NAME: ZURAIMI BIN MOHD ZUBER

INSTITUTION: POLITEKNIK SULTAN IDRIS SHAH

ASSESSMENT: COURSE LEARNING LOG (20%)

Nowadays, due to being busy with other tasks aside from teaching, teachers always overlook at the
importance of improving their teaching skills and are reluctant to join courses that can improve their
teaching quality. This has caused stagnancy in their learning experience and professional development.
Realizing the importance of learning new things and improving my teaching quality, I applied for and
joined a two week course namely Specialist Certificate in Developing Oracy Skills. This learning log is
written to share four important items that I have learnt throughout the course.
This learning log provides detailed descriptions the four learning items exposed by the trainers and
experienced by me as one of the course participants. This humble piece of writing also explains the
impact of the items on me as an English lecturer in Politeknik Sultan Idris Shah and also on my learning
experience. There are four items that I have acquired throughout the course;

Portfolio
In the beginning of the course, I was exposed to portfolio, where I can document my knowledge, skills
and experience in teaching. The trainers did a brainstorming on the importance, the items that should
be included in a portfolio and how a portfolio can help me improve my teaching profession. I do not
have a record of activities I carried out and the materials I used in teaching. Therefore, it is not easy for
me to locate them when I want to use them every time new academic semester starts. I believe that
having a portfolio can help me organize activities and my teaching materials.
Besides, a portfolio can also be used as a record for reflective purposes. I can record problems I face in
teaching, the possible causes and ways to overcome them. This can help me improve my teaching
quality as well as to achieve the objectives in teaching and learning. Besides, it can also serve as
evidence of my entire teaching career. If I were to get promoted or going for a better offer, I can use my
portfolio to show what I have being doing and how I progress throughout my career. It therefore, can
serve as a motivation for me in improving myself in my career.

Listen to Speak
At times, I have the tendency to limit listening activities to only answering questions on worksheets or
carrying out tasks. I neglected the fact that listening activity can create a passage for speaking, which is a
productive skill. Often, I did not connect listening activities to speaking thinking that it is difficult to do
so. However, this course has enlightened me on how easy it actually is. The lecturers asked us to listen
to a listening text (Business Nationwide), jot down the details and take turns to carry out a role play
based on what we listened to. This activity is easy to carry out, is fun, and is able to make students
aware of vocabularies and structures needed for a speaking situation.
Another important aspect that I learnt from this activity is the importance of modeling the activity (role
play) before asking the students carry it out themselves. I often overlook the modeling and asked my
students to carry out an activity without having an example on how to do carry it out. This has left my
students with misunderstanding and confusion. As a result they were not able to carry out the task the
way I needed them to. Having carried out the activity myself, I understand that it is very important to
model any activities I want my students to carry out before having them do it.

Empathy towards the Learners
Most of the activities carried out by the trainers throughout the course involved the participants to put
themselves in the shoes of the learners. This was done by having the participants experience listening
activities and reflect on the problems (hurdles) they faced as a listener as well as how to overcome
them. This has allowed me to understand the difficulties learners face in listening activities or
assessments. I have become more empathic towards my students and am more aware of problems they
face.
I also believe that this activity can help other English lecturers in my department in teaching listening.
Some of my colleagues tend to blame the students for not being able to perform in listening tests or
activities. This is because they fail to understand students problem in listening. Therefore, I believe that
if I carry out the same activity with them, they will understand their students more and will think of
ways to help overcome problems in listening.

Process Approach to Teaching Listening
Perhaps the main problem that I face in teaching listening to my students is that the syllabus does not
specify the components or the micro skills in listening that should be taught to students. Therefore, I
have the tendency to teach the way I like as long as they listen and show that they understand. Having
taught them that way, I realized that quite a number of my students are still left behind in the activities.
They dont understand at all.
After being exposed to activities like Unpacking Meaning, Brain Twister, Your Action Please I believe
this course has been planned based on process approach the same way we are expected to teach
listening skills. The stated activities has made me realize that there are micro skills in listening which
include using prior knowledge to understand things they listened to, listening for main ideas, listening
for specific details, making inferences and making predictions. It has made me realized that I have not
taught my students through the right process of listening. I believe that if I have these activities carried
out, step by step with my students, they will be able to become a more effective and critical listeners.