ARAVINDA PRASAD VIJAYASINGAM

930403-14-6305
English Language Teaching and Learning Methodology
Reflect on your experiences during the first few weeks of teaching after your
placement in a 350-word essay. Make justifications of the strengths and weaknesses
of your lessons and suggest improvements.

Deciding to become a teacher was definitely something I would not have expected if you
were to ask me at least 3 years ago. However, after learning so much about education and
its power as well as reflecting on my future, I decided to do the Teach For Malaysia Fellowship.
I have to agree that when I was first placed in school, I was so overwhelmed by everything
that was happening around me. However, I would have to thank the training we received from
Teach For Malaysia. Although we were not fully trained teachers, I have to say that the
training we received was such a blessing. During the first week in school, I was mostly
handling relief classes. However, after 2 or so days, I received my first class. I was appointed
to teach English to 1RK1.
During the first lesson, I had my usual classroom cultures and procedures introduction. I
would say that this lesson went well and I would repeat the exact thing once again. In fact,
that is what I have been doing and it has been successful thus far. The first real lesson I
taught my students was giving directions. To execute this lesson, I had planned for my
students to discuss and give me directions to a place that was familiar and famous among
them, which was AEON Tebrau City. This lesson required my students to discuss, draw a
map and later present it to me. Overall, I would say that this lesson was successful. However,
there are still some aspects of it that I would improve on. First, what I believe went well was
the method the students were introduced to this new skill. Since the lesson involved
discussions and drawings of maps, I could clearly see that the students were enjoying
themselves. This is where I could clearly see that student centred activities were highly
preferred by the students. However, the one thing I would change about the lesson would be
the way the instructions were delivered to them. When I was giving them instructions, I was
simply doing it orally. Although they initially knew and understood what they were required to
do, as time passed, they started to forget some of the important details such as the duration
and element that I had initially wanted from the presentation. Two ways that I think I could
have made this better is to have written the instructions on the whiteboard or include the
instructions in the handouts that I have given to them. I believe having something physical
for the students to refer to would have been really helpful. Overall, I saw that this was my
strength and weaknesses throughout the first few week. I know that the method of delivery
of the lesson were liked by the students, but my instructions were not something that were
able to keep in mind the whole time.