This is something quite academic but i want to share my point of view about the lecturer who inspires me..The lecturer taught me Language Learning Theories last semester(2008/2009). The reason that I chose him is because of his techniques when delivering his lectures. I think that everyone will agree with me that he is a nice person and understanding but he is one of the lecturers that gave me the shivers. It is a weird but I found myself trying to improve my grammar even more in his class and especially when I wanted to start a conversation with him, I will first rehearse my speech so that there will be no grammar mistakes. All of these anxieties are actually giving me the positive effects.
Some of the lecturers’ attitudes that I respected the most are his punctuality whether it is for his class attendance or assignments submission. I had to admit that I am not a very punctual person and had my marks deducted for late assignments submission. I learnt my lesson and still trying to be punctual and discipline in the future. Actually all of these characteristics can be found especially in all TESL lecturers. I found them to be more punctual and discipline and most of all give fair assessments which take records not only on our academic achievements but also our efforts too. These are few of the criteria which I noted from my observation of TESL lecturers in general and I hope that I can become a future educator with those qualities too.
He uses the communicative language teaching approach when he taught us. This is because besides conducting typical lectures where we just hear everything, he’ll get us involve with few class activities. In most of the lesson that he conducted, he will ask for our opinion on the topic that he taught for the day. In addition, he will also give comments whether we are on the right track or not. It is more to independent study because he told us that he will teach us how to fish so that we can fish for ourselves. He wanted us to think independently and not only spoon feed from the lectures. He encourages us to give out our opinion even if it does not agree with the theories that he taught. We have the freedom to give out our opinions. This is the best part that I love in his lesson because during school lesson, we are more trained to be exam oriented and we have to follow the schema to answer certain questions. I don’t get the opportunities to give my opinion on it and just follow or memorize the answers. I think this act is like narrowing our mind because students can’t express their opinion.
He uses several techniques when he teach us and we get some of the techniques and skills from him to be a good teacher. When we want to voice out our opinion in the class, he will move away from the student so that the student can throw out his/her voice so that everyone in the class can hear the opinion clearly. Other than that, when he comments on our opinion or our presentation, he did it in a good way so that even we did something wrong, he didn’t just straight away point it out which might lower ourselves esteem in an instance. This approach that he used motivates me to do better and sometimes I will do extra reading on some topics so that I can voice out my opinion and have some knowledge about the current language learning theories and also some of the pros and contras.
The way he assess us was very effective. We know our weaknesses and strengths so that we can improve ourselves. He also uses peer assessment when evaluate us because he wants everyone to contribute in a group project and I think this assessment is fair enough. He tells us how he assesses us so that we have a clear guide on how to get higher carrying marks. We know the criteria to get certain marks and grades from him. I like the way he comments on us after our presentation both individually and also as a whole group. This shows that he really gave attention to our effort because most of the time he will highlight our strengths and that is the reason I just can’t wait for the part where he commented us. I think most of my course mate will agree that this is the part where we waited the most. I really pay attention to all of his comments not only for me but also for my fellow course mate too. I note down some tips he gave us.
Overall, I am really satisfied with his teaching style and the only recommendation is that sometimes we get bored during the lesson especially the one which is during the evenings. He sometimes gave us long lectures because there are just too many inputs. He had to do it so that we can cover our topics and go on with our assignments to accomplish his subject. But that is just a small sacrifice that we had to make to get the best of his lesson and I really enjoy any lesson not only his where the lecturers gave us real life experiences as tips for our teaching guidance in the future.
sorry but i'm still in the process to brush up on my grammar. I hope that in the future i'll be able to write without any errors but in the mean time i'm concentrating on meaning..
please give me some feedback and i really appreciate any comments both positive and negative.I'll use it to improve myself.thank you..
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You will never know how negative comments can affect you until you get one. Let just say we both have the same target that is to sharpen our English language. As we are going to be ESL teacher. May I know where are you studying?
ReplyDeleteBefore you answer my question, let me give the comments you are asking for. Shall we begin?
- Academical writing is common among students and your post is not one of it. But it is an expression on how you felt about your lecturers way of teaching. Its a good thing though because not many people care how the lecturer performs as long as she give high marks.
-To rehearse before making a conversation only brings one meaning. You are monitoring your speech and this is not a good thing. You will learn this in Second Language Acquisition after you have taken your Linguistic. For a person that have been in this TESL program for almost four years now, when you monitor your speech it sure is tiring. You will see that only people who learn the language will have high monitoring. TESL student is however need to speak more like the native speakers who acquire the language. You need to be more spontaneous.
-Teacher students kind of teaching is always good for the student. But This two sided way of teaching is harder to be done than it looks. The rapport must be good and to have this is one of the hardest thing for a teacher.
I can comments some more actually. That is what we do best right, commenting other people. I'm just commenting and giving my thought on the subject of your post not on the grammar part. Actually, my grammar is tremendously bad. So I think that should do for now. Don't ever give way to negative comments. Keep on going. I'll be here to support a fellow TESLion.
p/s: come and visit my blog and feel free to leave a comment there. Mine is more fiction than real.
thnks for the comment..appreciate it..
ReplyDeleteem i'm still an undergraduate in UTM skudai..ya whenever anyone heard my uni's name thy'll thought that i'm an engineering student.actually TESL doesn't even exist b4 this.the lecturer that i mentioned in this blog..he was the one who proposed TESL course..so most of our lecturers are from the faculty of human resource..it's quite frustrated cuz some of the lecturers from the education faculty didnt like us TESLian..we like to comment i agree with u even when the lecturer makes mistake..one of my worse experience is that not me only but all of the TESLian get low marks for that subject.Majority of my class get C n the highest is B or B+ n we r frustrated cuz students fr other courses get higher marks even they didn't quite perform well..i know cuz i'd seen their work..one time we even get low marks for one of our minor subject which happened last semester..the students fr other course even copy our work n get high marks that doesn't make any sense n u cn guess..ya history repeated itself..we get low marks again..thanks to our personality n ya as TESLian we prefer to speak english n sometimes get labelled as snobbish..that's the challenges faced by us..some students fr other faculties love us..we help them a lot..my lecturer encourages us to mentor them n we had done a communication workshop..so there's a postive thngs happening besides the mishap..hehehe..oh ya technology is my minor since i'll be getting my bachelor of science but i don't think it is something to be happy with..i hate computers..i was thinking that i can do science as my minor n i was wrong..no regrets la now..
ya i'm looking forward for that subject n i can tell u..linguistic is really hard..i'm going to do a research on the dialect used by the kelantanese..i'm going to focus on their final consonants that undergone change in comparison to the standard malay language..what do u think???
ok i'll post my comments on ur blog..thanx again..nice knowing a fellow teslian..where r u now??teaching?
Do not worry. It's the same thing everywhere. TESLian is always looked at in some kind of way. But when you really look at the situation, you just can't blame it on everybody else. TESLian sometimes forget where to stop using English. We must always remember that we are still in Malaysia and our first language is the Malay language. What will you say if you see a Malay boy ordering "nasi goreng" in English. The one taking order didn't even finished school. That is why people have this impression towards us. It is us who have to make things right. Socialize with other people the Malaysian way and stop acting like we are westerners. I know that when you learn the language you also have to learn the culture but that does not mean you have to follow it. Am I right?
ReplyDeleteI'm a TESL twinning program done by BPG and local U. So I am officially the student of Sultan Abdul Halim's Teacher Institute and Sultan Idris' Education University. My course took two years just for foundation and another four years for degree. I'm now at UPSI for my second year of degree. I will start having my paycheck in 2011. Nice to get to know you to.
For the linguistic research we studied more on phonetics of the queens language. We never learn anything about other language. So I can't really have a say about the Kelantanese dialect. If I'm not mistaken Kelantanese dialect can be relate to the Siamese language. Try to have a look at it.
That's all. Thanks