Dream from the Heart

Interview with Audrey

Nadia — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:09:39 +0000

A week ago, on Sunday 17 March 2008, I went to TBI to ask about Introduction to Teach English to Children (ITEC) course. Unfortunately, Sovi the administrator hasn’t come yet. So the man in front office just gave me little form to fill my name and my interest of specific course. Later that day, I called and talked to Sovi. She said she would email some forms to be filled and she would scheduled me for an interview.

After checking my email account and no email has arrived yet, I decided to return back to TBI on Wednesday. There, I met Sovi and she gave me 2 forms to be filled.The first form was Application for Teaching English Course form and the second form was the Pre-Intervies Task form. The first form basically covered my curicullum vitae. As an addition, I was required to attach a separate piece of paper which was a statement (approximately 500 words) giving reasons for wanting to do this course at TBI and describe what I perceive the role of the language teacher to be. The second form asked me to complete several tasks regarding : Lesson Planning, Vocabulary, Pronounciation, Cassroom Language, Aproaches to teaching and learning, and Learning experience. In the end, I also had to write my conclusion about my own experience as regards what makes a good language lesson for children. If you are interested with my writing, those two essays have been posted earlier.

Yesterday, when I was returning those 2 forms, I was told to come at 9 in the next morning to be interview by Audrey. I prepared myself by reading some material from some websites about teaching english to children.

Question asked :
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Tell me your teaching experience in the past.
3. What do you think about teaching pronounciation?
4. What do you think about teaching phonemic sound?
5. What do you expect to get from this course?
6. What do you do to preparare lesson?
7. How do you deal with children in your class?
8. How to deal with shy children?
9. What do you do when children make mistakes in pronounciation?

What makes a good language lesson for children?

Nadia — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 06:04:00 +0000

Looking back to my schooldays, I experienced two different way of learning English. At school, my teacher conducted classical learning method. She would wrote the lesson on the blackboard and told us to copy them. Then, she would asked us to finish worksheet from the textbook and gave us homework to do. In class, mostly we just listened and wrote. Ther were hardly any discussion took place between students and teacher. I found this method quite boring.

Fortunately, my mother signed me up for English course at TBI. I found the teachers were very friendly and communicative. They delivered the lesson using familiar topic such as food, hobbies, family, etc. They used pictures to visualize new words. They also included games, songs, stories, and other fun activities for us to do. I had a lot opportunities to speak and communicate my idea not only to other students but also to the teacher.As a result, I found learning English with these approaches was fun.

I think, a good language lesson requires careful preparation. A set of goals must be set while preparing material. Having clear goals will make it easier to evaluate the teaching process.

Methods of material delivery are cricual to be planed. For children, learning is most effective when it is fun. Therefore, fun activities such as games, story telling, singing songs, making art and craft should be introduced. Chosen activities must combine language skills such as listening, reading, speaking, and writing to ensure total understanding of teaching material.

A statement of reasons

Nadia — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 04:42:46 +0000

English has always been my favorite subject since I was still at school. I owed that partly to my teachers, both at school and at language courses, who had introduced me to the fun of learning English. Following my passion, I became a self learner by practicing English in my daily life through conversation, reading books, writing internet blog, singing songs and watching movies. However, it seems to me that I have not mastered English yet. I feel the urge to become an English teacher is strengthen. I think I must have fallen in love with this language!

Having three kids of my own and seeing the importance of teaching English to them, I have searched effective methods to make English learning fun. I have read books, browsed internet, discussed with their teacher at school, but still I haven’t felt satisfied. Questions like What should I teach? or How should I teach it? bothered me every time.

I didn’t have any formal teaching experience, but I have tried to teach my own children at home. I observed their English lessons at school and repeated them at home. From my observation, I noticed that my children learned faster when they were attracted to the lesson. The other day, when my daughter learned about animal, her teacher taught her some songs and games. She quickly memorized them, and when I visualize the animals through flashcards and stories, she had no trouble remembered and understand them.

What I love the most about working with children is to be able to see spark from their eyes and sense their enthusiasm when they enjoy the learning process. It is wonderful to see children actually acquired something from it. They think they’re just having a good time but in fact they’re learning something. That’s why I would like very much to learn the most effective, sure-fire strategies to help children acquire English in a fun and natural manner. I think games, songs, stories and craft activities are the right vehicles to bring them to reach their learning destination.

Having this passion toward children education, I started to consider teaching as a future career prospect. I just don’t know how to begin since I don’t have teaching educational background. All I have is my own experience dealing with my children and their friends while I volunteered as a guest teacher at their school.

Then, I heard that TBI is providing a course about teaching English to children. Being a student there almost 20 years ago, I believe that the teachers there are high quality teachers, kind, compassionate, very open-minded, and always willing to listen to new ideas. I hope to learn everything from child development to specific techniques that I can use in classroom. Hopefully, I could experience a good balance between theory and practice.

I hope this course could assist me to address some teaching issue such as:
1. Problems with planning a lesson, such as lack of time, or a need for new ideas.
2. Problems with materials, such as difficulty in finding or adapting materials, and problems with the textbook.
3. Problems with classroom management, where the children are uncooperative or inattentive, or perhaps when I have more than one level to deal with in the classroom.

Those are the reasons why I am interested to take this Introduction to Teaching English to Children course. I am sure this course would be beneficial for me to broaden my horizon and to overcome problems in teaching children.