the final entry

this is going to be the last entry for this forum... let see, my opinion for blogging? personally, i dont think that i'll do it in future out of my own will. for me, blogging is troublesome, and i hate to put myself in one. why do i said so. right now, living in K12, with terrible USPOT coverage, not just them, even maxis/celcom or any other broadband ISP's coverage here is terrible. wonder just how long it'll takes to open a page. it's troublesome. the idea of becoming trendy in teaching is innovative, and supposedly to be interesting, but the infrastructure here did not helps in creating a conducive atmosphere for blogging.

This course... is hard, of course, because if it's easy, then no learning will take place. the hardship to understands the old plays 'oedipus' and 'lear' tested my patience to the limit (take notes that i never like plays at the 1st place).
anyway i made it through(I DO HOPES SO!).

Finally, to Dr Edwin, thank you for teaching me this semester and previous semester. Sorry for late to your class or not coming at all. at first i think that you just being mean, but after reflected on my own actions, i can see that you try to make us to be punctual :)

simulated teaching pt.2

For pre-reading stage, I started with giving some input on the definition of character, character classes and their functions and also the definition of character personality traits. I did that so the students will not get confuse on what the lesson will be. The activity for pre-reading activity was to identify in what categories the characters in the play belongs to, either as major characters or minor characters. The worksheet is provided for the students to write down the answers. Later they are to present their answers to the class and compared with others answers. I believe in doing so will help them to think critically to defend their answers if other classmates have the other answers. In literature, the answer is correct if we can provide with evidence(s) from the text. As for the while-reading stage, I prepared a worksheet for them. The activity was for them to match.
Back in school days, what I experience was quite the same, except there was never be a set-induction stage. I think, the teacher came to class and straight teaching the content. Later they will give lots of exercises. I don’t think it was good or bad experiences because all they did were to prepare students with the examination, as the way education in Malaysia is examination-oriented. The strength in my simulated teaching is the set induction because the class starts to concentrate to the lesson from the set induction level. They were asking questions and responded to my questions and other classmates’ answers. In order to maintain the strength, the following stages’ activities must me interesting and interactive. I gave them the opportunities to express their thought. What I discovered about my weakness in the teaching was my own language proficiency. I sometimes stopped for a while to think for words to say and I do have interferences from the first language. In future, I have to become more proficient in English so the lesson will not be interrupted. For now, I think I have to slow down the pace when I talk. When I talk on fast pace, I’ll run out of words before I could comes up with more. If I slow down, I can buy some times to comes up with more what I should say, plus, students will not feel the pressure to catch what I’m trying to convey.

simulated teaching pt.1

Simulated teaching is the scariest moment in the whole program that I’ve experienced so far. First of all, it is because we are being evaluated and GRADED. Yes, Grading made it so scary. We are so tensed to do our best and not to screwed up because we don’t want our carried mark low. Apart from that, simulated teaching will test our confidence and how we perform in front of other people. I, as a person who is not good in standing in front of people and talk, do feel the pressures, every bit of it. The uneasiness will make me forget everything that I had planned beforehand.

Anyway, for this course’s simulated teaching, I chose “The Ring Doesn’t Fit” by Tan Kee Aun as the topic of teaching. The set induction is very important in a lesson because it is where teacher should attract students’ interest to the lesson. I showed a song clip that related to the theme of the story, wedding. Later I asked few question related to wedding itself. Although the song was in Japanese, it comes together with English subtitle. I do think it is appropriate to show the clip to the class because the students still able to understand what the song about when they read the subtitle. Reading subtitle in our daily life is normal because when watching TV or go to cinema, subtitles are provided. Before I ended the set induction, I told the class that I’ll teach a play that related to the clip that I showed earlier.

Kee Thuan Chye was at UPM....recently

The conference with KeeThuan Chye was a great experience. I like the way he think of current issues of the country. He believe that the government is forcing their truth and value into us, to make us think the way they wanted us to be, closing the opportunities for us to develop to be someone different, with different way of thinking. The media is being controlled by the government, the content also being controlled for their favor. It was beautifully illustrated in his work “ The Swordfish. Then the Concubine”. Iskandar representing the current government making use of awang(representing the idol) in calming the crowd(citizens) in time that a riot is almost broke out (show political instability).
Another thing about him is, the way he thinks about us Malaysian right now. We are not united as people of a nation, because of the prejudice towards other races. It is true. Even though Malaysia has reached independence for a long time, we did not yet make it to live peacefully with one another. How we live right now is not the true “peace” with one another. There is still the “social contract” thing in the constitution. So the real fact is, the only thing that holds back the races from starting a war with one another is the “social contract”. If we have truly reached the real “peace”, there is no need for the “social contract” to be implemented.