Day 4: Teachers approach to Language Arts

Title: Interview an English language teacher to find out how songs and poetry are

used in language arts classes.

Date: 12 March 2015

Class: 4 Thirumagal

Time: 11.00am – 11.30am

I had interviewed 5 Thirumagal English teacher named Mrs.Margrate. I had

asked her what kind of songs and poetry she is using in language arts class and she

had said that she only use nursery rhymes to teach to pupils and poems are taken

from textbook. She said that when using textbook it makes the works easier

because all pupil will bring textbook to classroom so the teacher does not have to

prepare the teaching materials.

The teacher does not have any particular approach or strategies to utilised in

teaching songs and poetry because the teacher felt there is no necessary for her to

use any particular approach because pupils in that classroom is average and

advanced pupils. Therefore, it is easy for the teacher to conduct the lesson well.

Next, the teacher said that she utilised activities such as recite the poem,

sing the song and do action for the song or poem. She said that by doing this type of

activities enable the pupils to understand well the poem or song.

Furthermore, the teacher said that there is no specific day for language arts.

She said that the school management never make it language arts class compulsory

to teach in a particular day. Hence, the teacher will teach pupils language arts class

on Thursday. This is because she said that she will cover Monday listening and

speaking, Tuesday grammar, Wednesday reading and Friday will be writing.

Finally, I had asked her perception of using songs and poetry in class. She

had answered that she is enjoy using songs and poetry because she can see the

pupils progress to adapt fast the lyrics and poems. She told that she enjoy doing

poems because easy for pupils to read and recite whereas she is having difficulty in

using songs because pupils felt shy to sing. Therefore, she prefers to teach poems

in language arts classroom.