PBEM 4163

THE TEACHING OF LITERATURE

Reflection Report
Macro Teaching | Form 2 – Short story: Cheat!

Prepared for:
MISS NATASHA BINTI ARIFFIN

Prepared by:
YUSNIZEH YUNUS 15BE01014
AQEELA AHMAD KAMIRI 15BE01019
IRA NUR ZAYYANI RAZALI 15BE01030

Bachelor in Education TESL with Multimedia (Hons)

BE01 7A
Faculty of Education
 Teaching and Learning Reflection Report

On 20 February last week, Degree 7A class held our Teaching to Literature macro
teaching for this last semester. It was fun yet tiring. We started our macro teaching at 8.30 am
and ended it around 2 pm in the afternoon. We seriously need to be given such ABPBH award
for becoming a good actor and actress during the session. It is actually pretty hard to pretend
like secondary school students. We needed to pretend like we were clueless, did not even know
a thing on everything and some of us were not even in a right state of mind. Not to forget all
those countless “yes teacher” (in a long draggy monotonous tone) and some of us even “teacher,
teacher, where is my eraser?” and even “teacher, teacher, Imran talks a lot”. It was completely
annoying but if we come to our senses, we have to believe that those things are really happening
when we are becoming a trainee/a real teacher one day. Those are the things we need to endure
in our career. What we can concluded during the macro teaching session is that in order to be
a good teacher, ones must possess a very high tolerance and patience toward kids and also must
really love a teaching career. The love here meaning that, be able to put teaching and kids in
heart which then strengthen our heart to accept on any circumstances and risk of being a
teacher.

There were 5-6 groups altogether which consist of 2-3 persons. We were instructed to
teach on any literary components such as poem, novel, short story and drama on any level or
form. We were given 30 minutes to teach and one particular person were advised to not exceed
10 minutes each. Some of our friends really did well which we enjoyed their session a lot and
felt enthusiast for the rest of the session. But on the other hand, few of us were not performing
well and caused us to feel drowsy too. Honestly, the group that perform earlier (might be the
first 3 groups) were actually considered as lucky as everyone was still fresh, energized and in
a good shape. But things got chaotic on the rest of the groups’ performances. It was not out of
control because of something but rather, it was funny as everyone started to be wild, playful
and childish. Some of us really blurted out some humorous jokes or punchlines which then
made everyone burst into laugh. This can be sort of good and also bad to the teacher. It was
good as the students really enjoy the lesson and can be spontaneous on talking whatever they
wish but on a bad side, it may put the teacher at risk. But, if only the teacher can control it well,
then it is a bonus which portrayed the teacher’s capability in handling such mischievous class.
Unfortunately, some of our friends could not correspond with the naughty acts which left them
in shock, numb, and feigned. Fortunately, a few of our friends really made it well in controlling
the mixed up situation when they were just playing along with the kids and therefore built much
rapport with the student just like ‘Atiyah.

Our group consists of 3 amazing people which are Ira, Aqeela and Yusnizeh. There was
no story on how we ended up being a group for this task, as everyone knows, we do not need
a reason for that. We are just sticking anywhere together a lot. We honestly felt a huge relief
when Miss Natasha let us choose our own group and frankly speaking, we just could not work
with others. For the information, the task was given at the very early of semester where the
information, guideline and rubric were given to us and Miss Natasha checked on our progress
from time to time. Our topic that was chosen by Ira was a short story entitled Cheat! by Allan
Baillie and she chose character and characteristic devices. The other group member agreed with
the decision made and proceeded with the lesson plan after. The short story was a simple yet
powerful which was rich with moral values and involve kind of critical thinking too especially
towards the end of the story. The limitation of our choice was that, we were unable to find a
long completed text of the short story. We tried to find it all over the internet but it was not
there. We are forced to text our friends who have their sister/brother in Form 2 and took picture
of every pages. Luckily, the short story is literally short. We were than instructed our friends
to read it so that they can respond to our activities during the micro teaching. We even
exchanged promises to respond to their macro teaching well if they are willing to give the same
energy to ours. But as expected, only a few read it and the others did not. This gave the person
teaching during presentation stage (which was Ira) butterflies in her stomach as she needed to
explain the whole thing to them as they have 0% knowledge about it to ensure they can
participate during practise and production.

During the set induction which was conducted by Yusnizeh, she did good in order to
arise students’ attention towards the lesson. She prepared the AVA well and she arranged the
flow in a well-organized manner. She pasted 4 pictures of characters which shared the same
characteristic which is a liar/a cheater. She then asked the students on what were we going to
learn today based on that pictures. She did extremely well in involving the students with the
micro teaching process; pasting the picture, naming the character and etc. It was just a small
mistake where she forgot to brief on each character’s way of lying or when did they lie in that
particular story. But we do believe she did not manage to do it because she was aware of the
time ticking. It was no way to fit those long stories in a very short time. Yusnizeh even told us
that she was pretty nervous and had a stage fright during the stage. But as for someone who is
personally shy and tame, her performance was quiet impressive. She also told us that she was
too aware on what to happen next that made her afraid to add/omit anything that was not in her
plan. In other way, she was afraid of being spontaneous and also she overthinks which
sometimes made her speech cluttered.

The next stage would be the presentation stage which was conducted by Ira. As
expected, she did it well. Even thought she had the difficulty to explain the character and
characteristic fully to everyone in order to help them at least had a little knowledge about it to
survive in the later games in a very short time, she still managed to be calm and handled the
situation well. She was fluent in the language, attractive and always have backup plans on
whatever she does. She is just a type of teacher that every student would love to be with. Not
only that, she always be able to explain the information well which means she read about the
short story really deep till she can explain that well of the knowledge to the students. She was
really into it and seemed very sincere in disseminating the knowledge to the kids. But there
was a pro and con of being too deep in the teaching. She can explain well but she glitches over
her bad time management which she overdue 1 minute of her designated time. She had too
many things to talk (which I understand her passion and enthusiasm) but for something that
has a time limit, that should be taken into consideration as well. She is also advised to cut the
lesson and choose the only things that important so that she can always fit the time given.
Overall, as group members of hers, we are proud! She always knows what she is doing.
Definitely an inspiration.

Back to Yusnizeh, but in practise stage. We agreed to follow Ira’s idea in using Kahoot
as another way of doing quiz in a paper (we actually considered our pocket money to do the
photocopy too) and turned out amazing. The kids were so happy having such healthy
competition in the classroom. Some of them even cheering when they got the answer right. But
unfortunately, we only showed 5/10 of questions because we ran out of time. Yusnizeh’s time
got wasted freely just because she spent much time on fixing some technology bug that was
happening on her laptop. That is the biggest fear of dealing with the technology actually. Even
though she was a bit panic when the projector could not project the Kahoot app, Ira tried to
offer some help to look further on the problem and Yusnizeh took the opportunity to use the
time discussing informally about the characters with the students. It was actually a good gesture
done by her which could be followed by the other. We should not keep silent during any
unexpected situation and refrain ourselves from showing so much worries. This is a reason why
we should always have plan B, C or even D in our head. Nevertheless, Yusnizeh managed to
smile and deliver her game well after the projector had given some cooperation. On the other
hand, we have pointed out several weaknesses she has done which firstly was on her false
starts. As mentioned before, this was due to her nervousness but we do believe it can be
changed once she get used to teaching in front of the kids one day. Secondly was on her
response when the students were not be able to answer the question. Our suggestion is, we
should have small discussion towards any question that might be hard or been answer wronged
by majority of the students. But again, it was hindered by the fact that we were running late so
we just cut things off.

Moving on to the development stage which was conducted by Aqeela. Unfortunately,

as we were behind schedule from the beginning, it dragged all of the stages together which then
made Aqeela’s designated time shorter. Although she was a bit clumsy but she still managed
to look good and calm. She made a very good eye contact with the students. Whenever she
talked or praised a particular student, she will look at him/her deeply in the eye to make the
students feel acknowledged. Some people are really nervous to make eye contact especially
toward someone more superior or good looking, but she has a master in it. She also has a very
cute and friendly smile which welcomes her student to talk to her and not afraid to answer her
question. It can be seen in during the macro teaching where the students enjoyed the activity.
Some of them were even raised their hand to answer Aqeela’s question. The overwhelming
response from the students made the session much more interesting. She was also showed a
very kind heart of aiding students with help. Everyone has their own strength and weaknesses.
Aqeela told us that she was aware that she has a very limited vocabulary and made her hard to
explain things sometimes to the students. If the students unable to understand what she said,
she tends to repeat the instruction by using the same words which she needed to polish on. She
should be able to repeat the instruction with much easier words so the students can comprehend
it well. She also admitted that she was clumsy and unorganized due to the nervousness she was
facing. Other than that, she did great despite of some simple mistakes she needs to work on.
The final stage was the closure. Aqeela wrap up the lesson by recapitulated the whole lesson
and assign work for the next class. She also pointed out some of moral values through the
lesson. She did not have any false start here like before, maybe because she was being
spontaneous and all she said was not scripted. We guess that is why we cannot depend too
much on written material such as cue cards.
 From what we have been discussed, there were some actions that need to be seriously
considered in order to have a better teaching session. The first one is, we always need to be
discipline and adhere to the designated time. The best way could be, we give 7 minutes for
each of the group members so it will be okay to spare some other 1-2 minutes during the
particular person’s session. If we set 10 minutes per person, they might exceed the 10 minutes
and will ruin others’ part. We can also wear watch and always be aware with the time by being
straight to the point in conveying our lesson. Apart from that, we are also need to always be
prepared for the worst. We sometimes expect for the worst but do not use the opportunity to
prepare for it. We need to always have another plans just in case our main plan does not turn
out to be the ways we expected it to be. If we are able to fix these problems in the future, we
may have a more compact lesson with good time management which eventually benefit the
teacher and also the students. Also, if we are always prepared, we will be ready for any
unwanted circumstances which will avoid ourselves for being panic, clumsy, nervous and
clueless.

In a nutshell, it was a good day actually. We learnt a lot. We are surprised to how much
knowledge we have gained throughout the sessions whether we aware or not and whether it is
on the teaching skills or on the content itself. It makes we think on how much we, human being
are always lacking and why do people say that pursuing knowledge is a perpetual process. Even
though we are in in semester 7, we still can benefit on Form 1 lesson as well. It is just how
things work. After the micro teaching has ended, we were given our marks directly by Miss
Natasha. We were quiet satisfied with the marks and wish we can do it better.