EDC 4212 TEACHING GRAMMAR IN

SECONDARY SCHOOL

Section 2

LECTURER : DR. MOHAIDA MOHIN

STUDENTS NAME MATRIC

NO.
MA WEN FEI 1214984
KHALEDA NADIA BINTI MAHAMOOD 1314190
AQILAH HUMAIRA BINTI MOKHTAR 1315394
CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS REPORT

Class: Form 2 (17 students)

Level: Lower Intermediate
Date: 2016
Content : Past tense

Introduction:

In order to find out how grammar was taught in real classroom, we

went to observe a grammar class in a Tuition Centre at Kelas Tuisyen Cikgu

Mariyam, Taman Melawati. Nurfazwani Ain Bte Ahmed, currently as an

English teacher at tuition Centre. She came from Johor Bharu. She comes

from an average family where her father is an Architect, while her mother is

a housewife. After she completed her degree, her best friend offered her a

job to teach at the tuition Centre. That was the moment she started her

teaching career and she realized that teaching is so interesting. She has

been teaching at this tuition Centre for 2 years.

We came to know about this tuition centre because one of our group

members sent her son to this tuition centre. So we decided to contact the

teacher herself and asks permission to observe her class. At first she was

hesitated since nobody ever observed her class before. But, she finally

agreed with condition that we cannot record any of the lesson since she is
afraid that the students would not be comfortable with that. For this

particular lesson, it was a teacher-centered lesson since it was the teacher

who controlled the teaching and learning process. The objectives of this class

session is to enhance the students understanding on Verbs by using

exercises.

Strengths:

Since the class only had 17 students, we agree that the strength of

the teacher is she recognizes and memorizes each of her students names.

So, she can easily detect her students behavior and knows how to

encourage them to talk in class in order to test their understanding of the

lesson. The teacher is also a very active and passionate person. She tried to

make the students active in class by asking lots of questions. Whenever the

students get the correct answers, teacher would give compliments and if

they get wrong answers, teacher will comfort them by asking them to try

again next time. Thus, it makes the students not afraid in giving out opinions

and answers aloud in class. She also knows well on how to entertain her

students and make the lesson enjoyable and fun. As an example, she used

the names of popular Hollywood artists and Marvel heroes in the grammar

exercise.

Presentation skills:
 The teacher starts the lesson by writing the topic Past Tense on the

whiteboard. In order to help the students in better understanding of the

topic, the teacher made the students recalled their previous lesson as it

acted as their prior knowledge on this topic. She asks the students to give

her some examples of verbs that they have learn in the previous class and

asks them to change the current verbs into past tense. The teacher also

gave some examples regarding the topic for todays lesson to help the

students in having a clearer understanding of the topic. She also points out

some students to give examples of verbs and asks another students to

change that particular verbs given by their friends into past tense to ensure

that the students are focused in her class.

Every time the students give answers, she would write them on the

whiteboard so that the students did not repeat the same answer twice. Some

of the students are trying to seek clarification of their understanding by

giving their own example to the teacher to see whether what they have

understood are correct. The teacher clarifies each of the students example

to ensure that what they understood are correct. She also uses gestures in

order to explain the topic so that the students get to see the difference

between present tense and past tense. After making sure the students have

understood the lesson, she starts to do some activities regarding of the topic.

Evaluation Activities:
 The teacher used exercise sheets as instructional material during the

lesson. Before begin the activities, the teacher hands out an exercise sheet

to every students in class. The exercise sheets contains texts and questions

related to Past tense. Before she lets her students answers the questions,

she gave them instructions on what they should do and she also give them

one example to answer the questions. She gave her students 20 minutes to

answers the questions. Since the purpose of this lesson is to enhance the

students understanding in Verbs of past tense, the teacher allowed the

students to discuss among them in order for them to find the correct

answers for the questions given. She walked around the classroom and

observe the students answers one by one. Some of the students who are

having difficulty about the questions will interact with the teacher directly

to ask her about the questions that they did not understand. Whenever she

explains something to the student, other students would focus on her

explanations too to ensure that they did not make any mistakes in

answering the questions. The teacher also assist the students in answering

questions on the exercise sheets by giving them other similar example.

After 20 minutes, she asks the students to put down their pens and focus

on her. She starts discussing the answers of the exercise together with the

students in class. She called some students to give their answers of the

questions and asks the other students whether the answers given are true

or not to ensure that the students understand the lesson correctly.

Classroom Management:
 Throughout the lesson, it can be seen that the students are not having

difficulty in answering the questions out loud in class as the students keep on

asking and answering question. The teacher encourages the students to

speak in English all the time. The students are quite fluent with their English.

Most of them are not using Malay language in class. Almost all of the

students are not having any problems or being shy during presenting their

answers out loud in class

The classroom was well-managed by the teacher throughout the whole

lesson. The teacher used both English and Malay language in class to ensure

that the students will gain full understanding of the topic. The teacher also

explained the lesson using the students prior knowledge of the topic so that

the students will be able to relate the previous lesson with todays topic. The

students are not hesitate at all in asking the teacher to guide them or

correcting their grammar before submitting the answer sheet. In other

words, both the teacher and students are cooperating with each other in

order to make this lesson more meaningful. The relationship between the

teacher and the students were good as the students showed respect to the

teacher. The students are paying attention towards the teacher in class for

the whole lesson. The students also followed all the teachers command in

class without whining or complaining.

Basically, this lesson is a Teacher-centered since the teacher is

dominating the teaching and learning process. However, throughout the

lesson, the students are not entirely passive. At times, the students will give

out their opinions or examples to seek clarification with the teacher. The

students also do not have any problems in answering the questions out loud

in class. In other words, there are lots of interactions going on between the

teacher and the students throughout the whole lesson.

Reflection: Khaleda nadia binti mahamood

Throughout the lesson, I think that the teacher engaged well with the

class. She tried her best to ensure that the students became active in class.

For example, at first, when we enter the classroom, the students did not look

very comfortable especially when they know that we want to observe the

classroom. At the beginning of the lesson, the students were very passive as

they are not really comfortable with our presence. But somehow, she

managed to make her students to forget about our presence by attracting

their focus on the lesson. The students who are passive at the beginning

became more active once she starts presenting the lesson.

In my opinion, I think that she did a good job in managing her

classroom. Even though this is a tuition class, but the teaching and learning

process was conducted quite the same as the real classroom at school. I

have an experience in teaching at tuition Centre before, but at my place, the

teachers mostly give out lots exercises to the students and after the students

finished answering the exercises, they will distributes the answers to the

students. Basically, there are less teaching process going on throughout the
lesson at the tuition Centre that I have been before. But, with teacher

Nurfazwani Ain, she tried her best to ensure that the students understand

the concept and the topic before starting to give them exercises.

For me, I think that the students are not only having an effective

learning but also a fun learning too. This is because, the relationship between

the teacher and the students seems close when they interact with each

other. Some of the students find that it is comfortable for them to ask

questions to their teacher when they have problem answering the exercise

questions. She also did a good job in explaining the topic to the students as

it seems that the students are able to understand the lesson better. Overall, I

think that she did a good job in teaching and managing her class.

Reflection: Ma WenFei

In my case, as the only international student in my batch, I have seen

Malaysian school so different from school in my country. As two societies in

two absolute different social systems, Malaysia and China each has his own

way to establish and manage educational system.

Based on my observation, The English language teaching and learning

are quite different between tuition centre and Northwest China minority area

tuition Centre. As we know, English is widely used in Malaysia. Language,

culture and communication are three main aspects of intercultural English

teaching. The three aspects are linked together and cannot be separated.
With the wide spreading of English as an international language in the

multicultural world today, English subject became a very important subject in

the school. The northwest China minority areas are quite different from other

parts of China. Because there are many different ethnic groups, most of

ethnic groups have their own languages, and it completely different from

Chinese. For example, Uyghur and Kazah speak Turkic, the Dongxiang people

speak Mongol. For the sake of spread mandarin, the government opened

bilingual schools in minority areas. So in the school and tuition centres,

students and teachers use mandarin and ethnic groups language. In this

case, the English learning and teaching became more difficult. The only way

students expose their English is in the class. Unlike Beijing and Shanghai,

there is no English speaking environment. This is why the English level in

northwest China minority areas is lower than developed cities. So, the

English class used bilingual method. Teachers need to translate and explain

the content in first language so that students be able to learn the lesson.

Meanwhile, the teachers mainly teaching grammar. The English speaking and

listening seldom practice. Thus, the students mainly listen teacher explain

grammar and do exercise worksheet. While in Malaysia tuition centre, the

English class is being conducted in fully English language. Students are able

to express own idea by using English simple sentences. Students in tuition

centre do not have trouble with understand the full-English teaching. The

students like to participate in class activities. When teacher ask questions,

they willing to speak out and share their answers. Different language
environment require different English teaching and learning method. As the

saying goes, Act according to circumstances.

To sum up, there are many things I have learned in the class

observation. It gives me more idea about Malaysian English classroom so I

got to know what my weakness is. It is a good chance for me to make well

preparation before I start my Practicum two. It is also a precious chance for

me to face the teaching career in the future. The reason why I chose study

TESL in Malaysian because I plan to open my own Islamic school in the

future. I feel thankful to Allah gave me this chance to get experience .And

this make me have more strong hope to complete my dream.

Reflection: Aqilah Humaira Binti Mokhtar

As a student of Bachelor in Education, Teaching English as Second

Language, I had been through a lot of classroom observation. Either it is an

English language classroom or even the classroom observation of other

subject. Compare to all of that observations, this is the first time I did an

observation at a Tuition Centre. It is a different experience as the students is

well-behaved compared to the normal school classroom. The teacher is also

seems more passionate and knows how to attract the students attention.

As for the grammar content lesson, even the teacher is only teaching

past tense, she knows how to make the lesson seems so important. Though

the students look like they are already good in English, they somehow
overlooked about their tenses especially in their English essay. So, the

teacher reminded the students to always alert on their tenses in the essays.

There is no point in constructing long essay but full with tenses mistake. So,

the teacher gave some tips so that students keep using the correct tenses in

their essays. As for an example, the students need to always look at their

tenses since the beginning of the essay, so, they will not confused on what

tenses they should have. Another example that she said is the students need

to focus on what they are going to tell, is it describing something or

someone, or is the story describing an event that already happened. The

teacher also emphasized on two ways communication. Since the class only

has 17 students, every student get the chance to ask and speak in the class.

She managed to control the class so well and even allows them to contact

her whenever they have issues on their grammar and English subject.

I agree that she was lucky to only teach a classroom with 17 students.

Compared to the normal school classrooms, the least students that they can

have are around 25 to 30 students. So, even though the teacher in normal

school classroom is being passionate, they still need to face some difficulty

in order to handle that much of students. Not to mention with their different

attitudes and problems. So, I really respect the teacher in normal classroom

that they never give up in making the lesson enjoyable and fun. It is not easy

to teach grammar, but they did it. This include my previous teacher back in

my primary and secondary school, so, they are my idols and I want to be a

great teacher, the greatest I can be.

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