About Me
I am currently working as a Language Teacher (DG44) at Language Academy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). I started my teaching career in 2009 after I obtained my TESL degree. As a language teacher in UTM, I teach English courses to an average of 150-180 undergraduate students per semester (5-6 sections). I have been teaching several English courses such as English Academic English Skills, Advanced Academic English Skills, English for Workplace Communication and English for Professional Purposes. For the recent semesters, I am teaching the new CEFR-aligned courses such as English Communication Skills, Academic English Communication Skills, and Professional Communication Skills. I have been actively involved in designing and revising the new English courses which are aligned with the CEFR. I am also the UTM representative in the CEFR Taskforce appointed by KPT where I am responsible to monitor and report the implementation of CEFR-aligned courses in this university.
Philosophy of Teaching
My philosophy in teaching derives from my genuine passion in teaching. I always believe teaching is a noble profession that helps people to learn. As a language teacher, it is my role to help my students learn and develop their language skills. I always strive my best to provide meaningful language lessons that could support my students needs in what would work best for them. To assure my students could experience meaningful and high-quality learning process, I have spent less time on lecturing and doing more of active and constructive learning. In active learning, my students are made to engage in the learning process and be accountable to the outcome of their learning while in constructive learning, they learn gain the knowledge through a process of action, reflection and construction. I find these instructional approaches to be more effective with the generation of students I’m teaching.
I believe that students have the potential to develop their skills if they are provided with the right resources, guidance and opportunity to use the language meaningfully. Thus, I always try my best to provide a conducive learning environment that encourage my students to develop their language skills and use it in the right context. I personally believe that students will perform better in an environment that helps them learn something that they find meaningful. Due to this, I always design my lessons to be more meaningful where my students will learn through problem-based tasks and also using authentic learning materials so they could see the relevance of learning something and applying it in the right context. To align with the era of technology, I also integrate the digital technology into my lessons so that my students will find it helpful for them in completing the tasks given.
In addition to this, I also encourage my students to express their point of view and not be reluctant to provide feedback for my classes. My students feedback help me design a more well-plan instructional activities that could enhance the learning process. My experiences have taught me to always refine my teaching approaches and strategies for a more effective and meaningful learning and teaching process. I believe an effective teaching process involves adaptation to the needs of my students. There will be no one-size fit it all lessons or approach. There should always be room for changes and improvement. One thing I always share with my students is that imperfections or mistakes are just part of the process of learning. What happens in my classroom is not just for my students to learn, but an opportunity for me to improve my teaching. I also view mistakes as opportunities to make something better.
Impacts of Innovation on Quality of Learning
To show the impact of the innovation used in my T&L classroom, I have compiled some of the class activities that I carried out to improve my students understanding and to give more impact in the language learning process. For example, one of the courses I teach is UHLB3132 – Professional Communication Skills 2 which requires students to produce a business proposal and to present their ideas in front of the class. To prepare my students for the assessments, I first ask my students to work together in a group to complete an in class proposal task and template which they need to post on Padlet. Each group will then present and review other group’s ideas to better understand how a good proposal should be written.
Padlet showing in class proposal practice
After this activity, the students will then use their ideas to complete a pitching outline which will help them prepare for the next assessment that is pitching assessment. I will give feedback and consultation to better prepare them for the assessment. In addition, I will also ask my students to upload their presentation slides or poster to Google Drive as part of the consultation.
Posters and presentation slides from Google Drive
In addition, I also include the element of peer review as part of the pitching assessment. The students get to vote the best speaker for each group through polling in Telegram app. Overall, students find the whole process as very helpful and meaningful as they get to prepare and practice before the actual assessment. They also find voting for their peers as an interesting activity.
Voting for their peers through Telegram app