Part II: Reflection on Four Levels of Reflection

Teaching is grounded by certain theories and rules to guide teachers to be on track in

order for the learning objectives to be achieved. As a teacher, despite having followed these

rules, one still needs to reflect on one’s teaching practice as it is beneficial especially to improve

one’s teaching style. Based on my macroteaching session, I have reflected my teaching

according to the four levels of reflection.

For Surface Reflection, I reflected on my Critical Incident that took place in the

presentation stage. In presenting the information of the topic, I prepared a material which is a

manila card with paper strips containing information on the topic, attached to it. However, in the

midst of carrying out the activity, one major problem arose. The material somehow had

malfunctioned, causing problem to the students. The tacks that I used to stick the paper strips to

the manila card were difficult to be removed by the students to the extent that it was time

consuming. Reflecting on this situation, I could have cut the manila card to provide slots so that

the edges of the paper strips could be slid into the slots. This way, I do not need to use the tacks

to attach the paper strips.

I believe that the scaffolding theory that was proposed by Bruner (1950) was an effective

theory to be used in class. Since I held the role of the ‘more knowledgeable person’, my duty is

to impart knowledge and facilitate their learning. To put the theory into practice, I prepared

materials with simple instructions that would not confuse the students, and provide an example

for each worksheet. Throughout the lesson, I made sure that my pace was not too fast so as to

make the students able to catch up with my explanation. Since the students are Form 5 students

of the advanced level, the scaffolding method was not similar as to how I would scaffold weak

students. I gave them the liberty to demonstrate their understanding of the topic but at the same

time, I corrected them whenever they made mistakes.

For the third level, which is the critical reflection, I value the racial unity that exists in

Malaysia. When choosing the teaching materials, I avoided any issues that could provoke racial

sensitivity. The content of my material were general which revolved around the topic of

teenagers. I also avoid humiliating my students when their answers were wrong, instead I opened

the discussion with the class so that the focus was not anymore on that student. Knowing how

huge my influence could be on my students, whose self-esteem was very fragile especially in the

teenage phase, I believe respecting my students is important.

In reflecting on myself as a teacher, I realised that I am unable to handle stress well. This

refers to the incident with my teaching material which has been mentioned earlier. Following

that incident, three small incidents took place. First, I put the pressure on one student to finish up

answering the rest of the question. Then, unintentionally I ignored other student who also wanted

to answer the question. The third incident was when I cut my explanation short because I wanted

to quickly finish the presentation stage. Besides, I hold the belief that as the teacher, I should

keep a certain distance with my students to show that I am at a higher level compared to them. I

did this because I want the students to respect me as their teacher. I was not joking around or

lowered my English proficiency level when talking to them. Keeping my standard level of

English is also important to establish my image as the English language teacher.

Part III: Reflection based on Peer’s Feedback

Although I thought that I was fully prepared on the day of my macroteaching session, it is

only after I received comments from my peers that I know how I truly performed. I received a lot

of constructive feedbacks from my peers regarding my teaching which I might have not noticed

on my own.

Among the feedbacks that I received was concerning on how I handled my students’

participation. One of my friend said that I missed out on the student who volunteered to answer

because I already had someone else in my mind to call out. Another comment that I received was

although I did asked for a volunteer, I did not give the students enough ‘wait time’, before I

quickly called out a name. Another weakness was how I conducted the role play activity. My

friend pointed out that the activity was focused only on the two pairs of students who

participated in the role play. So, other students did not get the chance to collaboratively

participate and they were only sitting laid back while waiting for their friends who were

struggling in front of the class to come out with a role play.

I also received feedbacks about the teaching materials that I used. Despite the little

‘disaster’ that happened in the first activity, my peers commented that I did a good job varying

the types of material used. Among the materials used were video, manila card, whiteboard, and

PowerPoint slides. The comments that I received from my friends were mostly positive such as

“very interesting video”, “text is well-organised”, “a variety of media is used”, and “handouts

are neat, uniform, and systematic”. For the content of my lesson, the feedbacks that I received

were about the insufficient elaboration on the ideas presented. Initially, I planned to explain quite

elaborately on the advantages of taking care of personal hygiene and the disadvantages of not

taking care of personal hygiene. However, what I did was I gave very simple explanation on each

idea. This was because I was quite nervous and my mind was cluttered. Somehow, I thought that

I will be running out of time if I explained everything on the whiteboard.

Indeed, peer’s feedback The issue about students’ participation did not come to my mind when I

was conducting the lesson. However, there are quite a number of comments addressing this

issue. In the future, I will make sure that I wait long enough before I pick a student. Instead of

allowing only a few students to participate in the role play, I could assign the roles according to

groups. This way, all students will be involved actively. If this lesson were to be conducted in the

real classroom, with real students, their learning may be affected and they may not be able to

fully comprehend the topic due to my poor time management. Next time, I need to have a backup

plan in case something went wrong

Discussion

Learning process

Reflective practice does not just benefit the teachers and the students, but the learning

process as well. Being a reflective practitioner could affect the learning process whereby the

lesson conducted will become more effective. When the teacher constantly reflects on his

teaching practice, eventually, he will be able to recognise which learning strategies, learning

styles, methods, as well as types of material that work best for the students.

On top of that, regularly reflecting one’s teaching practise can help the teacher to adjust

the advancement of the lesson to suit the students’ learning pace. The pace of learning varies

according to each student in a classroom. Hence, reflecting on how different students react to the

lesson can provide a guide for the teacher to determine the best method to address this issue so

that no student will be left out during the lesson.

When a teacher reflects, misconception during the lesson could be traced (Tripp, 1993).

An effective teacher will backtrack and correct the misconception so that the students will get the

accurate understanding.

Teaching is an indefinite practice whereby the teacher needs to determine the course of action

that needs to be taken based on the teacher’s own interpretation of the situation (Tripp, 1993).

However, there is no single ‘right answer’ to determine whether the action taken by the teacher is

appropriate or not. Yet, whatever decision made by the teacher is bound to affect the students’

well-being. This is why reflective practice is an important instrument for the teachers to reflect

and improve their professional judgement. Reflecting on teaching practice provides the teacher

with insights on how to improve his teaching practice to yield maximum outcome from the

lesson. Being reflective too benefit the students in a way that their needs will be better addressed.

Not just that, the learning process will also be improved to meet the students’ need