Group Presentation

Time passed so fast and this was the third week for my Developing Resources for ESL lesson. In this lesson, our respective lecturer had divided all of us into groups. Each group consisted of six people. A task was assigned to each group that was all the members in a group had to read and understand the content of the assigned title. Then, we had to prepare a power point to present our content and comprehension towards the title within an hour. I think setting a duration of time to complete the task was a brilliant idea from our lecturer. Thus, three members were assigned to identify the main ideas whereas the other three members had to search for relevant readings to support the main ideas of the title. This eventually instilled the cooperation among everyone in the group.

Besides, Pn. Foziah who encouraged us to find relevant information from the internet had widen our opportunity in exploring the website. This had emphasized us on the learner-centric method rather than teacher-centered. This reminded me to inculcate a lesson that gave chances to pupils in discussing and exploring a topic by using internet in the future. Through this, pupils could develop their critical thinking and organization skills while preparing the power point too.



Furthermore, through this lesson, each group was given a chance to present their work in front of the class. Besides, each group had received some interesting comments and thoughtful suggestions from our lecturer. For example, Pn. Foziah had reminded all the groups to insert the “URL” on the power point if they quoted any information from the internet. She also suggested that short but precise characteristics of the games such as “Charade” and “Guessing games” should be included as well. In my opinion, I think “URL” should be included while I was preparing my power point in my future teaching because pupils could easily refer to it if they wanted to do further readings.



Apart from that, the presentation brought mutual benefits to each group because we were able to learn and share ideas in creating and organizing a systematic power point from the other groups. For instance, group 1 had done an excellent job that was including a “Youtube” video on how the children grasped the language. This gave a better understanding to all of us as video can easily attract everyone’s attention and explain hidden abstract ideas. Meanwhile, group 2 had included lots of colourful images on the presentation. Based on the video and colourful pictures, it reminded me that these two main elements must be included in my power point in future teaching so that I could easily gain attention from pupils.

Lastly, I realized that I should maximize my exploration on the available resources in the internet such as videos and images in order to create a well defined, compact and organized power point presentation in my future teaching.

1st Lesson

Developing resources for ESL classroom was the first lesson that introduced me that this new semester was all about technology. I was so worried because I only had a very shallow knowledge about TECHNOLOGY. Firstly, our respective lecturer, Pn. Foziah had requested everyone to have a blog so that we could get in touch our classmates from time to time especially when we had any difficulties in learning. I was cracking my mind hardly on how to create a new blog and an account of gmail. Luckily, everything went smoothly after many trials and errors and with the help of my friends.

Besides that, during the lesson, I was reminded to get an eight GB pendrive. I started to wonder and ask myself a silly question, ‘What am I going to do with the 8GB pendrive?’. Our lecturer had also reminded us to bring it whenever we attended the class so that we could save the all important and useful softwares during the lesson. She was so kindful as well as she advised us to buy in bundle so we could get a better price. Thanks for the brilliant and thoughtful idea.

Lastly, our lecturer asked all of us to download the CS3 software which was an element in editing a photo. We were asked to download it earlier so that it would not be troublesome during the lesson of editing photos. We were encouraged to explore as well as practice makes perfect. After attending this lesson, I really hoped myself would be a little expert learner in using technology and apply in my profession as well.

Introduction (5 Modules)

In this lesson, I had gained a lot of resourceful information that was very useful in my future teaching profession. First and foremost, we were introduced on 5 modules such as internet and computing skills, photo editing skills, audio editing skills, video editing skills and software for ELT. Pn. Foziah had taught all of us the proper way of typing. It surprised some of us especially me who had a shallow knowledge about computer and technology devices. Besides, by learning the correct way of typing, I could be a role model and taught what I had learnt to my pupils in future. This would help them in exploring the cyber world and doing their assessments. Pn. Foziah was very helpful as she was willing to share a software in improving typing skills. This reminded me that one of the basic elements in mastering this course was typing skills as we had to leave verbal thoughts, do assignments and portfolios proficiently by using technology.

Apart from that, this lesson had made everyone of us to get closer to one another. For instance, we copied and pasted one another’s URL so that we were able to communicate online when we had any problems. We could also download the latest notes from the blog too. This meant that we could get in touch in anytime and anywhere. This concurred with ( Parikh & Verma, 2002 ) that, ‘Technology such as internet is one of the most preferred technology in helping it utilize and support learning by distributing learning notes and assignments on websites’. It was also fun and excited to create our own blogs according to our preferences. In addition, Pn. Foziah also taught us how to have more spaces for our document placement which was the 'Skydrive'. I was so suprised that this 'Skydrive' was actually embedded in the hotmail account. This had widen my scope and well used the space provided.

Lastly, Pn. Foziah gave us a set of questionnaires to fill in. Through these questions, I also realized that I needed a lot of improvements in technology in order to be the same path as efficient and fast paced users. Lastly, it was undeniable that learning in 21^st century involved lots of technology skills.