A REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

OF

FUNDAMENTAL BUSINESS ENGLISH CLASS

PREPARED BY

NORILYANI BINTI ABD . RAHMAN

2013824074

PREPARED FOR

EVALUATIONS AND REFLECTIONS IN TESL

TSL 751
ASSOC. PROF. DR. FAIZAH

Reflective Teaching Journal

(Fundamental Business English/
ENG 1012 )
By Norilyani binti Abd. Rahman (2013824074)
1.0

Teachers, the Reflections & the Reflective Journal

I have been following a Reflections and Evaluations in TESL class over the

last few months and the course probably introduced me with a term reflective
practice which I have never thought that it is a very good practice for language
teachers. Yes, the term reflection seems to be the most familiar catchword or
buzzword in the teaching world that makes us differ from another working field. In
fact, I have started to believe that reflective teaching practice is part of the
professional development of a teacher. Thomass Farrell (2008) states that reflective
practice is a column that a teacher share his or her work experience that can shaped our
thinking, teaching and our work as in-service teachers. It is scrutinising what you do in
the classroom and challenging your beliefs about your teaching practice. Once you fold
this information you use it to implement changes and guide your future teaching
practices.
All teachers have classes that go very well and all teachers have classes that make
them question why they got into teaching. Many times teachers attribute great classes to
the strength of the lesson or teacher and terrible classes to the weaknesses of the students.
However, more often than not the opposite is true. Perhaps the great class had nothing to
do with what you did in the classroom and maybe the terrible class was a result of the
activities you tried or the methods you employed during the lesson. In short, reflective
practice helps teachers to find the reasons behind successes and failures in the classroom.
I feel a great way to engage in reflective practice is through journal writing.
Journalising your thoughts, experiences, successes, failures, fears and anxieties can prove

to be a very insightful endeavour. Awareness of what you do, awareness of how you do it,
and awareness of why you do it. Being aware of these three areas will help you develop
and improve as a teacher. If possible, it would be highly beneficial to share your journals
with other teachers who are also engaging in reflective practice. By allowing others to
read your journals and comment or give feedback your peers can support or challenge
what you have written. You will able to learn from their experiences and thus improve
your personal practical knowledge at a greater rate. A group of teachers engaging in
reflective practice together in this way is what some refer to as a community of practice.
In addition to sharing journals with peers, some teachers find sharing their
journals with students to be helpful. For a few teacher training courses we can post our
journal on the website for course participants to see. This provided a model of what a
reflective journal might look like and offered at least two additional benefits. The first is
that it shows course participants that a teacher is committed to reflective practice and that
a teacher values it. Another benefit is that it gave course participants a chance to see what
the trainer was thinking and feeling. Michael heard from many participants that reading
his journal gave them a better understanding about teaching English as well as a better
understanding about what he was thinking and feeling about the class. Michael felt that it
was a good way to share both his thoughts and the decisions that he made related to the
classes.
Of course, it is not easy to share your journals with just anyone. Many people do
not feel comfortable sharing their fears and failures with colleagues for fear of judgment
and being labelled a bad teacher. Some teachers feel a sense of competition with coworkers and are not interested in helping their colleagues improve as teachers. These are
important obstacles to consider when forming a community of practice. You need to
choose people you trust, feel comfortable with, and who are not afraid to share intimate
accounts with you and the other members of your community.
Many teacher training courses, especially those for new teachers, do not include
reflection. Apparently reflection is thought of as something for more experienced
teachers. I feel that more courses and thus more beginning teachers should experiment
with reflective practice as early as possible. Many of us have heard the difference
between a teacher with 10 years experience and a teacher with 1 year
experience repeated 10 times. We feel that healthy doses of reflection can help prevent

teachers from getting stuck in ruts and it is a good start for career development.

2.0

I am as a Teacher
After 2 years of gave up teaching the secondary school students at SMK Seri

Pagi, I have made up my mind and switched to teach the tertiary level students. I had
seen a post in Facebook from my classmate during my first degree in UNiSEL that
there was a vacancy for English Lecturer in Kolej Profesional MARA Seri Iskandar
and I decided to give a try. I had mailed my curriculum vitae to the college, and I
drove all alone from Negeri Sembilan to Perak just to undergo the internal interview
for the post of part-time lecturer that would only be paid daily working-hour.
Alhamdulillah, I got the post but with the jeopardy of being rejected by MARA to be
one of the permanent staffs. I was puzzled a while because I am a permanent English
Teacher who works with the Ministry of Education at that time and I need to accept
the offer from Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) which only offered me a part-time
position. After 2 weeks of rationalized the pros and cons, I finally decided to leave
school and move on to teach in tertiary level which I am now teaching, Kolej
Profesional MARA Seri Iskandar.
Yes, I adore teaching here as I do not have to take into considerations about
students disciplinary problem, class relief during my free time, and other factors. I
registered on the 30 August 2010 and Alhamdulillah I am now a permanent teacher
with MARA in which I think I can get better benefits rather than I was with the MOE.
Here in MARA, I can get the benefit to stay in MARA Houses as in Equatorial Hotel
Cameron Highland, Regency Hotel Port Dickson and other places including London
and Jakarta for only RM30- RM50 per night, the benefit of being sent for conferences
in all over the world for free, MARA sponsorship in pursuing my study as I need to
fight with the seniors in the Ministry of Education and to get higher opportunity to
send my children to study in MRSM easily.
In teaching, all teachers have to write our daily lesson plans as I do (Wiggins
& McTighe (1998). Nevertheless, my first thought that lecturers do not require lesson
plan as the teacher in schools do, was totally wrong. In MARA, we have to write a
full version of lesson plans as practiced by the practicum teachers but with one more
additional column for intervention. Luckily, I do not need to do it hand-written so that
4

I can only print it out and write-down the reflections and interventions. I do like it
because it would require me to only write Objectives Achieved! and that is simple
to me. What about the intervention column? Yes, I would only write None even
though I have done a number of interventions in class. I am loving it! However, after
a week attended the Reflection and Evaluations in TESL class by Dr. Faizah, I
realized that a teacher will need a thorough reflections towards his or her teaching for
the sake of his or her teaching improvement. InsyaAllah, my 2014 resolutions is to
create a blogger account and come out with reflective writing towards my daily
teaching as well as to let my students to write a short essay or report named 2
minutes paper.
Who am I as a teacher? I come from a teachers family so that I can
confidently describe myself as a born-teacher. My late father was a teacher, my mom
began her career as a teacher together with my other 3 sisters who are now teachers in
Negeri Sembilan and I am now also take teaching as my career. I admire teaching
profession since I was in the primary school and that made me applied for B.Ed TESL
to pursue my education in the tertiary level.
Who Am I as a Teacher?
-

I am a friendly teacher but at the same time I am firm with the students. I need
to act that way to remain the gap between a teacher and students so that they
will remain the barrier.

I can be a sister or a mother to my students but I can somehow be the students

biggest enemy.

I will try not to fail my students in their final examinations because I believe
they have tried their best for my subject.

I can easily erupted by the way the students act in my class rudely but I will
ensure that it will not affect the whole session of the class. I would directly
give a 10 minutes motherly advice and ends up the advice with smile so that
the students will get into the mood again.

I am a lenient and tolerant teacher in marking the students paper and

assignments as long as they do come for consultation with me in the
completion of any tasks given.

The students will not be absent to my class even though they have attendance
5

problem with another teachers and it indicates that the students enjoy my class.
-

The students enjoy being in class as I have distributed the evaluation form to
the students and I know they love my class. (as attached in Appendix 2)

I am a digital natives teacher because I fancy to encourage the students to use

Facebook to communicate, to come out with Edmodo group and post
assignments, notes and others in the Edmodo group, to create a Whatsapp
Group Discussion with all my students in order to have discussions about
assignments, tasks, presentation, etc. so that it remains communication with
the students and we become handy. Instagram as the use of commenting my
students task.

I sometimes a bias teacher in terms of focussing only to my diploma students

instead of my PIP students. Why? I have lack of focus with my PIP students
because they will only be in the college for 6 months in which I think I should
not have that feelings but I do not know how to avoid it to occur.

I do not realize that I always smile in my class during teaching session until I
read a comment written by my students in the evaluation forms and they seem
to like it. Alhamdulillah.

3.0

Description of the Subject Taught (Semester July- December 2013)

I taught 2 subjects with 19 credit hours per week and the 2 subjects are

Fundamental Business English (ENG 1012) and Communication English (ENG 1011/
Speaking). Hereby are the explanation on the 2 subjects I taught last semester:Fundamental Business English (ENG 1012)
This subject is taken by the all the semester one students for Diploma in International
Business and Foundation of Higher National Diploma. In this subject, the students
will learn 3 main areas i.e. Grammar, Reading Comprehension and Writing
Comprehension. Grammar lessons will only be learnt in a fortnight and we need to
cover all parts of speech and tenses before the students may undergo Test 1. Next, the
students will learn about skimming and scanning, contextual clues, information
transfer, and identifying main ideas in passages then they proceed with Test 2. Lastly,
the students will learn on how to write a guided essay and business letters in which
6

they are assessed in Test 3 and Final Examinations. Throughout this course, the
students will need to complete 3 Tests, 2 main assignments and 1 project presentation
as the on-going marks for this course is 60% and 40% for the final examinations.
The syllabus- as attached in the appendix A
Communication English (ENG 1011/ Speaking)
This subject is a must-pass subject for the Preparatory Intensive Program in which
they need to only complete a six months course with 4 subjects i.e. English,
Mathematics, Information Technology and Pendidikan Islam. English class is divided
into 4 different classes which are Speaking, Writing, Reading, and Listening. Each
class is taught by different teacher as I was teaching the students Speaking Class. In
Speaking class, the students will need to complete 3 assessments i.e. Impromptu
Speech, Demonstrative Speech and Group Forum in which the going marks is 20%.
4.0

The Flashback of my 50 Minutes Class Activities

4.1

Description of the Lesson Recorded

4.1.1

Set Induction
The lesson was recorded on the 15 November 2013 with my FIB 1A

class. It was a 50 minutes lesson for Fundamental Business English (ENG

1012) subject. The topic of the day was Skimming and Scanning. I entered the
class, greet the students and tried to grab their attentions to involve in my class
by asking whether they have taken their lunch at the moment. I also asked
tried to make the class fun by questioning whether I am a Miss or Madam so
that they may began the class with laugh. Later, I counted the number of the
students in my class in which I supposed to have 17 students and poorly one of
them entered the class late. The lesson started with a distribution of Just
English magazines to the students. The set induction occurred when I let the
students to guess the topic of the day by requesting them to have a look at the
front page of the magazines given, and predicted the content of the magazines.
7

The students were brought into depth set induction about the topic of the day
by letting them to search for the word Kate Winslet at the front page and
searched for the page number in which the article may be found in the content
pages. Suddenly, there was a lad knocked the door and he was actually the
fella who came late. I asked him the reasons he came late to class and he gave
his reason in which I did not think it was a concrete reason at all. I continued
the lesson by informing the students that the process they were doing
previously was one of the reading techniques, skimming and scanning.
4.1.2

Presentation
I explained further about the topic of the day via the Prezi Slideshow

taken from the internet. I let the students involved in my lesson by requesting
for a volunteer to read the short notes appeared in the slideshow. There was a
student volunteered himself to read the notes and his name is Ashrul but I
preferred to call his nickname Acol because it makes him feel glad when a
teacher remember his name. I corrected the mispronunciation by my student
Mia in which I know it is a good way to let my students improve English. I
also put a 50 cent punishment to my students for each of the Malay words
uttered by themselves and I can see the positive impact by the end of the class.
4.1.3

Practice & Production

There were 2 activities conducted in the practice and production parts.

Activity 1 began when the students were asked to do pair-work and answer the
selected 10 questions given. The time allocated was only 5 minutes and there
was a discussion slot right after the students completed the task. Activity 2
was called as Blind-folded Game. The students were to form groups of 4 and
selected 1 leader to be blind-folded. The leader would need to draw the
animals as instructed by the group members. Later, the leader would go to the
front of the class and still blind-folded then pasted the picture drew on the
board. I selected the best picture drew and rewarded the winner. The students
seemed to enjoy the activities planned and I was very happy to see the happy
faces in my class.
8

4.1.4

Closure
I brought the students to the closure part by recap and asked them

about skimming and scanning. I assigned them a take-home task in which they
need to complete the exercises in the last page of Just English magazine.
Before the class ended, I let the students to rearrange the flip-chairs nicely and
had a look at the surroundings to ensure the cleanliness of the classroom.
4.2

Interpretation of the Lesson Recorded

4.2.1

The effectiveness of using games in class

I choose to reflect the lesson chosen because I can see the effectiveness

of using game in my class as Ersoz (2000) holds that games are highly
appreciated thanks to their amusement and interest. Teachers can use games to
help their students practice more their skills of communication. In addition,
Uberman (1998) also affirms the helpful role of games in vocabulary teaching
after quoting and analysing different opinions of experts. From her own
teaching experiences, Uberman observed the enthusiasm of her students in
learning through games. She considers games a way to help students not only
enjoy and entertain with the language they learn, but also practice it
incidentally.
4.2.2

The effectiveness of the use of set induction at the beginning of the

class
Set induction is compulsory in any of the teaching session as it may

help the teacher to grab the students attention to our lesson as Perrott (1982)
identifies four purposes of set induction; focusing attention on what is to be
learned by gaining the interest of students, moving from old to new materials
and linking of the two, providing a structure for the lesson and setting
expectations of what will happen and giving meaning to a new concept or
principle, such as giving examples.

4.2.3

The effectiveness of the use of intervention in class

Teachers need to build a classroom environment where positive

interactions are the norm and punitive consequences are minimized. Research
indicates that coercive or punitive environments actually promote antisocial
behaviour so that I decided to only give a motherly advice to my students as
the intervention in class.
4.2.4

The effectiveness of calling students name and applause to praise

students achievement
Calling students name to ensure participation in class is also effective
and makes the students to feel appreciated as they assume that the teachers
remember her. David Martin (1994) emphasises that you will be able to
control your class better and gain more respect if you learn the students' names
early on. If you are one who has a poor memory for names, have all the
students hold up name cards and take a picture of them on the first day of
class. On the second class, impress them by showing them you know all their
names.
4.2.4

The effectiveness of Wh-questions in classrooms

In my opinion, teachers questions are mainly used to check learners

comprehension and to determine what learners have actually learnt (Brown &
Wragg 2001). Kerry (1982) says that the main purpose for teachers in using
questions in the classroom is to recall information as well as to check basic
comprehension and evaluate and analyse learners skills and performance.
Peacock (1990) all argue that teachers sometimes ask questions because they
are interested in the learners answers i.e. they seek information that they do
not have - but this seems a less common purpose in asking questions in the
classroom. This suggests that questioning in the classroom differs from reallife questioning, which appears to include more referential questions. There
are other reasons for teachers to ask questions in the classroom, for example
10

to stimulate recall, to deepen understanding, to develop imagination and to

encourage problem-solving.
In addition, Brown & Wragg (2001) mention other reasons concerning
class management. They also identify some other possible functions of
questions such as to motivate children, to focus attention on one particular
aspect of language, to increase interaction between groups and to present tasks
and activities. Brock (1986) finds that ESL teachers tend to ask more display
questions than referential. Although Brock (1986) looked at the effect of
referential questions on adult ESL classroom discourse, some of the
conclusions might be relevant to TEYL classrooms. Brock (1986) researched
two teachers trained in using referential questions and two who were untrained
and found that teachers usually ask more display questions than referential.
However, the researcher found that teachers who had been trained in using
referential questions asked more referential questions than the other teachers.
Consequently the target learners responses were longer and more complex in
the groups taught by the trained teachers than in the groups taught by the
untrained. This seems to be a significant finding and implies that teachers
should be trained to use referential questions in order to develop learners
speaking skills.
4.3

Outcome of the Lesson Recorded

What have I learned from this lesson? I find out that I love moving my

hands while giving the students explanation in class. Yes, I am now realized
that I would always smile while teaching after I read the comment written by
student in the evaluation form and the video I recorded. How will it influence
my future work? The lesson recorded may influence my future teaching style
by always using games and realia in my class. I would like to try to encourage
my students to use ICT in my lessons throughout semesters.

11

Conclusion
All in all, I love the idea to start my reflective journal in blogger.com this
semester. In short, I would happily say that the course TSL 751 has successfully
makes me have a paradigm-shift to be a reflective person. I significantly believe that
my new thought will enable me to see my weaknesses clearly and have the ways to
improve it for a betterment.

12

References
1. Brown, G. & Wragg, E.C. (2001). Questioning in the primary school. London:
Routledge
2. Brock, C.A. (1986). The effect of referential questions on ESL classroom
discourse. TESOL Quarterly, 20, 47-59
3. David Martin (1994). "A Critical Analysis of the Advocacy of the Task-Based
Syllabus,"TESOLQuarterly28(1):127.http://www.eflpress.com/teacher/EFL_te
acher.html
4. Kerry, T. (1982). Effective questioning. London: Macmillan
5. Perrott, E. ((1982). Effective Teaching: A Practical Guide to Improving Your
Teaching, New York: Longman
6. Peacock, C. (1990). Classroom skills in English teaching: A self-appraisal
framework.London: Routledge.
7. Uberrman

(1998).http://www.commission.wcc.edu/Data/Sites/1/commission

Files/abe/training/abe-ntt/mod-6-articles/ntt---module-6---fs-8-teal-centerlesson-planning-fact-sheet-v2-air-logo-11-18-11.pdf
8. http://www.gsedu.cn/tupianshangchuanmulu/zhongmeiwangluoyuyan/learning
%20vocabulary%20through%20games.pdf
9.

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