Journal 1

Practicum Week Week 1

Date 30th March 2014 - 3rd April 2014

Title of JournalFirst Week of Practicum in SJKC Ai Chun

(1)

On the morning of 30th March 2014 I start my first practicum in SJKC Ai Chun (1). This is a

new experience for me. I went to the school with 5 other teacher trainee from IPTHO. My

partner and I are from TESL meanwhile the other 4 teacher trainee is from Bahasa Cina and

Pendidikan Seni Visual. I met my mentor teacher on the first day. Her name is Madam

Yeow, and she has 30 years of experience in teaching English.

In addition, I was also given my timetable on the first day. The class I will be teaching is Year

3S. I was very excited and nervous. I asked my mentor for yearly scheme of work too as it

was a part of the requirement for me to do my lesson plan. Luckily, madam Yeow was really

nice and helpful. She lend me her yearly scheme of work, text book and also activity book.

This helped me a lot in planning my lesson plan as I have a guide how to do it.

Problems/Event:

On the first day I entered the class, my focus was to get to know the students,

recognize their name and also their attitudes to learning. I realized one of the big

problem in the class is that they like to speak in their mother tongue with me. I

noticed that this problem doesn’t only happen in English lessons, even in Bahasa

Melayu classes they were also speaking in their mother tongue with the teacher.

Analysis:

I think this problem happen because they are comfortable interacting in their mother

tongue. Usually, mother tongue defines the first language we were exposed to, our

L1, the first language we speak, the one we grew up with or that our parents did

speak with us. And usually people tend to speak this language for a long time.

According to a survey done by ( Oxford University Press ELT , 2014), “teachers were

asked to vote on their top speaking challenge. The problem that received the most

votes was ‘in group or pair speaking activities, my students chat in their mother

tongue’.” I think this is because students feel more confident and comfortable

speaking in their mother tongue. They can express their thoughts and ideas better if

they are speaking in their mother tongue too.

Literature review:

“The level of development of children's mother tongue is a strong predictor of their

second language development.” (Cummins, 2001) By having a strong foundation in

mother tongue language helps the students to grasp the second language better.

Therefore, both the mother language and second language nurture each other when

the educational environment permits children access to both languages.

Suggestion for improvement:

As Malaysian school culture often makes students scared to make mistakes,

students are afraid to use English to communicate with each other because they are

scared of making errors. So, I, as an English teacher to be should provide a safe and

conducive classroom environment for the students to learn English. I should

encourage the students to speak English, and let them speak out their mind. I should

not correct them while speaking, as this will demotivates them from participating in

class. The correct way is to note down their errors and correct them later. This allows

students to learn from their mistakes.

Duration

I will try to carry out this solution in a month, and see whether they are any

improvements in students’ participation and speaking in English.

Further Actions

I discussed this problem with my lecturer, Puan Kurotol Aini. She gave me a

suggestion that even though the students speak with me in their mother tongue, I

should respond to them in English. This way, they will learn better.

Conclusion

This is just the first week I carry out my practicum. I hope that I will be able to be a

good English teacher, not just teaching the students English but also educating them

into a better person.

Checked by teacher adviser: Checked by lecturer in charge:

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