Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Fretted and Frustrated over Simulated Teaching
We started our simulated teaching from 12.00 to 4.30 pm yesterday. It was a long day and everybody was tired. Since it was late so another eight persons were not able to present their simulated teaching. I was one of them. I had to go home by carrying the radio that I had not the opportunity to use but I still had to bring it the next day for my simulated teaching.
I spent a lot of time on doing the drafts for my simulated teaching. Just to choose the extract almost made me headache. Actually, I wanted to do the extract on Cordelia’s speech of saying ‘nothing’ in showing her love to Lear, her father. When I found that my best friend is going to do the same extract. I changed my extract to Edmund’s speech. I don’t really like the extract but I don’t want to compete with my friend for doing the same extract.
Last Monday, I knew that my friend’s extract stopped before Cordelia’s speech of saying ‘nothing’. After I consulted Dr. Edwin for activity plan, I found some mistakes in my first plan. So I changed my mind last minute by changing my extract from Edmund’s speech to Cordelia’s speech. I worked that whole night to retype my lesson plan until 12.30am and woke up at 4.00am to continue.
I used the song “When you say nothing at all” by Ronan Keating as set induction because I felt that the lyric of this song is very related to Cordelia’s speech. Then I used letter-writing as one of the while-reading activity as I thought that this was interesting and something different from my coursemates. When I showed my lesson plan to my friends, they all said that my ideas were good and I was very satisfied with what I had done.
Finally, I was able to present my simulated teaching today. Dr. Edwin commented one of my while-reading activity was good but the other of letter-writing was not so appropriate. He said since Cordelia did not want to express her love in speech, writing a letter to express her love to her father was also considered as speaking.
I have a different view, there are people who find it hard to express themselves in speaking but express themselves better in writing. This involves the question of personality. Extroverted and introverted persons express themselves differently. Extroverts are more talkative, outgoing and speak freely whereas introverts are sometimes thought of as passive and quiet. According to Dewaele and Furnham(1988), extrovertion may be a factor in the development of general oral communicative competence, which requires face-to-face interaction, but not in listening, reading, and writing. I am not sure whether Cordelia is an introvert, but what I want to mean is speaking and writing are two different skills. Cordelia’s way of writing a letter to express her love is not equivalent to speaking.
When I got my lesson plan back, I was so disappointed and frustrated to look at the mark. I felt that my effort to design activities that are different from others is in vain. I would rather resolve to use the same activity as most of my coursemates employ, that is, to write a paragraph for while-reading. That will be safe for me. I see some of my friends’ set induction and pre-writing are not related but they still can get higher marks than me. I feel very unfair, fretted and frustrated. But what can I do? I can feel the same mental state with Lear when he says in his last sentence of his speech with his two daughters in Act II Scene iv, “Oh fool, I shall go mad!”
I spent a lot of time on doing the drafts for my simulated teaching. Just to choose the extract almost made me headache. Actually, I wanted to do the extract on Cordelia’s speech of saying ‘nothing’ in showing her love to Lear, her father. When I found that my best friend is going to do the same extract. I changed my extract to Edmund’s speech. I don’t really like the extract but I don’t want to compete with my friend for doing the same extract.
Last Monday, I knew that my friend’s extract stopped before Cordelia’s speech of saying ‘nothing’. After I consulted Dr. Edwin for activity plan, I found some mistakes in my first plan. So I changed my mind last minute by changing my extract from Edmund’s speech to Cordelia’s speech. I worked that whole night to retype my lesson plan until 12.30am and woke up at 4.00am to continue.
I used the song “When you say nothing at all” by Ronan Keating as set induction because I felt that the lyric of this song is very related to Cordelia’s speech. Then I used letter-writing as one of the while-reading activity as I thought that this was interesting and something different from my coursemates. When I showed my lesson plan to my friends, they all said that my ideas were good and I was very satisfied with what I had done.
Finally, I was able to present my simulated teaching today. Dr. Edwin commented one of my while-reading activity was good but the other of letter-writing was not so appropriate. He said since Cordelia did not want to express her love in speech, writing a letter to express her love to her father was also considered as speaking.
I have a different view, there are people who find it hard to express themselves in speaking but express themselves better in writing. This involves the question of personality. Extroverted and introverted persons express themselves differently. Extroverts are more talkative, outgoing and speak freely whereas introverts are sometimes thought of as passive and quiet. According to Dewaele and Furnham(1988), extrovertion may be a factor in the development of general oral communicative competence, which requires face-to-face interaction, but not in listening, reading, and writing. I am not sure whether Cordelia is an introvert, but what I want to mean is speaking and writing are two different skills. Cordelia’s way of writing a letter to express her love is not equivalent to speaking.
When I got my lesson plan back, I was so disappointed and frustrated to look at the mark. I felt that my effort to design activities that are different from others is in vain. I would rather resolve to use the same activity as most of my coursemates employ, that is, to write a paragraph for while-reading. That will be safe for me. I see some of my friends’ set induction and pre-writing are not related but they still can get higher marks than me. I feel very unfair, fretted and frustrated. But what can I do? I can feel the same mental state with Lear when he says in his last sentence of his speech with his two daughters in Act II Scene iv, “Oh fool, I shall go mad!”
# posted by Dr. Yee Bee Choo @ 10:30 PM 
