7th Week

Entering the 7th week and thinking that Pn. Foziah is going to teach us something on photo editing. I was so curious and excited because one of my friends explains to me that through photo editing we can edit our photos as if we are in other places although we have never been to those places. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. This week Pn. Foziah has decided to allocate time for us to continue doing our first module. This was so kind of her as she is being so considerate and that is why she stands top in my heart.

So I think by now, all my buddies are familiar with the saying “Sleep module, Eat module, and Drink module” as that is what they will be doing. I admit that there are many things to be completed because we need to browse the internet, search for the correct link and then download what wanted. Besides browsing, we need to print screen each steps and paste it in Microsoft Power Point. At times we do not get the exact steps mentioned in the module but we still manage to complete the tutorial.

Thus, whenever I come across any differences between the module and my steps, I will jot down the problem in the place provided in the module. I do not have any major problem till I reach the part for ‘file conversion’ which made me so confused and tired. I was trying for many times to carry out a few tutorials in the conversion part using the Zamzar software but I failed. So I ask Pn. Foziah, how am I supposed to complete the tutorial. The answer given by Pn.Foziah was so simple; she said “try to find other alternative”.

Other alternative? What that means? After thinking for a while I got an idea, I could not convert PDF to POWER POINT and WORD to POWER POINT if I use Zamzar software, so how if I use different software to complete the conversion. I tried the other alternative and it was a SUCCESS. Fuhhh!, At that moment I was so happy and I praised myself for not giving up and thanks to Pn. Foziah for hinting me.

This module is very helpful for me because before this, I did not attempt to browse internet to find song, MP3, articles and journal because frankly speaking, I do not know how to find for it. This module helps me to make life easier and in fact I learned and gained a lot by doing this module. Not only that, I gained confident in myself because I am starting to become technology literate. Finally for all this knowledge, I need to thank Pn.Foziah. That is all for this week, see you in next reflection.

6th Week

How time flies and its already 6th week of class. Interesting, enjoyable and useful things learned in this class for past 5 weeks. For today’s class also, definitely Pn. Foziah will be introducing something new for us and I’m curious to learn the new skill. “Sleep module, Eat module, and Drink module”. That is the famous saying for today’s class and that is what we are going to do for the next 2 weeks. Pn.Foziah distributed the module to all of us.

The moment I saw the module, I was just blinking speechlessly. Oh My God!!!!! The module is so thick and what should we do with that? After everyone got the module, Pn. Foziah explained to us about our portfolio. Actually the assignment given to us is quite easy but its time consuming because there are many things that need to be done. This is because. Moreover we were only given 2 weeks duration to complete the assignment.

Anyway, I was impressed looking through the module. This assignment will definitely benefits us because in future we will be using all those methods of downloading presented in the module. For instance, as a teacher definitely I will be using pictures, songs, animations as well as the software to carry out an effective teaching and learning process in the classroom. Besides that, the methods used to download journal articles are very crucial for us to complete our research.

Although, we just follow exactly what Pn. Foziah’s has outlined in the module, indirectly we are learning and practising. As we know ‘practise makes perfect’ and it will be very helpful for us to master ICT skills. This module is only a part of this course and there are other 4 modules that need to be completed.

WOW!!! By the end of this course, I will definitely be well equipped with most of the ICT skills. At the end of this course, I will definitely be qualified to be labelled as 21st century teacher who are technology savvy and ready to uphold the future generation. I’m really waiting forward to explore the other 4 modules in the upcoming weeks.

5th Week

Stepping into MK2 class with new hope and expectation because every time I enter Pn. Foziah’s class, definitely I’ll discover something new and interesting. Yes, this is a fact and I’m really impressed with the skills that I acquired from this class. In fact, the skill that I learned from this class is very useful for my everyday life. To be honest, I rarely download songs and videos because it consumes a lot of time. Fortunately, by using MOIER. This was fantastic because almost everyday I am using this software to download my favourite video and song.

While Pn. Foziah and we were discussing about the benefits of using MOIER, a guy entered the class. He is doing his PHD and he needs us to complete the questionnaire. After completing the questionnaire, Pn. Foziah asked all of us to find a partner from the opposite gender in order to do a task. After everyone has/had selected their pair, Pn. Foziah explained to us in detail about the task that we need to complete.


The task is to design activities which incorporated technological teaching aids for each stage in a lesson. Thus, my pair and I need to design activity for year 1, 2 and 3. The topic assigned for year 1 is “Places In My School”, year 2 is “Liza’s Family” and finally year 3 is on “Animals and Pets”. I was glad because all the topics are interesting and I was confident thinking that we can produce a good piece of lesson.

While we were busy planning for the activity, I came across a problem. In a lesson usually during the “while” teaching, pupils will be given task sheet and they need to complete the lesson. But one of the criteria for this task is we must prepare teaching aids which are technological. So, we were quite confused until my pair got a fantastic idea. He suggested to include smart board during the while teaching, where each group of pupils are called to the front to carry out the exercise using smart board.

Besides, designing the activity for each stage, we also need to write a rationale for carrying out the activity in that particular stage. This was a good idea as it prompted us to involve in brainstorming to think the reason for using that particular teaching aids. We were really impressed with our own task because, it will definitely be interesting if a teacher can carry out all the technological teaching aids stated in the lesson to her pupils.

Finally, after we had completed the task, we were so eager to submit it to Pn. Foziah and waiting forward for her comments regarding the task. This task is also very useful for me in future as I can use it to carry out the teaching and learning process in the classroom. Moreover the most important thing is that I learned on how to prepare technological teaching aids in order to expose my pupils to ICT.

4th Week

It is our fourth week in Resources class and I walk into the class with full of confidence and curiosity thinking on what are we going to learn today? The moment Pn. Foziah entered the class she told us that she wants to introduce ‘something’ that we will be doing till the end of this course. ‘SOMETHING’, I’m curious to know what new thing is that and I’m very sure the ‘new thing’ that Pn. Foziah wants to introduce will be very useful for our profession in future. But before she proceeds further regarding the ‘new thing’, she asked the other four groups to carry out their presentation for last week’s slot.

The first group presented on “working with young language learners”. There was a significant sentence said by one of the group members; “children are not born with a blank slate”, and this is very true. When we teach the pupils especially the year 1 pupils, we should not assume that they do not know anything. We should realize that children are biologically programmed for language. When we talk to children, they are able to respond to us although they do not really understand all the words in the sentence. So how this happens? This is based on our facial expression, gestures, intonation and rhythm that enable the children to understand what we mean. For instance, when the teacher tells the pupils a story which consist of low frequency words, the teacher can flash out the picture of those words. Thus, we can see here that teachers play an important role in helping the pupils to understand the story and indirectly developing their language proficiency.

The second group presented on/ the topic “Children’s instinct for play and fun”. We should realize that children could not be separated with fun and games because both of it are fundamental for healthy development of an individual. Songs, drama and art projects are some of the activities that we can carry out in classroom which are fun as well as educational. Moreover I believe that indirect learning is an effective way of teaching as it enables the pupils to acquire the language more quickly compare to direct learning.

“Children’s creative use of limited language resources” was the topic presented by the next group. Here it explains that although the child could not utter sentences which are grammatically correct but they are able to express their concept creatively. Here pupils tend to convey the intended meaning based on their own experiences.

The last group presented on “The role of imagination” and this is the topic that really interests me. I felt that imagination is a powerful stimulus that provides real language use. Besides, role of imagination suits pupils with different learning style as well as different characteristic. Teacher’s role is very crucial in developing imagination among the pupils. For instance, teacher can carry out activities like role play, hot seat as well as drama, where pupils will act out the character involved in those activities.

After all the group had presented, Pn. Foziah taught us how to use MOYEA to download songs and videos. This is the new thing that Pn. Foziah told us at the beginning of the class. MOYEA is not only useful when we step into school but also for current use when we want to download our favourite songs and videos. This software is convenient as it saves our time because we are able to download the songs and videos within a short time.

The class for today was very interesting because we learn many new things from our friends as well as Pn. Foziah. Thanks to Pn. Foziah and all my friends who presented today as they gave many beneficial information which is very useful for me as well as my profession in future.

3rd Week

Fuhh! I feel like I just entered University Malaya and now I’m already in third week. At the moment the only task that we have to do is updating our blog with weekly reflections. I’m glad because after these three weeks, I feel that we are getting closer to Pn. Foziah. During the first week, Pn. Foziah will be talking and when she asks our opinion, everyone will be quiet. Probably because we are still new to University Malaya and we are not familiar with the lecturers over here. She encouraged us to talk and she told us that she wants us to be a part of the classroom discussion. So today we really had a good time in Pn. Foziah’s class as there were two way interactions between Pn. Foziah and us.

Today we were divided into 6 groups and each group was assigned a topic. Pn. Foziah allocated 1 hour for us to discuss the topic and after that we need to present it to the class.

My group consists of 7 members and our topic was about “The Instinct for Interaction and Talk”. At first when I read the notes in the book, my understanding of the topic was just at surface level. But after discussing with my group members, I have a clear understanding of what the topic is all about. In short, the topic is about pupils’ own initiative to indulge in an interaction. In the slide show we included the definition of the topic, the benefits of instinct interaction and the role of teacher in developing instinct interaction in a classroom. Based on the topic that we had presented, I do realize that whenever possible, a teacher must indulge the pupils in group discussion, language games and group activity. In a classroom, there will be pupils with different kind of learning styles, attitudes and characteristics. Thus as a teacher, our responsibility is to understand them and find a way to indulge them in an instinct interaction.

We were the second group which presented today, before us there was a group presented about “Children’s capacity for Indirect Learning”. The group had done a good job because their explanation enabled us to understand the topic thoroughly. Indirect learning is something regarding “subconscious learning” and when this situation takes place pupils will acquire the language quicker. The types of activities that can be integrated in classroom to foster indirect learning are broken phone, hang man, and also word puzzle.

From what the group had presented, I learned that in a lesson we can integrate both direct and indirect learning to make teaching and learning more meaningful. Direct learning is the teaching part where input are delivered to the pupils and this direct learning can be carried out in a presentation part during a lesson. Where else, indirect learning which emphasizes on learning through fun can be integrated either in set induction or production part.

Due to time constraint, only 2 groups got the chance to present their topics. The other 4 groups will be presenting in the next class. In today’s class I learned a few things as what I mentioned above and it will be very useful for me as future teacher as I can implement it in my classroom.

2nd Week

Time flies very fast, today is my second day in this class. I was waiting patiently right in front of MK2 entrance. The door was open but I dare not enter in without Pn.Foziah’s instruction. This time around I was determined to sit in the front row, because I do not want to miss any information and instruction given by Pn. Foziah. Unfortunately, before I enter in, a group of students rushed in and took the front row. But its okey, I still managed to get a place in the centre.
This time around the class was under control because our group which consist of 75 students were separated into two groups. Thanks to Pn Foziah for making such changes as it will be very helpful for us. This is because Pn. Foziah can give closer attention to all the students in this smaller group. Next Pn. Foziah started to explain to us about our course and what we should be able to do at the end of this course. She explained about the five modules which she expects us to master at the end of this course:

1. Computer and blog, Internet skills
2. Photo editing skills :
3. Video editing skills:
4. Audio editing skills
5. Software for ESL skills

In photo editing, we’ll be taught on how to edit pictures, for instance we took the picture in Malaysia but we can edit it as if we were in any other place or country. Secondly in video editing, if there is certain part that we do not want it to be in that video, we can cut it. For instance, if I record a programme on making a kite from television and want to show it to pupils, so I can cut out the advertisement and just show the pupils the process of making a kite. The same goes for audio editing but it involves sound. “Don’t you think its “GREAT?”. I was so excited when I heard the explanation given by Pn. Foziah because frankly speaking, I do not possess most of the skills that she mentioned. Thus learning the skills above will definitely benefits me as I will be able to produce better teaching aids for the pupils in future.

Next, Pn. Foziah asked the class if anyone of us could type by just looking at the screen and not the keyboard. He,he,he if not mistaken only 3 or 4 of them nod their head indicating that they have that ability but the rest of the class just kept quiet. I was also quiet because I do not possess that skill. Anyway I just give a try and start typing. For your information, I was just typing without knowing what alphabet I was typing. It was so kind of Pn. Foziah because, she gave us the software which enables us to master touch typing skills. Learning to type faster is crucial as it helps us to save our time.

Besides, she also exposed us to “Windows Live Sky Drive”. This is the place where we were given 25GB free online storage. This is very useful for us as we can store all our projects that we will be doing throughout this course. I salute Pn.Foziah because I do not know anything about it until she shared it with us.
Last but not least, I am lucky as I got a chance to study for this course. I will make sure at the end of this course I will be able to master all these five skills. Mastering these five skills will enable me to create an exciting and interesting teaching learning activity for my pupils.

1st Week

Name: Dhachaini A/P Prabhakaran

Matric Number: PEH080008

Ok, this is the first time I’m entering this class. The title of this course is “USING AND DEVELOPING RESOURCES FOR ESL CLASSROOM” Fuhhhh!! Such a long name, don’t you think so? What is this course all about? Just by listening to the course’ name, my stomach was filled with butterfly. I was asking my peers, what are we going to learn in this course. They said “May be we are going to learn on how to make teaching aids like puppet and flash cards”. “Really? But we have learned that in our Maktab”. So I was just waiting anxiously, wondering what we are going to learn.

The moment I entered a lab called MK2, I was shocked. “Hei! What is this???? Are we going to do puppet in computer lab?” IMPOSSIBLE!!!! So I took my place and waited for the lecturer. Thousand and one questions were running in my mind. What are we going to learn? Who is the lecturer? Man or Female? Strict or friendly? After a few minutes our lecturer entered. HOOREY!!! She is female and I’m happy because I feel more comfortable working under female lecturer as I think they are more caring and I was absolutely right. She introduces herself and her name is Pn. Foziah. I was sitting at the back and I saw Pn.Foziah talking to my friends who sat at the front row. By looking at her, I told myself “Hei girl, don’t worry. You are going to have a wonderful time in this class because Pn. Foziah seems to be a friendly person”.

The class was congested as 75 students were sitting in the lab. So could you imagine how the situation was? Pn. Foziah was quite stress when she look at the big crowd which was so noisy. Moreover everyone was excited as they got the chance to browse internet. To speak the truth, I just could not hear what Pn. Foziah was telling because the situation at the back was out of control.

Before the class ends, I ran to my friends who sat at the front row and ask them what Pn. Foziah told. They told me that we need to create a blog, buy 8GB pen drive, install Photoshop CS3 in laptop and also bring in a passport size photo.

But I do not really know what we are going to do in this class. May be Pn.Foziah explained to us but I could not really hear her. So that was the first day in Pn. Foziah’s class. Looking forward for next class to discover more about this subject and I promised myself not to sit at the back for the next classes as I do not want to miss any information given by Pn Foziah.