here's my reflection. Sorry for only posting it so late:
"My father once told me that I will never know anything till I really try it. After this week’s session at Chaoyang School, I really began to agree with my father. It was really a brand new experience for me, to try being a teacher after faithfully staying a student for 16 years. Hiccups were aplenty, problems were not inexistent but yet I must say we pulled it through and it was a very enjoyable experience.
When we first stepped into the newly built Internet Café, the cooling air and brightly lit lights warmly greeted us. Well, the first picture that I had in mind, was one that has many cute little boys and girls having fun eating and playing on the computers in this café. It was a good thought to begin with, and with that, we began our interaction.
However, we faced 2 major problems right from the start and that is the inability to open the PowerPoint file from our thumb drives, and the failure to connect the laptop we brought to the Café, with the projector. Fortunately, we did not panic but managed to work on the spot, and came up with a PowerPoint that could be used to teach the students. This really was a very scary experience and it taught us to always be very prepared for failures and problems, so as to always have a contingency plan while being able to think on our feet.
After this, we moved on to our lesson proper with the first class, 4/1. I must really say the 5 girls that we were working with were really bubbly and excited. From greeting to explanation and demonstration, they were always very responsive. Working with them was really a joy as they were well-behaved and managed to absorb what we said very quickly. However at times, they were a little too enthusiastic and Mrs. Suwandi stepped in to firmly remind them about behaving themselves properly. From seeing how Mrs. Suwandi managed to control the class very easily, I learnt that it was important to be firm yet warm towards the students so as to gain their respect while having fun with them. After a short reflection session, we closed this meaningful lesson and began our next lesson with class 6/3.
This lesson was really very different as the students were very quiet and shy. It is probably due to their growing maturity according to Mrs. Suwandi, and thus we worked to engage them and make them feel excited. The teaching of the 6 sentences that we had prepared to let them be better prepared to engage their future customers as waiters or waitresses was very slightly slower in this class as we had to repeat it a few more times to make them repeat it properly. I would say that this class was very well-behaved; however we would need to learn how to make them open up to us and feel more comfortable to speak up.
All in all, I think there were several points to learn on our part. Being a person who is generally like to talk, I would need to learn how to not talk too much, so as to allow my other fellow group mates to interact more with the students. Next, I would think that I need to be more mentally prepared and composed in future lessons so as to not need to feel uncomfortable with starting the lesson. Lastly as a person who is always quite hard on discipline and order, I think I would need to work even more flexibly in the future so as to be more effective and approachable to the students.
In conclusion, I felt that this first lesson was definitely a very good hands-on experience for me, and with future lessons and more experience, I strongly believe that the students that we are working with will definitely be great waiters or waitresses in this nice Internet Café. "
Keng Chee
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