1st session
in this session , we have continue our presentation and started with flora's group.They presented about ‘Children’s ability to grasp meaning’. Basically children’s minds are not blank slates and they are born with the innate knowledge inside them. The innate knowledge is known as the Universal Grammar. That is why children know how to speak even before they learn how to read and write. Thus I realized that teachers play an important role in helping children grasp meaning successfully and this was emphasized by Pn.Foziah.She explained that the use of interesting teaching aids is aimless if the teachers do not possess effective teaching techniques. According to the presentation, teachers can help them grasp meaning by using correct and appropriate non-verbal cues such as suitable facial expressions, body gestures, intonation and good eye-contact when interacting with them.
Next, Nani’s group proceeded with the other subtopic which is‘Children’s capacity for play and fun’. Play is not just fun for the children but play enhances their learning. Therefore teachers can encourage them to learn indirectly without removing the play elements by using interesting activities such as:
- Building with blocks-this activity enhances their motor skills as well as integrating mathematics and arts elements.
- Dramatic play-inculcate cooperation, team works, and the children who involves in play are usually more creative and acquire larger vocabulary.
Then, the lesson continued with the fifth group presentation on “Children’s Creative use of Limited Language Resources”. The general idea of the particular topic is children are creative in grammatical forms and concept. Talking about the above phrase, I realized that pupils are actually quite creative in creating words by analogy or they even invent completely new words which then come into the family vocabulary. For example, children may said “don’t unring” when they wanted to tell a telephone caller to wait. Although the phrase is grammatically wrong but they try use the particular phrase in order to create the meaning that they needed. As they are still in the learning process, such problem can be reduced in the future through teachers’ effective guidance.
How to enhance correct language use?
- Construct language games actively for example guessing games-guessing games allow children to practice, internalize vocabulary and grammatical structures extensively, encourage cooperation and helps them develop interpersonal skills.
By using games, children are focusing on the activity but they will learn subconsciously.
- Using songs such as action songs such as ‘the wheel on the bus’-songs contains repetitions and children learn best through drilling and repeated actions.
The last group who presented on that day is Nizam’s group. They presented about ‘The role of imagination’. Imagination is essential for children because they will practice real life skills, encourages a rich vocabulary and induce critical and creative thinking. This is in line with the new curriculum, KSSR.
Activities to enhance children’s imagination
· Role play: in role play, children pretend to be someone else. So they will develop verbal skills as well as real life skill because they have to act according to the situation. Besides, children who involves in the role play will acquire wider vocabularies.
· Hot seating: they will practice how to ask and answer questions appropriately. In this activity child who sit in the hot seat needs to answer questions asked by their friends. Teacher can scaffold them by using model dialogues such as preparing speech bubbl
After the presentation, Pn Foziah told us to prepare for a power point presentation individually. The power point presentation should consists of:
· The steps on how to download a song(mp3 version) by using a downloader such as 4shared
· The steps on how to search for a song’s lyrics by using Google or other search engine such as Yahoo.
· The steps on how to download videos by sing software such asMoyea.On that day, Pn Foziah taught us the steps to download Moyea.It is effective software to download songs and videos for example it can be used to download YouTube videos effectively.
After that, all of us start doing the tasks and we have to burn the tasks in a CD.
The task need to be submitted on the next class.
