According to tape script: recorded from observing in personal experience I

According to tape script: recorded from observing in personal experience I

Introduction:

In Thailand, Thai teachers usually use traditional teaching strategies for teaching students to gain knowledge about English. In a previous of time, some teachers focused on teaching vocabulary only, and they did not focus on how to use English in macro skill; listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. In addition, some teachers taught students to know how to use more grammatical structures than using in the real life situations. The role of teachers was teaching or focusing on teacher-centred. As this present, the world has moved all the time so educational system should change their teaching strategies. Teacher-centred should be changed to student-centred. According to observing how to teach in personal experience I subject, we gain information that is more useful for developing how to teach in 21^ST century. Moreover, Thai education should be improved for preparing population’s English ability into AEC (Asean Economic Community). We had observed and gained information (Grade 1) from observation how to teach students in grade 1 or prathomsuksa 1. In this section, we would like to present information gained from observing. There are six topics answering how to teach English for beginners, including 1) lesson structure, 2) classroom management strategies, 3) types of teaching activities, 4) teaching strategies, 5) uses of materials, 6) teachers’ of language, 7) students’ uses of language, and 8) students interaction. 

      The first topic is lesson structure. These are the way the lesson opens, develops and closes. In warming up step, a teacher may greet and check attendance for students or reviewing the last lesson what they had learned about “family.” The teacher says, before we are going to learn about new lesson that is feeling, we will review about English songs. After that, the teacher lets students review three songs, including “what’s your name song,” “hello,” “a-z.” After finished singing three songs, the teacher says today, we are going to learn about feeling. In presentation step, the teacher guides students to know the meaning of these four vocabularies about how to tell feeling; bored, sad, tired and happy. First of all, we should know about the meaning of this vocabulary that is HAPPY.” The teacher spells vocabularies and lets students to repeat them. The teacher says “I’m happy.” After that, the teacher teaches students to know what bored, sad, happy and tired mean. The teacher tells students how to use each vocabulary. In practice step, the teacher allows students to practise how to show their feeling. In production step, the teacher would like students to do exercise on their book. After finished completing their task, the teacher asks some questions related to what they have learned. There are four numbers of activities constitute the lesson, including the whole class, group work, pair work and individual activities. There are several links and transitions between activities. Warm-up step is focused on greeting and reviewing the lesson again. Presentation step is using questions. Practice step is focused on speaking how to show feeling bored, sad, happy and tired. Production step is focused on doing an exercise. The teacher usually uses questions in wrap-up step.

      The second topic is classroom management strategies. The teacher lets students to sing songs together in the whole class. Sometimes, the teacher divides students into two groups (boy and girl groups) for singing a song. The teacher randomly chooses some students to say “I’m happy, sad, bored and tired” In front of class. In addition, the teacher lets individual students to do task. For maintaining order, the teacher will describe students when they do not understand the lesson or how to write some alphabets; h, s, a or u. If students do something wrong or break the rule of class, teacher will cut something they get such as sticker or scores. In addition, teacher may punish them by psychological punishment such as avoid what they do. For time management, the teacher takes about 5 minutes in warm up step, 10 minutes in presentation step, 5 minutes in practice step, 5 minutes in production step and 5 minutes in wrap-up step. For seating management, there are twelve students in grade 1 room. Arranging seats are set in two long lines in order to students can contact eyes with the teacher easily. The teacher allows students to use body language coupled with speak easy English sentences.

      The third topic is about types of activity. There are three types of activity such as the whole class activity, pair work and group work and individual work. For the whole class activity, the teacher allows students to sing songs named “What’s your name?” “Hello” “A-Z” and “Feeling.” In addition, the teacher allows students to spell vocabularies “bored” “sad” “happy” and “tired.” The teacher lets students to speak easy English sentences and acting body language. For pair and group work activities, the students work in pair for expressing their feeling. The students work in group divided into two groups: the boy and the girl groups for singing songs. For individual activity, the students do an exercise by matching sign of face that tells feeling with sentences appropriately.

      The teacher uses several teaching strategies. The teacher teaches by focusing on Cooperative teaching method. For example, the teacher can contact eyes to eyes when doing activities because the teacher focuses in student-centred. The teacher also focuses on task-based teaching because the teacher gives students to create task. For organizing practice, the teacher focuses on practicing repeat and using body language. Students practise speaking all the class. The teacher chooses several teaching techniques such as using the text book named “Smile 1,” questions, songs named “What’s your name?” “Hello,” “A-Z,” and “Feeling.”

Materials are good for teaching. Teacher should use them for teach students because students can understand much more. The authentic materials are the best thing because students can see. It will make students understand much more. From observation, teacher use the text book. Students use the book that is “Smile book 1” and work smile 1. Smile book 1 use to teach students and they can learn the contents from this book. Students can do the exercise for practice from learn in each unit. In addition, teacher uses other resources. There are microphone and songs. There are 4 songs those teacher uses that are What’s your name?, Hello!, A-Z and Feeling. So, Materials are important for teacher and students. Teacher should select the appropriate material for content. It will help teacher easy for teaching. Moreover, teacher’s use of language is part of life that teacher should speak fluently and accuracy.

Language is important for teacher and students. Teacher’s use of language is the most important. If teacher wants students can speak English fluently and accuracy teacher must speak English correctly because students will absorb everything from teacher. From I observation, I think teacher speak English little. Teacher has the steps to teach students. Teach teaches slowly the students can follow easier. Teacher speaks English little. Teacher check students’ understanding by use Yes/No questions. In addition, teacher has reinforcing to give encouragement to students. When teacher teach about vocabularies teacher will explain about meaning of vocabularies. Teacher will spell and read and students spell and read follow teacher. Teacher focus about pronunciation.  However, teacher should notice students’ use language.

Students’ use language is the best way that students can practice English.  If teacher want the students can communicate with another person teacher should support students communicate by using target language. Student’s use of the mother tongue during class to talk between teacher and friends. Students use language in group work little. Students have problem about grammar that students don’t understand structure and students don’t pronounce correctly. So, teacher should focus about students’ pronunciation. It will help students can speak fluently and accuracy. In addition, student’s interaction is the part of successful of teaching.

Student’s interaction is the part of successful of teaching because teacher and students should have good interaction. Teacher fix time for do the activities in class such as do exercise, teaching. Teacher asks some questions to students that students usually answer them immediately. In this class, teacher sometimes uses English questions for ask students. When students answer questions they will answer questions by using mother language. In addition, when they talk together they use mother language.

Conclusion, good production usually comes from good teaching. The teacher should have basis knowledge about the grammatical structure, how to apply English in the several situations happened and be nearly in the real life situations. The students should be active in learning, have good attitude in English, have effort for searching new information, and try to apply English repeatedly as second or foreign language. The teacher also teaches students focused on student-centred because they will interest about what they have learned. The teacher should create or design the ways to open, develop and close the lesson as so interesting. In addition, the students should be taught by several teaching strategies such as cooperative teaching, task-based teaching, communicative language teaching or the others. The students therefore should be taught by several techniques designed appropriate for students’ interests, including using a game or song. The teacher should prepare several activities for students such as the whole class activity, pair or group work and individual work. Unless, the teacher allows the students to do several activities, they cannot gain new experiences. Besides allowing students to do activities, the teacher should present the authentic materials. In my opinion, I think both the teacher and the students should be a part of teaching English effectively. What students have learned will be useful for them if they try to use and practice English all the time. So, the teacher and the students should prepare themselves for staring the first step as good into the ASEAN Economic Community.

  

      

      

Week 14: Listening skill

Brown-Eyes: Destiny’s child

Everyone usually has loved someone and someone is loved by others. Love will be beautiful and it is up to each sight. Love can kill someone if they don’t be reasonable with loving. Love is forgiving. Love is everything that each people said. It is not be same meaning with others’ thought because someone thinks love is problem for their live. However, someone thinks love can complete some gaps in their live completely. Every ideas are incorrect because they are only opinions not be fact. Before loving, everyone also is single or they stay alone. On the other hand, they never are lonely because everyone can live with loving themselves. Everyone has learned loving themselves as first before learning to love others. In this section, I would like to introduce a love song with sweet melody and good meaning for someone who are in love.

       This song was love song for someone who is in love. Its content told about a lover who has loved each other and thought of the first day when they met. As present, they remember the first day when she saw his face. He smiled at her, came near her and said something on her that she was the woman in his dream or the woman he loved. She said she can remember the first day when he visited her at house and want out together. They have dinner outside. They felt self-conscious but they tried to hide it inner. Likewise, they had a perfect night. They held hand each other, talked, laughed, and felt this was true love. It was romantic love. She knew that he loved her because he told her and he showed his feeling out. She felt that he cared for her when his eyes stared at her with deep in love. In addition, she knew that he loved her because he trusted. They also remember the first day they kissed. After having argument, they apologized and compromised each other that they haven’t argued later. Love can make this world beautiful.

        Love is an important thing for living together. According this song, it is a love song. Someone who has loved will be inner with this song because its meaning tells something how deep of love. This song tells that a woman can remember the first day beginning of everything related to love on a man. She remembers the first day when she saw his face. She remembers his smiling at the first day and he said she was a woman in his dream and only her in his life. They promised that they haven’t argued each other next chance. When he visited at house and had dinner together. They felt that that had butterflies in their stomach or they felt less confident. In my opinion, I like this love song because its content tells something about a romantic love. If you do not have love, you may need it after listening to this song. Moreover, this song is available with single, lover or others. If you are so tired, you can be relaxing with this song. Do you like this song? How do you feel with this love song? Why?

Reference:

Assessed from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrzV_gAmQbE on
              Saturday 7 September, 2013.

Vocabulary	Pronunciation	Meaning
Butterflies (n)	/ˈbʌtəflaɪ/	กระวนกระวาย Idiom: have butterflies (in your stomach) (informal) to have a nervous feeling in your stomach before doing something Ex: When I have dinner with him in the first time, I feel that I have butterflies (in my stomuch).
Hold (v)	/həʊld/	จับ ถือ to carry something; to have somebody/something in your hand, arms, etc Ex: Tom and his lover held each other hand when they walked .
Compromise (v)	/ˈkɒmprəmaɪz/	สัญญา to give up some of your demands after a disagreement with somebody, in order to reach an agreement Ex: They were unwilling to compromise with the terrorists.
Apologize (v)	/əˈpɒlədʒaɪz/	ขอโทษ to say that you are sorry for doing something wrong or causing a problem Ex: We apologize for the late departure of this flight.

Week 14: Learning Log 10/9/13

Lesson plan: On Thursday September 10, 2013

Good teaching comes from good lesson plan. Lesson plan should be included direct terminal objective and enabling objectives, procedure, and evaluation. Some teachers think that lesson plan is not important, but they only teach students to gain knowledge. In fact, lesson plan is same as outline of writing. If lesson plan is not perfect, your writing will be not good. If your lesson plan is so complicated, your writing may be difficult to read. According to some sentences, teachers should realize about lesson plan lead to teaching students ready into 21^ST century. In addition, Thailand will be the unity in the AEC (Asean Economic Community), so people should speak and use English as well as the native speakers. This function is related to how to teach. In class on Thursday September, 2013, I gain knowledge what terminal and enabling objectives are, how to teach, and how to perform self for teaching.

The objectives are important thing for planning good lesson. First of all, teachers should know what they would like students to know and they can think of a goal. In teaching, teachers must know about a curriculum and they know how different between terminal objective and enabling objective. After that, teachers should plan learning process. Teachers should prepare activities for each steps of learning process. 1) Warm-up, teachers may use song, video, authentic materials, or using question. 2) Presentation, teachers should teach content, vocabulary, and pronunciation. 3) Practice, teachers may use game, conversation, exercise and etc. 4) Production, teachers allow students to produce tasks reflecting what they have learned in class. 5) Wrap-up, teachers may ask or review about content. Learning process should motivate students to pay attention during class activities. In addition, teachers should use rubric, questionnaires, interviews, or others in evaluating and checking understanding of students.

Conclusion, there are five steps in lesson plan. Before teaching, teachers should know what terminal and enabling objectives are. Terminal objective is what teacher expects that students can perform at the end of class or unit. Enabling objective is to specify a detailed sequence of student activities. As getting objectives, we should understand five steps in learning process. 1) Warm-up is to perform before presentation and practice. 2) Presentation is to act for introducing new content. 3) Practice is doing activities over and over. 4) Production is to act for creating output reflects what students have learned in class. 5) Wrap-up is to complete or finish something such as what students have been writing. Good lesson plan comes from objectives related to what teachers would like to teach students. In my opinion, I agree with planning lesson because it can make teaching effective as the first step. Moreover, lesson plan should be related to a curriculum. Do you agree with me? Why?

Week 14: Learning contract

Learning Contract

Days of weeks	Time	Skills/ Tasks
Sunday	8:00	Learning Contract
Monday	-	-
Tuesday	16:20	Learning Log
Wednesday	-	-
Thursday	18:00	Reading skill
Friday	20:00	Listening skill
Saturday	15:30	Writing skill

Week 13: Listening skill-

Waltzing Pump up Heart Patient

 Health Problems are big problem that many people had faced. It comes from less exercise or lack of exercising. They usually keep bad lifestyles such skipping eating breakfast, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarette or less sleeping. In addition, some people live in bad environment such as in city where crowded people lived in.  At present, people interest and take care of their health than in the past. Most people are dead from many diseases such as heart attack, diabetes, cancer, etc. Especially, heart disease is effect for health. People should change their thought from less sleep to enough sleep or sleep well every night, from skip breakfast to eat breakfast every morning, and change bad lifestyle to good. In this section, I would like to talk about heart disease lead to heart attack.

Heart attack is a caused of people deaths every year. Dancing is good exercise for improving heart problem. Heart failure is not the same as heart attack. It means heart is weakened cannot pump blood as usual. There is development about this condition all the time.  According to the United States, people who are heart failure usually get tired easily and short of breathe so they hardly do activities in daily routine. A doctor needs patients to exercise by dancing aerobics three times per week. Aerobics can help the heart work harder and pump blood and a lung can increase oxygen. Many patients don’t interest in traditional exercise so the researchers choose Walt dancing. Doctor Romualdo tests with 89 men and 21 women who are with moderate heart failure. They are divided into three groups. The first group; 44 people dance three times a week. The second group; 44 people dance Walt both slow and fast Walt dance. The third group; 22 people don’t do exercise. According to research, two groups that exercise and dance can improve oxygen so they get tired less easily than a group who does not exercise.  An exercise is good strategy for improving oxygen in lung.

 Health is important for running new day same as a car which need patrol. Heart disease is a main cause of many people deaths every year. Therefore, people have to interest health problem. They everyday should exercise at least 30-60 minutes per day; three times a week or exercise. They can exercise by walking slowly, jogging, dancing, breathing in and out deeply, moving parts of body, growing trees or doing house works. In addition, people should change lifestyle. They should not skip eating breakfast and other meals. They should sleep early and get up early for breathing good air. They also should not be stressful for everything but they should relax after getting tired. When people take care of their health and body, they will get healthy. Therefore, they should see a doctor at least once a year. In my opinion, I think we should exercise every day, eat beneficial food and live in place with good air. Do you agree with this article? Why? When you have health problem, how do you take care of health?

Vocabulary	Pronunciation	Meaning
Attack (n)	/əˈtæk/	ล้มเหลว an act of using violence to try to hurt or kill somebody a series of racist attacks Ex: A child is recovering in hospital after a serious attack by a stray dog.
Diabetes (n)	/ˌdaɪəˈbiːtiːz/	โรคเบาหวาน a medical condition which makes the patient produce a lot of urine and feel very thirsty. Ex: There are several types of diabetes.
Cancer (n)	/ˈkænsə(r)/	โรคมะเร็ง a serious disease in which growths of cells, also called cancers, form in the body and kill normal body cells. The disease often causes death Ex: Smokers face an increased risk of developing lung cancer.
Pump (v)	/pʌmp/	สูบฉีด a machine that is used to force liquid, gas or air into or out of something Ex: She washed her face at the pump in front of the inn.

Week 13: Learning Log

Learning Log

 Good teaching should be referred to curriculum. Teachers should know students’ learning lifestyles as first. They should know students’ background knowledge. At this present, most of teachers usually teach what they need, but they do not teach students by referring to curriculum. Likewise, students often do not pass several tests, including O-net, NT, Gat-Pat, etc. In addition, English is a subject that students do not be interesting on it, so they cannot understand and apply it in their real life situations. Teaching English should be included teaching macro skills; listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills. The first skill that teachers should teach as first is listening skill, because general human naturally have learned listening. However, most Thai teachers have focused on teaching only vocabularies and teaching grammatical structures. In this section, I would like to reflect what I have learned all the time in class. I gains knowledge about how to do lesson plan, how to teach using teaching strategies, and how to do homework in pair.

Today is on Tuesday 3 September, 2013. There are four students who present teaching. The first person teaches about asking for direction by using preposition; left, right, cross road, etc. Content is about tourism place at Nakhon Si Thammarat. Procedure is perfect but she focuses on teaching grammar more than how to use language. The second person teaches about food of Trang City. She needs to teach students speaking but she focuses on writing or reading skill. Therefore, she should give students opportunity for having participation in activities. The third person teaches about tourism places. She focuses on speaking skill, too. Picture cards used, are not included words or phrases describing. In addition, she also evaluates what she taught not be available on her objectives. The last one teaches about asking for direction, too using structures easy to use. She focuses on speaking skill. She gives students an exercise about completing conversation. In this exercise, students can practise how to speak same as using in real situation.

Conclusion, there are important three factors for good teaching such as teacher, curriculum, and evaluation. After four students finished teaching, a teacher expresses opinions or some ideas on them. Everyone gets new ideas for preparing good regional lesson plan; it is next lesson plan. First of all, teachers have to know individual students or their learning styles and background knowledge. Next, teachers should find new information or content supporting lesson plan. Then, teachers learn on curriculum and do lesson plan. After that, teachers choose activities that can motivate students’ attention, materials-book or non-book or design them by self. For evaluation, teachers should use rubric available what they teach. Before finished class, a teacher gives us two papers work in pair. In my opinion, I think I get new experiences introducing by a teacher, including how to set objectives; terminal objective and enabling objectives, how to teach, how to entertain students, and how to evaluate. I will prepare lesson plan, activities, how to teach as well as recommendation.