Task 4.docx

Task 4 – Reflective essay The simulated teaching lesson I prepared was on the topic of water creatures. My group members are Wendy Ngu Woei Jiuan and Chung Yee Pei. Since it was a group task, we divided the lesson into three parts and each of us was responsible for a session. In preparing my simulated teaching, my first step is doing a lesson plan on the topic – Deep sea animals which I would like to teach to Year 3 students. It was the first hurdle I had to jump over as I never write a lesson plan before. I spent some time looking for interesting activities, sample lesson plans and teaching aids through internet and books. It is especially useful as I adapt the creative ideas into my lesson. Furthermore, I also ask opinions from my lecturer and friends to improve on my lesson plan. During the simulated teaching, I was responsible for the set induction and presentation stage. I brought a mystery box into the classroom and asked the students guess. I found the students were very interested and it was a good start for my lesson. When it came to the presentation stage, I played a song and asked students to listen and complete the worksheet. After completing my teaching, I reviewed the video recording of my lesson, gained written and spoken feedback from my peers and instructor, and took the opportunity to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson. Looking back, I realised the strong point of the lesson was that I used a variety of teaching approaches in the classroom such as games and group work activities. The students were enthusiastic about learning and fully responsive in answering the questions. I successfully facilitated a friendly and a learner-centred learning environment in the classroom. Also, I found out that I could deliver my instructions confidently in front of the class despite having no such teaching experience before. After reviewing the video, there was an area that I should make some improvements on it. I realised the influence of mother tongue had strongly affected the fluency and accuracy of language during the delivery of the instructions. I noticed there was a frequent use of disfluencies such as “uh” and “um” as well as some pronunciation errors. To an extent, it might become distracting and in a way affect students’ language acquisition. Thus, I should make improvement on my language proficiency. I should practise speaking English in daily conversation and expose myself to more English reading materials to improve my language proficiency. Overall, the simulated teaching was well-paced and systematically presented. The lesson plan and the teaching materials were fully utilized in the teaching. I would say this was an

enlightening experience. It gave me practice in constructing lesson plans and finally getting up in front of the class and start teaching. I felt that I was much more confident going into teaching now as the experience allowed me to start thinking about what to expect in the class. (502 words)