Nirmal Kaur

Task 1:
One of the lessons that went well with my Form 1 class in the year 2008 was on the short story “How Dalat Got Its Name”. It was a simple lesson on plot, the purpose being to familiarise students with the events in the story. The lesson was started off by asking a few questions about the story such as the names of the characters, their relationship with each other, the setting of the story, etc. Then, the class was divided into groups of 6 and each group was given a jumbled up set of sentences. The students in the groups had to sequence themselves in a line according to the plot in the story. Later I conducted a quiz on plot among the 6 groups. The quiz comprised multiple choice questions and true false statements. Finally the students had to answer comprehension questions on plot based on two excerpts.

a) The idea of the students sequencing themselves in a line was from a course that I attended a long time ago.

b) This lesson was different from other lessons involving the sequencing of events because here the students had to move about in the group to make sure they were standing at the right place in the line.

c) The lesson was a success because it involved movement, instead of the normal ‘sitting in a group’ activity.

d) Students are excited and co-operative to carry out activities involving movement as most of the time they would be at their desks.

e) To improve this lesson, it would be better if the sequencing part of the lesson be done in an open area because students require space. The tables and chairs in the classroom are a hindrance to their movement.

f) As usual, I sometimes casually share my ideas with another colleague but can’t remember whether I did so for this lesson or not.


Task 2 :One of the lessons that went well but was a bit challenging with my Form 1 class in the year 2008 was on the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”. It was a concluding lesson that was conducted in the Multimedia Lab. I started off the lesson with questions about the poem to refresh the students' memory of it. Some of the questions were:-
(i) what type of house the poet chose to live in
(ii) the location and description of the house
(iii) what he would do for a living
(iv) the poet’s reasons for choosing that particular type of life

Then, I instructed the students to close their eyes and to imagine the type of house that they wanted to live in, its location, what it looked like and what surrounded the house. A few students were asked to describe their imagination to the class using the future tense. They came up with fantastic imaginary houses such as a treehouse in the middle of an island. Then, came the interesting part of the lesson where the students had to work in pairs and browse the internet to look for the image of a type of house that they would like to live in. They were told to copy and paste the image into a word document and then to type out their description using the future tense based on the guided questions. At the end of the lesson, the students had to send in their entries as attachment via e-mail to the teacher. Some students did not know how to do that. So I asked those students who knew how to do it (there were some) to teach their friends. The best entries were displayed on the class notice board.

a) I got the guided questions for this lesson from a workbook which I further adapted and the ICT part was an idea of my own that struck my mind as I was relaxing.
b) This lesson was different from other lessons because it was an integration of language and ICT.
c) The use of ICT made the lesson fun and enjoyable but it was challenging. I had actually overestimated the students' ability in using e-mails. The lesson was challenging because some students did not have an e-mail account and neither knew how to create one. Some had an account but didn’t know how to send attachments via e-mails. Although I instructed those who knew how to do it, they were only willing to do after they had finished their work (which I can well understand - the time constraint they had in the lab). So, I had to stop the students halfway during the lesson and teach that aspect of it. Because the students were already engrossed in their work (showing their keen interest) some were not attentive enough and later asked again and so I was practically tired walking around the class giving the steps at the pace they were working. Besides, some computers had technical problems which I was unable to solve and students had to wait for their turn or attempt the task after school. After school meant less guidance for them from the technical aspect.
d) Students are able to learn a language item better through activities which interest them. Here, their interest was on the use of computers and ICT. They were very happy to have that hands on experience to do their work using ICT and I actually got entries from almost all of them. When students find that we share their interests, the product is better.
e) To improve the lesson, I suppose I should have one session with the students on creating e-mail accounts and sending attachments. That would have made me less tired! I could also put up all the descriptions on the class notice board and ask the students to evaluate their friends’ work, instead of me alone.

f) I did casually talk about the activity involving the use of ICT with two or three colleagues.

That’s my experience. Do comment.