Teaching Aids

Teaching aids was the main topic for the lesson in this week. I believed that ‘teaching aids’ was a common word among of all of us. It was usually defined as supporting materials that were used in a teaching learning process. However, in this lesson, most of us were fascinated as we were assigned to integrate and use technology in teaching aids. This meant that we had to prepare a lesson that was fully conducted by using technology as teaching aids. I was wondering about it because I did not have much expose to the various teaching aids in terms of technology. This meant that the world was progressing in a fast pace especially in education. Luckily, Pn. Foziah had assigned us to do it in pairs rather than single. This helped me to learn and share some new ideas from my partner. It eventually developed cooperation in each pair.

Pn. Foziah had mentioned several teaching aids which were integrated with technology. E-Book, flash games, flash cards, music video, online story, online games and online educational activities were some of the examples of advanced technological teaching aids. Through her explanation on these teaching aids, I had a better idea on how it was linked in a teaching learning process. ‘What were impacts of using technological teaching aids?’ was the first question that emerged in my little mind. Would it mean that teachers were no longer important in schools?

In my opinion, teachers were absolutely important in schools even though lots of invention of technological teaching aids. This was because teachers were still needed as facilitators by giving them the correct instructions on how to do the tasks. Without teachers, I believe chaos would happen in schools as pupils were unable to clarify their hesitation.


There were many advantages of using technological teaching aids in classroom. Firstly, it created an interesting and exciting classroom. For example, a music video clip such as, ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’ that was shown at the beginning of a class would trigger pupils’ curiosity in learning rather than a traditional teaching method. This eventually aroused their interests and motivated them to learn. This video clip could also give them a brief idea or concept on the lesson. Thus, they would have focus and direction in learning.


Secondly, by integrating technology and teaching aids, teachers could have a more pupils-centered learning. This was because it contains lots of educational games and online tasksheets where pupils could participate at the same time. Pupils would also attain immediate feedbacks either it was positive or negative from the activities. This helped them to realize their strengths and weaknesses on the spot. Teachers also could avoid delaying the feedbacks to pupils in terms of marking their books. Pupils could also do extra activities at home just by clicking on the internet. In addition, there were many free of charge website for educational games.


Lastly, technological teaching aids which were colourful and contained lots of animations and graphics had widen pupils’ knowledge in using ICT. This would be very useful in their future especially in working life. Pupils could also be one of the techno savvy as children in oversea who had a very conducive learning environment. All in all, technology must be integrated in teaching so that our young generation could be the same par as the others in this advanced world.

Presentations

The lesson for today emphasized on the presentation which was unable to be completed last week. During the presentation, our lecturer, Pn. Foziah had posted several questions after each group had presented. In my opinion, it helped to enhance our comprehension towards the topic of presentation. It also developed their confidence while presenting their thoughts.

Four groups had presented their brilliant thoughts. The first group was about the children’s ability to grasp meaning. In order to portray abstract concepts to children, Group 1 had suggested to use non verbal communication skills and teaching aids. Facial expression, gestures, intonation and actions were some of the non verbal communication skills. Through these skills, they would tend to understand the messages and relate to their previous knowledge. In addition, teaching aids such as picture cards was essential as I always believed that pictures explained everything. This was also supported by Piaget (1978) that, ‘Children at preoperational stage preferred to learn by using concrete objects (teaching aids)’.



Meanwhile, Group 2 which was my group presented about children’s creative use of limited language resources. This meant that children were creative with grammatical forms and also concepts. For example, pupils would use existing knowledge to create negative prefixation such as ‘goed’ rather than ‘went’. Thus, in order to develop a correct grammatical form among children, games were introduced during the presentation such as ‘Simon says’. Games were chosen because in playing games children had to understand and obey certain rules and this would be useful as learning grammar consisted of certain rules such as adding ‘-s’ after plural. In addition, by integrating games in learning, I think it would effectively minimize their fear and boredom in learning.



On the other hand, Group 3 presented children’s instinct for play and fun. Games were usually related to children as it had a central role to play. Every child loved to play. They were able to use their own creativity in creating their own games. This made me realized that children were unique and they were sometimes more creative and innovative than adults. Thus, games which brought lots of fun and joy to children should be included in a classroom so that it could unleash their potential in learning.



Furthermore, Group 4 explained on the role of imagination. It clarified my hesitation on why children were delighted in imagination and fantasy. For example, I always wondered why a child would easily and passionately describe how an alien would look like rather than thinking either it existed or not. This clearly showed that children are authentic and creative in their own way. Thus, as a future teacher, I should be wise by integrating this element in teaching especially on adjectives by asking children to describe the characteristics of animals. This eventually stimulated their thinking as well.



Apart from that, in this lesson, I had been exposed to an effective way of how to download songs, videos and also lyrics. Moyea Youtube FLV downloader was introduced to the class. Before we were introduced to Moyea Youtube FLV Downloader, all of us we required to download a song by using our own alternative (other downloader). This encouraged to explore on the website rather than just spoon feeding us. I had never thought that I would be able to do it as I always asked the latest songs from my friends. This lesson had really taught be to be an independent learner rather than being a parasite. Besides, while exploring the downloader, my friends had lend their hands to me even though I was a slow learners. This eventually instilled cooperation in the class.



Lastly, all of us were assigned to do tutorial tasks such as showing the ways to download a song, video and also lyric. Each and every important step should be shown on the Power Point and burned into a CD. This reminded me that there ain’t any shortcuts in learning. Pn. Foziah had also patiently shown us the function of cropping and Print Screen. This made me to understand the functions of my laptop better. All in all, I had a great learning for today and I was now able to download any video clips and songs that I liked. Just love the lesson for today!! :)

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.