PRACTICUM JOURNAL

PRACTICUM WEEK: 5

DATE: 24TH AUGUST 2014 28TH AUGUST 2014

TITLE: LISTENING and SPEAKING ACTIVITIES

1. PROBLEM

In my fifth week of practicum, the lesson that I still have the most problem with is
the Listening and Speaking lesson. I feel that to find really suitable activities that match
with the pupils level of proficiency is quite difficult and need a lot of consideration. For
example, simple activity such as acting out a dialogue is in reality a very difficult activity
to be implemented within a Year 2 classroom considering their limited vocabulary. True,
making the dialogue as simple as possible is a good solution to the problem but for me,
it really is a challenge having to instruct them on how to carry out the dialogue and be
as natural as possible. In the end, the task of acting out dialogue became merely a
reading aloud session whereby pupils just read the dialogues straight out without
demonstrating a proper conversation between two or more people. Gauging their
reaction is actually very easy but when it comes to activity that needs me to gauge a
specific and proper kind of answer from them, things suddenly become quite difficult.
That is why up until now, I have not been able to come out with really suitable activity
that are both appropriate as well as fun for the pupils.

2. Suggestions for improvement

I most definitely need to ask more experienced teachers, my mentor and

supervisor on effective teaching and learning strategies as well as the kind of activities
that can be carried out with ESL pupils of low to advanced level. Aside from that, as I
am still a beginner teacher, it is probably alright for me to just try any kind of activities
with my pupils and experience for myself which activities will be the most suitable
activities to be carried out in normal classroom. Searching the net for creative listening
and speaking ideas is also one of the good ways to resolve the problem. Aside from
that, maybe I should adopt the method of familiarizing pupils with the learnt sentence
structure by having them repeat the structures either consciously or unconsciously
through classroom routine, rules, songs, chants or any other creative ways.

3.Period of time

Within the week, I have been able to search for a few activities that seem to be
suitable for ESL primary school pupils. From my observation for the past weeks, I
realized that my pupils love it when we play guessing game and I believed that this
game helps a lot in encouraging the pupils to respond to my questions in simple
English. However, the only problem is that the game only encourages pupils to respond
with words and not complete sentence. Therefore, think I still need to improve this game
further.

4.Evaluation on successfulness

I would ask my supervisor and my lecturer to give their comments and advice to
improve myself.

5. Further action.

I need to find more activities to suit the pupils needs and interest. I should also
do more drills with authentic material together with the pupils.

Prepared by, Evaluated by,

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