Category: Teaching

When I taught essay writing, I always thought about how to engage my students to write essays.  One of the things that I can think of is to give them good and “interesting” examples of essays.  As I browsed various books and magazines to get some ideas before writing the essays, I found myself feeling elevated and yet disappointed at the same time.   I felt enlightened reading some good essays or articles but at the same time I felt there are something missing from the “story”.  So, I ended up to compose some of the essays on my own, based on my own experience and story.  It works!  The students love it!  And at the same time, they get to know me better (a little bit) from reading those essays.  2 in 1.  Teaching content and instill values at the same time.  Attaboy!

DESCRIPTIVE COMPOSITION

Tips and techniques

1. You are usually asked to describe a person, a place or an event.
2. There will be no points given to guide your writing unlike Directed Writing composition.
3. You should be able to write clear and vivid descriptions to help the reader create a mental picture of what is being written.
4. Describing is an important skill. You will need to describe people, places, scenes in many types of composition.

Write a composition of about 350 words about your favorite place.  

Durham is a small university town which situated at the northeast of England.  As a historical city, it became a centre of pilgrimage in medieval England in the 11^th century.  The cathedral and adjacent castle which were built around 11^th century was designated as World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986.  Durham is a hilly city with steep riverbanks surrounded by densely wooded vegetations.

Other than its religious landmark, Durham is also home to Durham University.  It was founded as the University of Durham in 18^th century.  It is claimed to be England’s third oldest university after the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.  Regardless of its splendid reputation, it was not the reason why I chose Durham to further my study for my PhD.

I never knew the existence of Durham University when I was searching for a place to further my study.  One of my friends advised me that when selecting a university for a postgraduate study such as PhD, I should not look at the university’s reputation per se, but also the location where the university is situated.  In this case, reputation alone does not guarantee the best learning environment needed by a postgraduate student.  As a postgraduate student, what I needed most was a learning environment and culture that would help me get through the ups and downs of my PhD journey.

My friend suggested that I should consider Durham University as a place to further my study because Durham is also one of the most picturesque cities in England.  I fell in love with Durham on the very first moment I set my eyes on the university campus, especially the School of Education. I could never thank enough my friend who gave me that advice.

Durham has witnessed various manic episodes of my life especially after my father passed away when I was in my second year of study.  Had the gentleman who rode the bicycle did not stop me when I was contemplating to jump into the River Wear near the St Hilde and Bede college, I might not be alive now and be able to tell my story to my students about the hardship that I had endured as a postgraduate student.

If people ask me why I love Durham and could not help from talking about it countless times, I would just say that Durham is my favorite place and it will always have a special place in my heart as long as I live.  [412 words]

I wrote this essay when I was teaching form 4 student Narrative Composition [Continuous Writing] back in 2018 [this was the time when I did my Latihan Ikhtisas].  This is based on my own story.  The students were amazed that I use my own life experience to write a short narrative like this as an example that I gave them.  I still remember one of them said this “Teacher, ini cerita pasal Teacher ke?  Wah, Teacher pun tak suka sekolah ni ke dulu?”[Translated: Teacher, is this your story?  Wow, did you also dislike this school?”].  I replied by rolling eyes while saying “Yes, like some of you, I also dislike this school but my mother requested me to stay until I finished form 5.  Now, go back to read this essay again and highlight any word that you don’t understand.  Later on, find the meaning of the words that you don’t understand from the dictionary”

NARRATIVE COMPOSITION

Tips and techniques

1. A narrative tells a story. The main purpose of a narrative is to explain in a story telling manner.
2. Know the difference between

Question	What it means
i)       Write a story based on ii)     Write a story beginning with …. iii)    Write a story ending with ……	Your story is about ….. You must start your composition with the line(s) given Your story ends with the line(s) given

 

3. Sometimes the title of the composition is an idiom or a proverb. Be sure you know its meaning before you start on the composition.
4. Note the specific structure and language feature of a narrative composition.

Write a story ending with a proverb by Confucius “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop”

My fists were clenched.  Hurt and angry, I glared at my mother.  She whispered softly, ‘This is the best chance for education, Dear.  Behave yourself’.  I did.  Not because of my mother or any need for studying that I might have stayed at this school.  It was the feeling that I needed to prove that I would never be the black sheep in the family that made me stayed at this school.     With three older siblings who were graduates from local and overseas universities and another one was studying at a local university doing Accountancy, I felt pressured to excel in my study too.  I felt hopeless when I could not change to a different school that I wanted that has science stream classes.  I hated myself for being a weakling.   As the youngest in the family, many might assume that I was the baby in the family and pampered by my family.  It was a far cry from the truth.  I was never being pampered.  In fact, I was consistently compared with my older siblings who were high achievers.  Being a late bloomer, I was never academically high achiever during primary school.  As I started to bloom during my adolescence, I was still struggling to get the kind of excellent grades that my parents could be proud of.  Yet, deep inside my heart I knew that I could become someone that I envision myself to be, rather than someone that anyone would expect me to become.     The question was how could I prove to all that I was a good student, a high achiever like my older siblings?  What should I do?  These questions gave me nightmares.  I started to think to find ways to be a better student.  But, I still did not know how to become one.    One day, feeling especially sorry for myself, I huddled in a corner and refused to talk to anyone.  After a while, my friends started to avoid me and treat me invisibly.  A senior who saw me sulking muttered ‘Stop wallowing in self-pity’.  With that, I realized that even if I did nothing to change my current situation, I was actually made a decision.  I thought to myself that ‘Decision is not only being made if I do something, it is also being made if I do nothing’.     Rather than doing nothing, I decided from then on to study hard and be persistent even though I might make mistakes or fail along the way to be academically high achiever.  Finally, what Confucius once said made sense to me ‘It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop’.            [442 words]

I have been thinking about this long time ago since I was doing my masters at IIUM.  I had a chance to be supervised by a great mentor who teaches me about value and ethics.  I learn that from him.  Taking several classes under his tutelage was a privilege that I will cherish for the rest of my life.  I would email him quite regularly when I have qualms about my teaching practice.  I would always get a straight-to-the-face kind of answer.  No filter.  Nothing.  It always serves as a reminder why I am in this profession.  He had retired now.  No email.  Just occasional Whatsapp message.  But, it helps me to feel better when I am feeling blue.  

Now, I am no longer have the privilege to email him like I used to do.  He rarely checks his email.  With a younger wife, he is pretty much preoccupied with his retirement life.  So, I normally will find motivational videos about teaching.  One of my favorites is a TED talk by Rita Pierson.  She passed away not long after giving the TED talk.  To know more about her, this is one of the articles written about why it is important for teachers to know their students better in order to make impact on their lives.  

Alhamdulillah. I have finished marking all of the assignments and exam scripts.  Now, it is time for me to prepare the report via OBE system.  But before that, let’s jot down some of the points that I want to include as parts of my CQI in my OBE report.  

Assignments: I had given my UG students two types of assignments: Individual and group assignment.  For the individual assignment, they have to create a concept map for each topic discussed.  To assist them, I suggest they submit it on weekly basis, not compulsory though.  Majority submitted their concept maps religiously every week.  Only a few of them NEVER did that, not even once. 

As I graded their concept map assignment, I notice that one student did not submit his assignment.  I also remember quite well that he never submitted any concept map before.  When I look closely at his overall performance, he could not do well for individual tasks like final exam, quiz and such.  This shows that he is struggling but he never told me anything when I asked them in class or never even once let me know through other means.  He is the quiet type in class.  When I did a jig saw activity in class, I notice that he is the “listener” type.  When he was urged by his friends to give his opinion, he did not elaborate in detailed, rather give short explanation.  But, it does not explain why he failed to submit the concept maps.  After all, I told them that to be self-regulated learners, they need to have certain routines.  To create a concept map means that they need to understand the overall concepts (and its interconnectivity).  It is not an easy process.  After getting my feedback, they could improve their concept maps which many did so and it can be exemplified by the marks they got.  Doing all these would involve them to engage in all of the process of three different phases based on self-regulated model as proposed by Zimmerman. 

On the exam day itself, I told them (via Whatsapp) to double check whether they have done their second quiz on the elearning and those who did not submit their concept map after the exam can do so by going to my office on the next day to submit their concept maps.   I did remind them about the course work even during exam period.  Now, the exam period has ended, so it is kind of pointless for me to bug them during their holiday about the course work.  

For the group work, there are no glitches that I was not aware of.  Alhamdulillah, the students were proactive to meet me and discuss about their group assignment.  So, all of the groups did well.  They are also reflective about the things that they observe at schools.  Some groups did interview.  During the presentation day, one of the guys (Yusri) wore full attire with a coat.  I gave a special mark for this because he makes the attempt to be presentable.  The only person who did so.  

Final examinations: There are two types of exam questions given (MCQ and short answer questions) for 40 marks.  Even though it is stated the marks would be 60%, but we convert it into 40% later on.   I find that some students could answer the short answer questions really well.  Some of them got full marks.  However, some of them did not able to answer one or two questions.  Few even just “skipped” and didn’t answer one or two questions at all.  So, they lost 10% right there and then.  What a lost!  But, it is their choice.  I have no right to question their decision of leaving few questions unanswered.  I should be emphatic in this case. 

Overall: Some of the students did very well.  They got more than 80% marks. Good job!  Well done!

CQI:  Based on student performance, I plan to revise my instruction for the both assignments.  I think the current instruction is not being perceived as emphasising self-directed learning by some students.  Based on the feedback that students gave on concept map assignment, some perceive it does help them to study or revise.  In this case, they perceive it as a burden despite the evidences i.e. journal of concept map research that I show them [I suspect that they do not read the journal articles that I shared in elearning].  But, majority perceive that concept map is useful, so I will retain this activity in future.