ASSESSMENT COVER PAGE

Course Name: Practicum 2a

Course Code: EPC 2401

Instructor
Antoinette Wiseman
Name:
Task Title: Coursework Interview
Due Date: Nov 21, and Nov 24, 2016

Instructor
Name:

Date
Submitted:

November 21th
2016

Antoinette Wiseman

Student Name: Jawaher Ahmed Rashid Alkaabi

Student ID:

H00328599

Section:

12B3ECE01

Late Penalty:
Unless special circumstances are agreed with the course teacher regarding late
submission, work submitted 1 working day late will be deducted 10%, 2 days late
20%, 3 days late 30% and any work submitted more than 3 days late will get a zero
mark.

Academic Honesty:
Breaches of Academic Honesty will be treated with the utmost seriousness.
You are reminded the penalties for cheating or plagiarism include dismissal
from the HCT.
(for more information please refer to Academic and Student Regulations , HCT
Academic Honesty Policy , Student Handbook )

Student Declaration:
This assignment is entirely my own work except where I have duly acknowledged
other sources in the text and listed those sources at the end of the assignment. I
have not previously submitted this work to the HCT. I understand that I may be
orally examined on my submission.

Signed: ___________________________

Date: ______________________________

Professionalism and Understanding:

Please give a brief description of the school, i.e. boys/girls, size, location. Curriculum and
texts used.
Al Darari kindergarten located in Al Darari in Sharjah. Its a small kindergarten that had
12 teachers and 282 students. They have 6 classes for kg 1 and 6 others for kg 2, each class had
23-25 students, there were 24 students on the class that I observed 15 girls and 9 boys. My MST
Ms. Moza teach her class Arabic, Islamic, a little of math and science. The English teacher Ms.
Eman teach them English, a little bit of math and science. They have different curriculum and
theme every week, so there is no specific one.

What different subjects are taught?

-

Arabic

Islamic [Quran, Prayers].

English

Math

Science [they just start taking it this semester].

What did you enjoy most about your practicum?

I enjoy playing, talking, setting with the students, helping the teachers, I liked it when
they ask me to read a story for them. I enjoy doing things rather than setting, for example the
first week they asked us to help them with the English workshop, which was interesting, the
students were happy and excited, we were tired of setting after doing it for a whole day, but it
was a wonderful experience.

What challenges did you face?

The most challenging things was when I had to teach them English class, because most of
the students had a hard time to understand the lesson in English, and they didnt get use to me
speaking English.

What did you do to show your commitment to your job as a teacher in the school?

When the teacher explains the activities for the students, I helped her to observe them,
and told her which one did well on the activity. also by joining the workshop they had, where I
had my own table & activity, which was coloring the wooden animal with paint & stick it on a
piece of paper.

How did you collaborate with your MST and other teachers in the school?
MST give me some ideas to do activities for the students, and I used those ideas while
teaching, also for the English lesson MST helps me with the lesson to see if its appropriate for
the students or not.

Describe a typical day in your school.

The assembly start at 8:00, the teacher asks the students to line up then she hold the first
student hand and walk them to the theater were they do the assembly, they sing the national
anthem, read Quran & the prayer, sometimes they let one of the students to read them a story, at
8:30 the classes start, they set on the carpet, the teacher start greeting them and do the morning
routine, choose the helping hand & let him/her count the students, after finishing the morning
routine the teacher introduce the lesson for them. At 8:45 they have the first meal snack first
they line up and go wash their hands, then they set on the eating area, say the prayer together and
start eating, they finish eating at 8:55. After the meal the teacher start with the new lesson, they
take four new words every week & review the previous words till 9:10 then they play at the
corners, the teacher work with some students to evaluate them. At 9:55 they have the playground
time till 10:25, then they had 30 minutes to eat and wash their hands, at 11:00 till 11:15 they set
on the carpet, the teacher completes with the new lesson and give them new things. Then they
had 45 minutes to play at the corners & do the activities that the teacher gives them, after that
they have 30 minutes for the story and 25 minutes to review the things they toke, after that the
teacher ask them to line up, and walk them to their buses and cars.

Planning for Learning:

Talk about the process of planning for lessons. How did your MST go
about this? How did you plan to ensure you worked within the
curriculum?
The first thing I do is I ask the teacher about the curriculum and what
shes planning to do for this lesson, then I prepare my lesson and show her
the plan then we talked about it, and if there is something difficult or not
appropriate for the students we decide to change it together and think about
it more or make the activities easier without changing it.

What did you learn about planning during the practicum?

The most important thing in planning is to have a plan B, because
there was a time when I was going to do the circle time, I prepare a good
morning song for them, but the laptop didnt work, so I had to do the
greeting/ morning song without the song which was difficult because I got
nervous.

What challenges did you face when preparing your lesson plans?
How to do different activities with different levels, also because Ms.
Eman was busy most of the time when I would ask her about the lesson, so I
only get her answers & feedback around 11pm.

Explain how you planned for teaching speaking and listening.

For the English class with Ms. Eman I always discuss with her what Im
going to do & I make sure that I dont change her way of teaching so the
student doesnt get confused and feel lost, for example when they toke the
letter n, first I thought them how to pronounce the letter [Ms. Eman helped
me to do it right], then I played them a song about the letter as Ms. Eman
use to do in her class, then I would have my own activities.

Implementing and Managing Learning:

What strategies did you use to manage the children?
I used three strategies. The first one was that I asked them to raise
their hand if they want to answer or say something otherwise Ill not listen to
them, I use the second strategy when they are so loud and I cant control
them, is to show them that Im upset and count till three so they will set
properly. The last one was when I switch off the light to get their attention.

Which were the most effective strategies you observed your MST
using in the classroom?
Reward system, they have five steps for each day of the week if they
answer correctly and listen to the teacher during the class they will get one

step forward, then when they reach the last step the teacher will give them
gifts, praise them & put their picture on the students of the week board.

Describe a lesson you taught and the way in which you implemented
the lesson class work, group work, and individual work. How
successful was this for you?
-

Teaching the letter T

Group work: was when I asked them to find words start with the letter
T around the class & finding the letter T which was hidden on the sand.
Individual work: during the activities which was two different activities,
one of them was coloring the letter T, the other one was tracing the letter
using paint, playdough, panic.
I would like to change the tracing activity which was boring for the
students, so I would like to find an interesting way to do it.

Explain the stages and how you taught listening and speaking as an
integrated process.
-

First I wrote the letter on the board and tell the students that this is the
letter/sound T.
I asked them to repeat after me, to make sure that they can
pronounces it correctly I did listen to each one individually.
I played a song of the letter T sound https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=4PhbUhrI4KE & let the students repeat after it.
Then we start to look at the words that was on the song and say them
together, I didnt need to explain most of the words but some students
didnt recognize the pictures so I was trying to explain more for them.
I asked them to give me words start with the letter T.
The activity was that they have keys and locks with different letters,
they have to find the right key for the right lock.

What strategies did you employ to teach speaking /listening

activities?
The most strategy was used during English lessons is [repetition],
where theyre repeating the sound of the letters, the words and repeating
the actions to recognize letters.

What do you have to take into consideration when teaching

speaking/listening activities?
The important thing is about pronouncing the letter correctly and make
sure that all the words that I said were correct, focus on the students that are
in law level in English, ask them to repeat after me & correct them if they say
it wrong, for example if the student say en instead of Nih I would say oh
you mean Nih?.

Organization:
What did you do to appear well organized when in the schools?
(refer to organizing your time, portfolio, tasks etc).
The first thing I do is that I make sure to arrive to the kindergarten 30
minutes before they start the day to organize and discuss everything that Im
going to do for the day with my MST, I always make sure that I have all my
stuff like the booklet, ben, paper and others so I dont have to ask others for
it or like borrow things from my MST.
Its hard to manage time if Im working with others, because they
might be busy when Im working, replay at late time, not well organized, or if
they had different opinion from mine, so things dont get done on early time.
Why do you think its important to be well organized when in the
school?
To get things done on time, well look professional and if we get things
done on time we will not be stressful, ask others for help or feel lost.

Have your organization and planning skills improved? Yes - in what

way? No - what steps can you take to improve in this area?
Yes, because the way I used to plan & organize my lesson has
improved, before I had all the ideas and the activities ready but I didnt know
how to put them on the lesson or how to explain it for others, but when my
MST helped me I felt like I achieve something and that Im achieving all my
learning outcomes during teaching.

Reflection:

What has been

practicum?

your

most

powerful learning throughout the

That sharing the ideas & the lesson plan with my MST is not bad as I
thought, she always gives me feedback and good advice on how to do things
on an appropriate way, also that I must have a plan B I didnt have a plan B
before because all things were going as I want it to be but there was a time, I
got confused and nervous because my plan was not working with the
students, so having a backup plan is very important.

What was the most helpful feedback you received during the
placement?
The most important and helpful feedback that I got from my two MST
and MCT is that I need to have a teacher voice, its helpful because I can now
focus on this thing and try my best to improve it, also that I need to be more
excited while playing the song for the students, I should do the actions with
them.

What challenges did you face when writing your reflections?

it was difficult to write reflection for each lesson, because most of the
time I would had the same problem that I got on the last lesson & it takes
time to improve it or work in one issue.

Were you able to make links between what you did at college and
what you observed or experienced during TP? Give an example.
Yes, during one lesson in college our MCT used to switch off the light to
make us focus and to show us that this strategy works with adults, so when I
went to TP I used this strategy when I couldnt make the students stop
talking, so when I switch off the light they stop what theyre doing and pay
attention to the lesson.
What do you think are important things to study at college to
ensure that you are well prepared for TP?
Working with students that had difficult time to understand the lesson,
there is one student that could not understand anything during the lesson,
when I start to observe him I saw that the teacher dont care about this
problem, so whenever they finished the lesson and play at the corners I set

with him and try to make understand things by asking questions or giving
him things to do, this strategy toke a lot of time but at the end the student
were able to understand better, what I want to know is ways of teaching
students with difficult understand & special needs students, so Im excited to
take the special needs class.

Interview Questions

Student Name: Jawaher Ahmed Alkaabi

ID: H00328599
Course Code: EPC 2403
Course Name: Practicum 2a
Course Teacher: Antoinette Wiseman & Aisha Al Teneiji