PROGRAM PENSISWAZAHAN GURU (PPG)

MOD PENDIDIKAN JARAK JAUH IJAZAH SARJANA MUDA PERGURUAN DENGAN KEPUJIAN KEPUJIANKEPUJIAN

INDIVIDUAL COURSEWORK

EDUCATION : LEARNING AND THE LEARNERS

EDU 3103 LECTURER : MR. ZULKURNAIN BIN MOHD NOOR COHORT

NAME
I.C NO

: RANI A/P ARUMUGAM

: 770118 13 - 5498

MATRIC NO. : [201106146] GROUP COHORT INTAKE : PENGAJIAN INGGERIS (TESL 1) : KOHORT 1 : JUNE 2011

DATE OF SUBMISSION : 24 March 2012

Muka Surat (1) Coursework Specifications (2) Biodata (3) Preface (4) Part B Question 1 (9 PAGES) (5) Bibliography
(6) Appendixes

1 2 3

12

NAMA : JANTINA : STATUS PERKAHWINAN: KUMPULAN : SEMESTER : STESYEN & ALAMAT TEMPAT BERTUGAS:

RANI A/P ARUMUGAM PEREMPUAN BERKAHWIN PPG TESL 1 (AMBILAN 2011) KEDUA S.K. ASYAKIRIN, KM 5, JLN SULTAN ISKANDAR, 97000, BINTULU, SARAWAK

ALAMAT TETAP :

LOT 7726, JLN PERMYJAYA UTAMA, DESA INDAH (MARIGOLD), 98000 MIRI, SARAWAK

NO. TEL SEKOLAH : NO. TELEFON PELAJAR: NAMA WARIS TERDEKAT : HUBUNGAN : NO. TELEFON:

086-322064 016 - 8507842 MATTHEW BABA SUAMI 0198554015

First of all I would like to give thanks to the Lord Almighty because with His grace I am able to complete this major task. No doubt I was facing great difficulties in completing the task as this is a new experience for me. Time management is very important as this sets apart a mediocre and a good end product. Even though I am busy with my primary role as a teacher, I take this as a challenge to further improve my professionalism. I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere thank you to all who are involved directly or indirectly in completing this assignment. I would also like to thank MR. Zulkurnain bin Mohd Noor for his guidance.

Thank you.

Rani Arumugam PPG Tesl I June 2011 Intake

3 I am currently teaching English Language to three upper primary classes. The average number of pupils per class is forty and the pupils are streamed based on their previous years examination result. Year 6 Delima and Year 5 Delima comprise of above average pupils and Year 6 Mutiara is made up of intermediate pupils. I am a subject and class teacher firmly believes in two principles. First, learning should be pupils-centered and second; it should be fun. A teacher should be able to practice more than one teaching models because different theories emphases on different the relationship among the environment, individual and behaviour. In this essay, I will discuss how I apply the behaviourist teaching model to ensure the effectiveness of my teaching and learning. I will also discuss how I can use the elements of Humanist theory to increase the quality of the class teaching and learning Behaviorist teaching model is based on the theories that behaviours can be measured, trained and changed. It focuses on behaviour, skills and self-regulatory capacities. There are two major conditioning associated with this model. The key element of classical conditioning is learning through association. In operant conditioning learning occurs through rewards or reinforcement and punishment for behaviours. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behaviour and a consequence for that behaviour. Reinforcement or extrinsic rewards will strengthen desired behaviour and punishment will weaken undesired behaviours. On the other hand, humanism focuses on the affective and cognitive needs of pupils. Learning occurs because the pupils themselves want to learn. They are seen as free and autonomous; and capable of making their own choices in terms of learning. Pupils also have unlimited potential to grow and progress towards the pinnacle of selfdevelopment or Self-actualisation [refer to Apendix 1]. In this approach, intrinsic rewards are viewed to be more effective as compared to extrinsic reward as in behaviorist thinking. Throughout my lessons, I am acting as the leader. According to Larsen-Freeman (2000), I am responsible for controlling the language behaviour of my pupils. I am also responsible for providing my pupils with a good model for imitation. I also follow the

natural order of skills presentation; from listening, speaking, reading and writing. What pupils write they have been introduced to orally. The most common behaviourist practice that I apply in my classroom is drilling. Drills are defined as steady repetition of desired action. Behaviourist theory stresses the fact that human and animal learning is a process of habit formation. To achieve this, behaviourist thinking believes that it is reinforced through activities such as repetition, mimicry and memorisation. The main reason for drilling is to eliminate errors and to strengthen the desired action. According to Pitler, Hubbel, Kuhn and Malenoski (2007), Having students practice a skill or concept enhances their ability to reach the expected level of proficiency. Behaviorists encourages the repeating of behaviour to act as reinforcement of that behaviour. I use drilling technique when I teach pronunciation of new words or phonics, choral speaking, comprehension and writing. This is very important at the phonetic level because it deals with the segmental items that can cause mistake.

First I will model the correct pronunciation and then I will ask them to repeat after me in unison, individually or both. A simple word like shoes probably needs to be modeled once or twice by the teacher before the pupils are asked to repeat. But a more complicated word like information may require more modeling. It will also be helpful for pupils if I point out the word stress on each word. It is certainly more meaningful if I point out the word stress on each word. For an example, the last letter s in shoes is pronounced /z/ and the stress for the word information is on the third syllable. I believe that through oral drilling like this I can encourage the pupils to notice the elements of the language that they might not noticed before.

From my observation and experience, pupils tend to remember things better when they are feeling positive about what they are doing. So, when drilling becomes too mechanical or boring, it will not be effective. Sometimes I will get the pupils to repeat words or phrases very quickly or very slowly or very loudly or very softly.

I give immediate feedback or corrections to mispronounce words. The rationale for this is to stop it from spreading to other pupils. In behaviorist thinking, immediate feedback or corrections are practiced as to prevent the pupils from making errors. It is firmly believed that errors lead to the formation of bad habit. Most of the times I also use gestures to correct or to model. This is to minimise explanatory teacher talk during these activity and to give ample of practice to pupils. When I correct the pupils, I also tend to re-model or re-highlight the correct pronunciation.

The most common teaching method that I practice in my teachings is the Audiolingual method. It is an oral-based approach that drills pupils in the use of grammatical sentence pattern. According to Skinner (1957), the way to acquire sentence pattern of the target language (in this case English) was through conditioning. Through this it is believed that learners are helped to respond correctly to stimuli through shaping and reinforcement. As for a writing lesson I usually start off the writing process with a shared-writing activity through step-by-step procedure. Shared Writing is a process in which the teacher and pupils jointly compose sentences, paragraphs or descriptions together Both the teacher and pupils contribute their ideas to the process. It can be done orally first and later in written form. The duration taken for these activities varies. Some can be short and completed in one session, or they can be longer and extend over several sessions. The main objective of this activity is to provide support and model of sentence construction to the pupils. Shared writing also gives pupils the support as they learn the mechanics, conventions and processes of writing. This activity allows pupils to be more confident and competent in their writing skills too. When teaching examination classes, especially writing Paper II, section C, I tend to drill pupils on the same topics or themes over and over again often using single-slot or multiple-slot substitution drill activity. For an example I may do shared-writing

with the pupils on describing a Hari Raya celebration. The pupils are normally given words and picture cues to guide them. The first step is drilling the pupils with the targeted sentence pattern. To start off this activity, pupils are normally asked to listen carefully and attempt to mimic the teachers model as accurately as possible. Sometimes I even initiate a chain drill that gives individual pupils an opportunity to say the sentence pattern intended individually. Next, I move to the second major phase of the lesson. I continue to drill the pupils with the sentence pattern using the single-slot substitution drill. Here, I will ask the pupils to use the same sentence pattern but for other celebrations like Chinese New Year or Deepavali celebration [see Appendix 2 and 3]. I usually retain the action verbs but change the nouns cues. As I model the sentence structure during share writing activity, I actually provide the pupils with the language as their head start. Therefore, pupils are more likely to be able to write good sentences and also expand on the ideas that I have provided for them. Then only pupils can start to write their descriptions or stories. I also practice the transformation drill. I may ask the pupils to transform the tense of their sentences perhaps from simple present tense to past tense using the same verbs and nouns. Again, I have to model this transformation. All throughout my lessons, I only use English as the target language in the classroom. This is because, other languages be it their mother tongue or the national language should be kept apart so that the pupils these languages dont interfere with their attempt to acquire the target language. I also need to review the topics or the sentence pattern that I have taught them constantly just to invoke their memory of the sentence structure taught. I found out that this drilling activity is very beneficial and is proven to cause positive behavioural changes in the pupils. Mastery learning provides them with familiarity that creates comfort zones. This encourages them to score better in examinations.

7 However, sometimes I found that by doing process writing this way can be very mechanical and monotonous. This can lead to boredom especially to the above

average pupils and eventually will kill their interest. So to kill the learning boredom, I injected some humanistic elements into my lessons. I normally practice this during the enrichment stage of the writing process. I sometimes change the working mode from individual to working in pairs or groups. I allow the pupils to have some freedom in choosing their own partners or group members. Each group will nominate a leader and each member will have their own task to do. Pupils are given a main topic to write on (for an example A Christmas

Celebration). No cues are given and they can present their answers using any media that suit them best. Throughout the writing process I only serve as the facilitator. I provide help and guidance only when I am asked to do so. I also provide the materials need for them to produce their writings like stationeries or booking the computer laboratory if they need to do word processing or PowerPoint presentation. Once each groups first draft is done, the pupils will edit their own groups work. After writing their second draft, they in turn will ask other groups to edit their work. This cycle will continue until the all the groups are eventually satisfied with their work and produce the final draft. The next stage is the groups presentation. All the groups will take turn to present their work to the class. After each presentation, I will allow the rest of the groups to comment and do corrections of any punctuation, spelling, structural or grammatical errors. They also make suggestion of allocation of marks each group deserve based on their review. The downside of this approach is that it can be very time consuming. The whole writing process can stretch from a few periods to all the seven periods in a week. However, it is proven to have more advantages over disadvantages. First, it promotes

8 self-direction and independence. By giving them some autonomy, the pupils are given the opportunity to take responsibility of what is learned. They also learn to be responsible of themselves and others. Second, through self-evaluation, pupils can identify, analyse and correct their own mistakes thus making them more aware not to create the same mistakes next time. Thus, making self-evaluation more meaningful. This practice also coincides with behaviourist thinking that pupils must take active role within the learning process. Another behaviorist principle that I practice is segmented teaching. I simply break down a complex skill or topics into smaller teachable units or subskills. For and example, when I teach early reading, I normally start by teaching the pupils how to identify the alphabets. Once this is achieved, I then moved on to teaching them the sounds of each alphabet. The next step is to teach them letter blends until they are able to read the whole word. By breaking the main skills into smaller complex task, I provide ample of opportunities for feedback and reinforcement of learning. With this I will give my pupils the opportunity to master a skill. One of the most important ideas of behaviourism is the control of behaviour. In order to do so, I use behavioural contract as my positive-reinforcement intervention to control my pupils academic and social behaviours. I usually set out these two

contracts at the beginning of the year for the classes that I am teaching with extra attention to my exam classes. Every teacher is also required by the Ministry of Education to formulate the Expected Target Result (ETR) for each pupil based on his or her previous year result which also serves as their Take-off Value (TOV). Each teacher is then expected to achieve his or her Operational Targeted Increment (OTI). Together with my pupils, I draw up an academic contract [see Appendix 4 ] that can help both parties to keep tract of the pupils performance in examinations prior to the UPSR. With humanistic approach taken into consideration, I give the pupils the freedom to set their own result target. By involving them in decision-making and

granting them some autonomy, I get the pupils to be more motivated and more willing to struggle hard towards achieving their goal. The pupils also pledge their commitment in

the presence of their own parents. By doing this, the teacher, pupils and parents are bound together in this alliance. To draw the class behavioural contract, I usually list out the dos and donts. Then, I negotiate with my pupils about the appropriate negative reinforcement for their misconduct. For an example, I strictly stress on turning in any homework on time. Failures to do so, the pupils agree on extra homework. By doing this, the pupils are made aware that they themselves come up with the consequences of their own action. Pupils are made aware prior to the contract that they will be consequences. Good consequences influence the pupils to repeat the desired behaviour, whereas bad consequences influence them to engage in undesired behaviour less often. Any pupils who achieved their target are given intrinsic or extrinsic rewards and those who have not are given negative-reinforcement such as copying samples of essays 10 times over. This is my favourite type of reinforcement. Not only they will read the essays but they will also practice their penmanship. It is my desire that through negative reinforcement, they will learn from their mistakes and will not repeat the same mistakes ever again. I dont believe in punishing my pupils because my main intention is to suppress them from repeating their misbehaviour. I dont want the pupils to fear but to respect me. Fear can lead to a pupil being hostile and revengeful. In the end I will kill the pupil desire to learn and fondness of this subject. Sometimes, a pupil can also counter react in a way that they might repeat the same misbehaviour just to get my attention. To reinforce association in classical conditioning, teachers are encouraged to associate variety of positive and pleasant events with learning and classroom activities. One of the way to do this is by using attractive teaching and learning aids.

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Bruner(1966)defines learning as the teaching intend to evoke in the learner's mind the patterns of ideas similar to those which already exist in the teacher's mind .To show that a pupil has learnt, he or she must then put together those patterns by using more than one of the five senses that includes touch ,sight ,hearing ,smelling and feeling. Besides to facilitate learning, they also serve as stimuli to arouse pupils interest in lesson content. A motivated learner will only become attentive if they can stimulate their interest. When I devise learning or teaching aids I must bear in mind that first they must be attractive. Primary school pupils are easily attracted to for example to bright and colourful pictures with attractive animations. Teaching and learning aids must be able to be fully utilized to facilitate learning and teaching. It must also fulfill the aims and objective of the lesson to be taught. Concrete experience through learning aids can help pupils to acquire retention of particular skills or concept taught. When I devise teaching and learning aids I consider that they should be able to be used throughout and at any stage of the lesson. It will be a total waste to make such aids with only restricted usage.

When preparing a reading or vocabulary chart or flash cards, I always take into account that they are large enough so that they also can be seen by pupils who are seating at the back of the class. I also make sure that I use the correct penmanship. This serves as a model to the pupils to imitate. I also make them as natural as possible and should assimilate the real thing. For an example, it is meaningless to colour an apple purple when it can be green, red or yellow in real life. Teaching aids should also cater to different group dynamics. I also believe that a classroom which is well decorated or adorned with beautiful charts and learning materials will be pupils and also teachers friendly. The students

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minds will always be attracted to the activities in a beautifully adorned classroom. I also make sure that pupils work of various subjects are put on display for the others to see. This can also give pupils sense of satisfaction and recognition of their effort. Thus it encourages them to maintain and perhaps improve their level of commitment of to always be the best that they can be. Both behaviorism and humanism offer important aspects of learning. Theres no absolute approach because according to Rivers, (1981, Teaching Foreign Language Skills) an eclectic approach allows language teachers "to absorb the best techniques of all the well-known language-teaching methods into their classroom procedures, using them for the purposes for which they are most appropriate"

(1) http://www.multiage-education.com/russportfolio/teachphilosophy2.html

(2) http://teachinglearningresources.pbworks.com/w/page/19919565/Learning%20Theories

(3) http://www.auburn.edu/~nunnath/engl6240/othermet.html

(4) http://www.ldonline.org/article/6030/

(5) Skinner, B.F. 1957 Behavior. New York: Appleton_Century_Crofts

(6) lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/jhaberkorn/edpsy399ol/final.htmlLesson 1 - Question 1

(7) http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/operant-conditioning.html

(8) Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Dianne Larsen-Freeman. New York: Oxford

Apendix 1 MASLOW PYRAMID OF NEEDS

Apendix 2

Name Topic

: ............................ : Celebrations

Class

: .........................

Look at the pictures below. Use the words to write about a Chinese New Year celebration.

Today Chinese New Year happy wakeup - early

temple pray home open house

guests serve lion dance - enjoyed tired - happy

____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________

Apendix 3 Name Topic : ............................ : Celebrations Class : .........................

Look at the pictures below. Use the words to write about a Deepavali celebration.

Today Deepavali happy wake-up early

temple pray home open house

guests serve firework - enjoyed tired - happy

____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________

Apendix 4

KOMITMEN KECEMERLANGAN UPSR 2012

Nama : ...........................................................................

Sasaran keputusan UPSR saya adalah:

B.M Pemahaman B.M. Penulisan Bahasa Inggeris Matematik Sains

Subjek TOV Ujian 1 Ujian 2 Ujian 3 Ujian 4

B.M Pemahaman

B.M. Penulisan

Bahasa Inggeris

Matematik

Sains

Dengan ini, saya berjanji akan menumpukan sepenuh perhatian dan komitmen yang tinggi dalam pelajaran agar dapat mencapai impian saya serta mengharumkan nama kedua-dua ibu bapa dan sekolah saya.

................................................................... Foot note : Actual copy used in S.K. Asyakirin