JOURNAL

WEEK 2
This week I started to teach the pupils formally. There were few problems that I
encountered in this week. First and foremost, I found that one of the pupils refused to
participate in any verbal activity if I ask her to do it individually. However, she participated
well in any group work that I have conducted. Hence, I tried to refer her problem to the
former English Teacher, Mr. Zulazmi. Based on our conversation, he told me that the
respective pupil have been acting that way since she was in standard one. In fact, she did
not react that way only in English class but also in other classes.
Overall, it has been four days since I tried my best to persuade her to talk
individually. After all, I failed to persuade her for the time being. I felt really determined to
help her to overcome her stage fright. Hence, I planned to consult one of the counselors in
IPG in order to get some idea on how to handle and help her. I really hope that she will be
able to overcome her anxiety in order to develop her capability in learning English as I
believed that one can master the language if he or she practices the language
communicatively. In fact, Krashen (as cited in Schutz, 2007) also claimed that
Low motivation, low self-esteem, and debilitating anxiety can combine to raise the
affective filter and form a mental block that prevents comprehensible input from
being used for acquisition
Next, I found that the pupils could not understand some of the instructions when I
used full English during the lesson. As a result, I need to translate most of the sentences that
I had uttered. Sometimes, I tend to use excessive gestures to help the pupils to understand
yet they still could not understand the instructions. In order to overcome the problem, I
planned to use the same instruction repetitively in order to ensure that the pupils are used
to it. With that, the pupils will be able to understand the instructions even though I use full
English in the future. A part from that, I also planned to paste common instructions around
the class so that the pupils can look at it every day.