My First Observed Teaching

   The day finally came... and with it, my supervising lecturer. What a nerve-wrecking week I had! First of all, I have spent sleepless nights all day this week- except for last night. Last night, I totally blacked out to the whole world. Is this what teaching practice is like? When I went for SBE, I always had enough rest and even had time to Facebook every night. Now, I only have time to sneak a peek or two at FB and then log off.

   Anyhow, let's talk about my what I intended to in the first place. Last week, when my supervising lecturer came, she told my partner and I that since we had both had classes that don't clash on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she would probably come on either day. So this week, we prepared for Tuesday. Truth be told, I was NOT ready when Tuesday came. I didn't sleep preparing, and yet I felt that I was at all prepared to be observed.

   Then, on Wednesday, I got an sms from Mdm J. She asked if we could arrange to have classes on Friday. I felt quite relieved, but the tension was still there. Once again, I spent another sleepless night on Thursday. I worked hard, but I was concentrating so much on my lesson plan that I totally forgot about my portfolio. Ah yes. I'd rather not talk about that. I feel so very guilty, even now.

   My advise is... do not leave your lesson planning until the last minute. You may get very brilliant ideas when that jolt of adrenaline is rushing through your system, but you won't have time to go through your lesson a few times to make sure you remember everything. You really NEED to know and remember each and every detail of your plan so that if something goes wrong, you'll know what to do.

   Since Mdm J is pregnant and our class is at the top of a mountain, we asked to use the science lab for our observed teaching. I went first, and had my class from 8.45 a.m. to 9.45 a.m., followed by partner.

   At first, I thought I'd teach grammar, since Mdm J taught us grammar and all, but I changed my plan at the last minute and decided to teach them writing. Well, not that much of writing actually ,just writing words and copying down sentences. I shall upload the lesson plan if anyone is interested, but remember I am still learning and there may be mistakes. Comments are very much welcomed.

   The topic I choose was Objects in the Kitchen. I had already taught them Objects in the Bedroom, and found that the children loved worksheets and loved finishing one off just so they could do another one. Well, perhaps not all of them do, but two or three are like that. (Did I tell you I just have 11 children in my class. Yes.)

   To cut things short, when I finished my class, I thought that it was a total disaster. I forgot all about my third step (The Snail Game) until the last minute, and we didn't have time to play it. I was too busy marking the children's worksheets and forgot to look at the time. The children were quite well-behaved for once, but Amirul is SOOOO lazy. I had to literally pull him out of his chair to make him walk around the class to do his work. The others were quite noisy, but personally I don't mind if they are as long as they do it while working.

   Mdm J. said I should try to insert more fun in my class. although I thought my classroom management was awful, she said that my instruction were very clear and easy to understand. I won't tell you what else she wrote in my PR form, but I didn't feel like I deserve them... I thought I was worse!

   The moral of the story is... plan your lessons ahead of time. In fact, plan several lessons ahead of time so that you only need to go over them and make repairs here and there a or two before class. When do you do it? Do it during the weekend. That's what I'm going to do. So tata for now. I'll share more stories next time (I have load of those, wait for them!)