JOURNAL

Practicum Week :2

Date : 4th March 2020

Journal title : Classroom control during teacher trainee’s classes

1.0 Focused issue

Pupils were not responding well to teacher trainees’ instruction and activities in relief
classes.

2.0 Analysis of the focused issue

Teacher trainees are given a fixed class and relief classes during our internship period.
For my permanent class, I have already set up simple ground rules and an “energiser”
that I would ask them to do regularly for attention and classroom control. Most of the
times, my class would respond actively to the energiser as it is a simple and easy to
follow. But when it comes to our relief classes, the pupils were not familiar with any
energiser or classroom routine before starting the class or activities. The pupils showed
interest in playing games like “Hangman” and Charades during relief classes but it often
led to chaos as the pupils will get into fights and yelling to one another. As teacher
trainees were not familiar to the pupils, some of them did not take us seriously and
ignored our instructions when they were asked to do their work.

3.0 Literature review on the issue (experiences or past research)

According to Khine & Atpushamy (2005), teacher’ trainees perspective of their behaviour
and the way they carry themselves in class are different from what the pupils view them.
Most pupils view teacher as not really understanding and friendly as they thought they
were. It is also cited that pupils actually can get work done with a non-assertive teacher
and good peer support. Therefore, it can be said that maybe my way of conducting the
class is not favourable to the pupils and that lead to problems in classroom management
and control.
4.0 Suggestion or ideas to resolve the issue

Although energiser is very effective to catch pupils’ attention, teacher trainees especially,
have to do a reflection on how they conduct the lesson and control the class. As teacher
trainees are not familiar with the pupils and vice versa, the pupils might need time to
form a healthy relationship with the teacher. With a healthy relationship, pupils and
teacher can bridge an effective communication thus getting the class in an orderly
manner and helping them to achieve the learning objectives for the day.

References

Khine, M. S., & Atputhasamy, L. (2005, May). Self-perceived and students’ perceptions of
teacher interaction in the classrooms. In Conference on Redesigning Pedagogy:
Research, Policy and Practice, Singapore.