Day 4 Session 1 (Monday, 13 Oct. 2014, 9.00-10.30am)

English Language Class (Accountancy)

This slot was conducted by Andrew that focusing on the three techniques which are:-

·         Word Rose

The Word Rose activity focuses on a targeted set of vocabulary items which the students shall come across in their lesson.

 

The Word Rose activity

·         Test –Teach-Test

An activity to test if the students know certain language items regarding the subjects.  

The teacher then could help the students to use correct language item in their communication during the discussion or role play session.

·         Integrated Skills work

This technique integrated all the four main skills in teaching language and makes the learning process interesting and enjoyable.

 Andrew highlighted the JIGSAW READING activity for this session which was very interesting because:

• It helps build comprehension.
• It encourages cooperative learning among students.
• It helps improve listening, communication, and problem-solving skills.

During this slot Andrew paired the students to act as an Auditor and an Accountant.

The pair then has to explain to each other about what they do in their job by stressing on certain topic – related words (Word Rose) regarding their job to their partner.  This activity has created a meaningful communication between the pairs.

Rosilawati Muhamad Ramli (Kota Bharu Polytechnic)

      Normazliza Zahid (Kangar Vocational College)

Bristol Group Members mugshots!

Day 5 Session 1(Tuesday, 14 October 2014, 9 – 10.30 am)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASS EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS: PRESENTATIONS

A presentation is the process of presenting a topic to an audience. It is typically a demonstration, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, or build good will. For professionals today, presentation and public-speaking skills are more important than ever. Strong presentation skills and the ability to engage and connect can truly set you apart from the crowd.

In classroom, we, teachers, spend most of the time helping our students for the middle part of a presentation and possibly will overlook the opening and the end of the presentation. Throughout the session conducted by Mr. Chris, we discovered the KISS principle which stands for Keep It Short and Simple. A quick research on the internet, the KISS principle was coined by a U.S Navy engineer. It states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated.

Personally, I feel this session is not just meaningful for the students and it also can help me to do better in my presentation or when I am teaching in the classroom.

 So, here are the tips for giving presentation:

·         Get prepared

·         Consider arrangement of the room

·         Type of audience

·         S.M.I.L.E

·         Introduce your topic

·         Give an overview of the presentation

·         Main points – details

·         KISS

·         Using visual

·         Use signposting

·         Eye contact

·         Be expressive

·         Summarize the key features

·         Keep to time and allow questioning

·         Say thank you

                   -Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication-

                                 Leonardo da Vinci

Khairul Annuar Saleh (Teluk Intan Vocational College) & Cheah Yew Kim (Lebuh Cator Ipoh Vocational College)

Day 2 Session 2 (Thursday, 9 October 2014, 11-12.30pm)

Planning a lesson or a series of lessons by Peter

Lesson plan is a series of lesson that the teacher or lecturer plan before entering the class. This is a preparation for the teacher or lecturer to deal with their lesson on a particular day.

In Malaysian education nowadays, it has been a habit for teachers to plan their lesson after the have finished their class. This is not the main purpose of a lesson plan where it should be done before a teacher starts his/her class.

Learning how to write a good lesson plan by Peter on the second day of this course has given me some refreshment on what I usually did during my teacher training six years ago. Surprisingly, I never write my lesson plan since then. The only time that I write my lesson plan was when I am going to be observed by my superior. In my institution that is Community College we do have a Semester Teaching Plan where we plan our lesson according to the syllabus before a new semester starts. But this will sum-up the entire lesson that we need to finish in 26 hours of learning time.

Peter taught us on what a good lesson plan should have. The content of the lesson plan should help you in determine your lesson for your students. In CLIL contexts, it is important to plan your lesson because you might have mix abilities students in your class and you need to differentiate them to cater for their needs. Peter also gave us example of CLIL Lesson Plan for the subjects History, Geography and Science. It was good because we can compare the three lesson plans and try to implement it into our own lesson in our institution.

For me, this slot about planning a lesson and writing a lesson plan is good refreshment for us, teachers who have been teaching for more than five years and has forget on how to write a good lesson plan. It gives us the ideas that writing a lesson plan before you start your class is important as it will guide you throughout your lesson.

Farhana binti Anaspekri

Kolej Komuniti Kuantan 

Day 2 Session 1(Thursday, 9 October 2014, 9 – 10.30 am)

English Language Class – Hospitality & Tourism

This session was conducted by Katie. In this session, we were given practice in using the 4 skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing by doing a dictation and jigsaw reading.  The first activity i.e. diction was carried out as group work.  The best part of the activity was when we were given an example of differentiation and shown how we as lecturers, could cater for the weak, average and strong students. The weak students have the shortest texts while the strong students have the longest texts.

     The next activity was jigsaw reading. It was fun as we had to move around and form new groups and explain our part of the text to the others. This activity would definitely be more motivating for our students compared to the practice of just handing them the text to be read.

Jigsaw reading

     Both activities involve group work. By carrying out the activities, we could practice using group work in order to increase communication of key information.

     I feel very fortunate being a participant of this course because I have gained much knowledge and insights in my interaction with the trainers and the other participants. I look forward to many more enjoyable and interesting sessions which will definitely enhance the T&L of English in the classroom.

Cheah Yew Kim (Lebuh Cator Ipoh Vocational College) & Khairul Annuar Saleh (Teluk Intan Vocational College)

Day 1 Session 2 (Wednesday, 8 October 2014, 2 - 3.30pm)

Aims of and Rationale for CLIL

The first time I heard the acronym 'CLIL' was during the session with Ms. Katie, my home tutor for the English Teacher's Training Programme (ETTP) here in Politeknik Balik Pulau, Penang. It came very blurry to me as I haven't heard of it before. I wasn't sure what it meant either.

Coming back to the world of teaching after 8 years is really a huge task for me, since I left teaching profession way back in March 2006. Luckily, I have friends whom I just met who have willingly helped me throughout this course.

As for me, I find this topic very interesting because I've learned and seen things in a different perspective. For the past 8 years, I only did administrative tasks and didn't know anything about CLIL. As the session went on, I finally find out what CLIL is all about.

There are 4 C's in CLIL. They are: CONTENT (subject matter), COMMUNICATION (language), COGNITION (thinking) and CULTURE (awareness of else and 'otherness'). In plain words, CLIL provides students to a new and exciting learning experience, as the subject matter and language are taught together.

CONTENT

COMMUNICATION

COGNITION

CULTURE

There are two different models of CLIL, the 'soft CLIL' and the 'hard CLIL'. Soft CLIL is where the teaching and learning is focused primarily on language. Meanwhile, hard CLIL simply means that the teaching is focused primarily on the subject content.

CLIL can be challenging for both subject teachers and language teachers. Subject teachers must learn about the language needed for his/her lessons. Meanwhile, language teachers need to learn more about the subject content.

As for me, I'm looking forward to apply CLIL with my students as I find it an interesting approach to teach English. By using CLIL approach in my classroom, I really hope that my students will enjoy their English Language lesson after this and improve themselves in the English Language subject.

Noor Zahilah Rapal (Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Polytechnic) & Zuraida Dzulkafly (Bachok Vocational College)

Day 4 Session 2 (Monday, 13 Oct. 2014, 11-12.30pm)

Communication Skills  Across The Curriculum

The lesson was about creating communication among our students in English class. Katie mentioned at the start of the class, students need to know the aim or expected outcome from each lesson so that they will be involved or participated. With this in mind, the teacher needs to create the ‘information gap’ so that students will have something to hold on to from the lesson.

Form session 10 activity, we could see the organization of the lesson incorporated all the 4 language skills which are reading, speaking, writing and listening being systematically used in the activities. For us, this is something interesting to try in future (with our respective classes). To incorporate all these 4 language skills in one lesson sometimes can be very challenging to a teacher, but Katie made it looked possible and it is actually not that hard. We believe that so much preparation needed in order to make sure this activity a success.

The question is, can Malaysian teachers actually spend the amount of time in preparation for each lesson? Some challenges need to be properly addressed first, such as, work load at the work place, the number of students that reached almost 60 students in a communicative class nowadays can mentally drained the teacher’s motivation to be well-prepared to go into classes.

The jigsaw reading activity was very interesting indeed. In fact we could see a lot of this method being used by many of the trainers. We get the idea that this method can be utilized with many different texts. Within this particular lesson, we got to see how information gap was created and it actually made all of us participated in this lesson as individual, and as group members too.

Jigsaw reading activity can enhance students’ empowerment as the teacher does not have to be so involved in the class. The students themselves will cognitively decide the language needed to be used.

Ruzlinda Mustaffa (Tuanku Sultanah Bahiyah Polytechnic)

& Norazizah Abd Aziz (Seberang Perai Polytechnic)