most powerful tools is technology. Teaching with technology can improve students' learning by supporting instructional objectives. However, it can be challenging to select the “best” tech tools while not loosing sight of the goals for student learning.  Once identified, integrating those tools can itself be a challenge, though an eye-opening experience. Teachers have to find the creative and constructive ways to integrate technology into language class to improve their students' learning.

         Teaching English with technology is a useful way of teaching English. It helps teacher up to date the new information. There are many ways to teach English with technology. One of them are IWB or Smart board that can be the audio or video and easily to use with sensor touching technology. Teacher can introduce the various kinds of content on the IWB or smart board while students are attending to learn with these attractive materials. Furthermore, there are the tools that can be used in classroom activities such as, flip charts, overhead projector, computer, and so on. The kinds of activities that students learn through media technology could be the recording. With recording, students can interview people online and can create plays, film, oral presentation, etc. Students can use the social network or online website to learn and show their learning. However, the picture, cards, strips of paper are still useful in teaching English. Teacher can easily create the materials and students also easily understand what teacher is going to teach them.

        In conclusion, technology is one of the ways and tools that teacher can use it to solve problems about students' learning or achieve a goal.  In the classroom, technology can encompass all kinds of tools from low-tech pencil, paper, and chalkboard, to the use of presentation software, or high-tech tablets, online collaboration and conferencing tools, and more. The newest technologies allow us to try things in physical and virtual classrooms that were not possible before. What you use depends fundamentally on what you are trying to accomplish. However, technology is just tools in the teaching. Teacher should encourage students' learning and never stop developing themselves as like as a technology.

Classroom Discussion3 (Teaching Speaking)

Reflect

            Classroom main topics for this time are teaching speaking and teaching with technology. They are the ways to develop from old style of teaching to be the new ones. Teacher has to be the one who never stop thinking and finding the ways for students to learn effectively.  It will be the benefits to students’ learning if there are various kinds of media and learning management for them. Then, teacher’s teaching styles are very influential, it is like a key in learning process. Accordingly, this topic is talking about the activities and media that can help teacher in teaching English.  Here are some of the interesting ideas in teaching.

           
          Teaching speaking can help students in communication a lot. However, the old style of teaching might makes students get bored and do not want to learn. This can make teacher’s teaching is not effective enough. To Teach speaking skill, teacher should be aware the differences between second language and foreign language learning contexts. Teacher has to focus on students practice with both fluency and accuracy. Besides, teacher should give students the group work and pair work in speaking activities and limit teacher’ s talking, The less teacher talks the more students learn. Then, students’ task should be related to the speaking lessons. There are many kinds of learning speaking activities that could apply in classroom; information gap, jigsaw activities, building the speaking habit, the hot seat, interview the picture, turning inner voice, buzz groups, from the sentence discussion, prompt cards, telling story, role play, and so on. In addition, while students are doing the activities, teacher is everything to help students accomplish the difficulties. Nevertheless, teaching speaking can use the technology in teaching activities also. 

            In conclusion, the ways to move students to success in learning are always more than one. Nonetheless, the person who powers those ways was teacher. It is a fact that, there are many ways and tools in teaching, the teacher is only one who picks and controls the activities. To find the ways how to use these teaching speaking teacher should consider student’s level with the activities also. Teacher can create many styles of classroom learning management. Then, consider and choose the best ways for the students. Apply the activities and the materials in teaching appropriately students will be success.