hectic week

This is the toughest week. I have to think of a concept of a learning blog. I have look for materials and the right curriculum for a listening session. I have modified this concept a lot of times, which made me confused. Looking for a suitable listening material for beginners isn’t easy. At first I just put in all the materials without thinking twice. After I consulted it with my lecturer, I realized that I cannot put everything, the ones I put in need to have a purpose. Then I searched the right curriculum for a beginner level, after that I searched for a suitable listening material. Then I adapted several materials with my own way of speaking. The construction of this blog still continues even at this very second.Wait and see :)

Assessments in a Different Perspective

http://www.ioxassessment.com/index.php?cPath=24

Last Friday was a hectic day, I needed to be an MC (Master of Ceremony), wanted to donate blood, noon has already passed and I haven’t eaten anything. Suddenly my friend told me,” Grace lets go to class.” I was shocked. I didn’t even remember that I have a class that day. The week before my teacher told us that we would have a “make up” class on the following Friday.

We rushed to class, and by the time we reached the class, my classmates looked at us, it turned out that an hour already passed since the class started and they were having a group discussion. I was assigned to the group with Nancy in it. Miss Tika gave me the subject and told me that I only got 5 minutes to read it and understand it. Honestly, I don’t understand a damn thing in that article.

Luckily, the article was about types of assessments and I had the same topic once in LTM (Language Teaching Methodologies) so I already had a rough idea about it. The main idea of the article was types of assignments which are diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments.

The first type is diagnostic assessments, usually in the form of a pretest, or oral communication, to know the standard of the class to serve as a guideline throughout the course. The next type is formative assessment, formative assessments takes form as written assignments either in class or home assignment throughout the course. The last type is summative assessments, or usually known better as final exams to know the growth of the students and to know whether the teaching method is effective or not. A good teacher should combine all three types of assessments

A lot of teacher in Indonesia tends to forget that diagnostic assessment is a very important part of a teaching-learning activity.  They only think about the final result (summative assessment) which isn’t really a good practice. A teacher should know the strengths, weakness, and the average ability of the class for a subject to be absorbed optimally by the students. In conclusion all three assessments are very important in a teaching-learning activity.

" A Chat with My Friend"

Last wednesday, me and my friend went to mall for windows shopping.while we were waiting for our menu to come, we were talking about our academic result. She told me so many things about her college life. One thing that made me feel upset was when she told me about her lecturers at her campus. The lecturer did not really care about his/her students progress. The way he/she taught is not interesting, eventhough they already used ICT in her/his classroom. They just teach and teach all the time. My friend said " the lecturer is just like a robot. They came to the class, lecturing with no pauses, then gave us the assignment and i'm sick of it". I think this kind of situation happened almost in all university in Indonesia. The important thing for the lecturer is, they delivered the material to the student, they got the score from the assignment, then it's done.  This sort of problem made my friend thought that the most important thing in studying a subject is the score not the knowledge. Hearing this statement, I felt shock. I suggested her to be more dilligent in order to get the knowledge. The score is nothing. The most important thing is the knowledge. What is the use of score if you don't get the knowledge? As the next generation of teacher, i will try to solve this issue. I will teach and monitor my students progress as well. Teaching will happen if there is a change in our students.

cartoonstock.com

TLL Week 8 Report

Using chalk and board are still dominant in Theresia School. When I did an interview with the teacher, I asked them what type of media that the teacher used the most in language learning. They said that printed material, black board and chalk are the most used media for teaching and learning. They felt more comfortable using those media rather than using a powerpoint slide. The reason was simple. They thought that white/blackboard is easier to use because you just need to write and explain the material. Let the students copy and you can erase it. If they used powerpoint, it will take more time for preparing it. Printed material such as exercise papar was being used all the time. According to the teacher, using printed material is more interactive. She can discuss the exercise with all the students directly, and it works. The teacher and the students gain their goal. The test result was good.

chalk and blackboard

In listening section, the teacher used a CD, a personal computer (PC) and a speaker. She will play the CD and give each of the student a listening book. They have to answer based on what they had heard. Actually, at each table, there is a headphones which is used for listening. The teacher did not use it because the headphones did not link to the same spot. If the teacher use the headphone , I think it will be better for the students, because they can listen more clearly. When I interviewed the teacher about the students scored for listening, the teacher said that the result was quite good. Sometimes the teacher trained the students with songs and it showed a good improvement for listening score. Bringing the students to language lab is an effective method to teach their skill in listening.

language lab

When I was observing the classroom, I imagined myself as the teacher. I would use a laptop with a modem and a LCD projector. I want them to explore more by using the internet. There are many resources for grammar. I can show them many creative question about grammar, so that they not only learn from me as a teacher but also from the world about grammar. When I have to teach them in the classroom about gerund, my team teaching provided a powerpoint game slide. They all are very enthusiastic. They felt that this is a good way to teach grammar. They not only get the knowledge but also fun. If I have to teach listening, I would like to use podcast. The pronounciation and the content of podcast is very good for learning English. For senior high school students, it is good for them if a teacher give them an intermediate level material for listening. They can gain more knowledge and practice their pronounciation based on what they heard. It is good for them in order to prepare the students to the real world of English.

Fresh teacher :)