Background

- Pn Normah Bte Othman

- 51 years old
- has been teaching English for 25 years
- currently teaching at SMK Bandar Baru Uda, Johor Bahru (teaching for 10 years and
the head English panel for lower secondary for 5 years)

1. How the reading lesson conducted in the classroom

She believes that there is no one method in teaching reading successfully. So the
teacher has to be aware and take into consideration of the students’ background (family
and knowledge) and also their initial expose to reading.

reading lesson conducted (approaches) :

- students have to read silently for 3 mins (scanning)

- then, she will pick randomly in group of 4/5 students and asks them to read aloud
( this is to build up their confidence and to correct their pronunciation )
- students have to underline the difficult words that they do not understand from the
text

 in their own group, they find the meaning in the dictionary

 teacher has to make sure that students choose the appropriate meaning
based on the passage. this is because, dictionaries provides words with
different meaning used in different situation. Besides looking for the
meaning, teacher indirectly exposed the students with phonetics
 however, students shouldn’t really rely on dictionaries. They have to roughly
guess the meaning in context and consolidate the meaning by reading the
passage again.

- teacher keep reminding the students that usually the main idea of the passage is
usually found in the first sentence of the paragraph.
- then, the teacher will explains the whole text

2. Teacher’s background knowledge in reading

- she understood that in teaching reading, there are few theories that teacher can be
used. But due to some constraints, she has to make her own way to adapt and
adopt in order to make the lesson effective
- try & error
- complacent with their old method
- do not want to try new method as to avoid waste of time and the hassle in managing
the activities
3. How the student in English language proficiency

- if they come from the family that speak English at home and enrolled English pre-
school education, so the teaching will be easier and interesting for them.
- vice versa – will be a bit difficult

materials

- priority on the text book because they have to finish the syllabus
- after finish using the text book, she will used authentic materials (work book,
newspaper cut)

problems/constraints

1. students

- find learning reading is boring because they have to decode the meaning of the
sentences
- translate in order to understand
- interference of the first language (dialect)

2. time

- effective reading lesson should be done in 2 periods (just to teach mere reading)
- English is given 5 periods per week
- thus, it is not enough/insufficient for the students to master the language

3. adjustments

- good students are given a higher level of questions and activities while lower
students are given a more directed activities.

strengths and weaknesses of her classroom practice in teaching reading

strengths:

- students find it interesting and they are proud if they are picked to read in class
- because this is the moment they can show their reading talent to their friends
- teacher somehow notice that the students practiced reading aloud with good
pronunciation and intonation by themselves at home or among their friends in order
to get teacher’s compliment
- students take active participation in the lesson especially when they look into the
meaning of the words in the dictionary and how the words are pronounce
(phonetics)

weaknesses:
- tiring and stressing because teacher has to used up 90%of her voice in order to
make the lesson effective