QLK520 Communication Skills Reflection

To what extent do you think you will be able to apply what you have learnt in this course to your future teaching career?

- Please answer in terms of the communicative skills you have learnt as well as the "blended aspects" - the online and F2F elements of the course.

- Support your answer with examples if possible.

This course enables me to learn how to apply the different aspects of effective communication skills that will sufficiently prepare me for my future teaching career. These aspects include pronunciation, voice production and vocal health, oral communication, written communication and classroom communication.

The 'pronunciation' module helps me as a student teacher to be more aware of myself as a role model for my future students to emulate and so it is important for me to speak in Standard Singapore English. Common pronunciation problems are highlighted during the lessons and I am now abled to refer to the dictionary and the International Phonetics Chart if I encounter any word problems in terms of pronunciation and word stresses.

As for the 'voice production and vocal health' module, the significance and importance of efficient voice production and vocal health are pointed out to me. I learnt to take good care of my vocal cords and to increase voice projection because as a teacher, they are my main working tool and I will be using them for hours in my everyday teaching. Therefore, I must be wary of not overworking and straining them. I also find the detailed and comprehensive videos useful as references for my learning. These videos provides information on breathing, posture, vocal support and vocal techniques.

I remember 'oral communication' to be a nerve-wrecking module. This is due to the oral communication test that we were required to do but it was a good exercise for me to practise giving a speech, which will be something that teachers do often in their teaching career. I learnt how to give more effective presentations and to be clear with the content, purpose and tone. I learnt skills to communicate better with the people whom I will come into close contact with during my school career, such as my colleagues, students and their parents. In addition, I also grew to be more careful not to use fillers in my speech as they tend to distract the audience and will make my presentations seem less professional and ill prepared.

On the other hand, the module on 'written communication' is similar to the 'oral communication' module, just that it is done through a different medium. Here, I have learnt how to draft an effective and proper email and written feedback for our students.

Finally, there is the 'classroom communication' module, which exposes me to the ways in which I can promote inquiry to help students develop critical thinking, scaffold their learning and also provides me with strategies on classroom management. During lessons, I also get to explore various roles that a teacher undertakes in classroom interaction, namely the communicator, leader, manager and facilitator, and how doing so effectively will help promote learning in students.

As a result, I think the skills I have learnt from this course are very essential and invaluable in the daily interactions that I will be experiencing in my teaching career.

Reflection on the Implemented Curriculum and its Representative Perspectives.

The implemented curriculum is representative of the perspectives through a well-designed syllabus that helps teachers like me scaffold student development. Through a series of classroom activities, life skills can be learned. These include critical inquiry and thinking skills from evaluating and interpreting information that requires students to make inferences, analyse evidence and compare and contrast views before making well-informed judgements. With further guidance from the teacher and together with the knowledge and understanding that comes with the acquisition of the above-mentioned skills, the right values and attitudes will also be instilled and students will grow into all-rounded citizens.

My idea of a good citizen will enable me to understand the bigger concept behind teaching the theme, managing international relations, which is to inform students of their role as a global citizen of the world and not restricted to being concerned with local issues. They need to understand the causes of conflicts among nations and also understand the role and relevance of regional and international organisations in terms of building diplomatic relationships, especially for a small country like Singapore. From here, it is important that students recognise that they can actively participate and contribute to our country’s peace and stability through a variety of methods. Such an understanding can be cultivated through interactive lessons and class discussions from which they constructively apply what they have learnt and get used to being vocal about their thoughts on national and global issues. In addition to that, such interactions will also allow students to be more mindful and sensitive to each other.

Social studies is current affairs. As such, there are definitely limitations to the printed textbook and only serves to be mainly informative with the underlying intention to inculcate values and skills. Therefore, I will be supplementing my lessons with materials from other sources such as the media, newspapers and even social networking sites. Students will then find the subject to be more relatable. For example, it is possible for me to hold a discussion on the recent territorial dispute between Japan and China over the ownership of the Senkaku or Diaoyu island with background information from newspaper articles like the Straits Times (http://www.straitstimes.com/the-big-story/asias-disputed-islands/story/asian-territory-disputes-could-trigger-war-panetta-201209) or evaluate the reliability of sources like videos on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uphmMnppCLY).

In order to implement this into the curriculum due to possible time constraints, students can be guided into doing more self-directed learning on certain sections of their textbooks through the use of worksheets to scaffold their learning and sources for the same sections can also be gathered and provided to them from external sources to further enhance their understanding.

Reflection on the dominant perspective in the social studies syllabus and the textbook.

With reference to the Westheimer and Kahne article (2004), it appears that the dominant perspective reflected in the syllabus and textbook is to educate students into becoming justice-oriented citizens.

Most of the content in the textbook first encourages student inquiry through critically thinking about the importance of nation building and the major problems that can arise from various conflicts. For example, the first chapter serves to point out the factors that distinguishes a nation from a state or country, the different challenges that Singapore faced when we first gained independence and our role as citizens in all of these. This sets the groundwork for the following chapters to come, where each chapter focuses on a particular issue and the influence and impact that it can have on the lives of every individual. From here, having stimulated students into coming up with solutions for the problems mentioned, the content then invariably veer into the role of the government in the matter and the measures taken to resolve conflicts. This can be observed in the second chapter, where it immediately states the importance of good governance in overcoming these challenges, the parliamentary system of the Singapore government and examples of policies carried out to overcome certain issues.

As such, it can be deduced that the textbook content educates students into being personally responsible citizens by encouraging actions of responsible behaviour towards their community and the aims and values reflected in the syllabus have also been matched. However, the bulk of it relies on highlighting matters of injustice and stimulating understanding and analytical skills in students about the interrelations among the community, the economy and politics to improve society. These are factors that make up a justice-oriented citizen. Hence, it appears that the orientation towards developing a participatory citizen is absent as there is very little or no mention of the importance of the planning and participation in organising help for the needy and how the government works with other community based institutions.

Reflection on Citizenship

What are my beliefs about citizenship?

Citizenship is having a sense of belonging towards the country. That should then naturally result in a certain level of patriotism and the desire to play the part of a good citizen.

Before being given the opportunity to teach Social Studies, I regret that I was not as interested and informed as I should have been in current affairs, including that of Singapore's. To me, being a good citizen back then was just to abide by the laws of the state and do what is expected of me as a good person and citizen.

However, now that I have been more exposed to the concepts behind Social Studies and having read the article written by Westheimer and Kahne, I find that my beliefs in the past are more of just simply being a "personally responsible citizen" and staying comfortable where I am at - mainly uninvolved and contented.

The impact that the article left on me was rather profound. It made me think about stepping out of my comfort zone and explore options of being a more "participatory" and "justice-oriented" citizen instead. It is fundamental to be personally responsible, but upon achieving that, I believe that a good citizen should then move on to being more concerned about the government and other institutions and taking on a more actively participating role in the planning and organising of events to care for people in need. Concurrently, this should also be carried out with the desire to address root causes of societal problems through analysing and assessing the different structures of the society, economy and politics and the way they relate to one another. With that knowledge, citizens can then come up with effective strategies to challenge the injustice in society and efficiently change things for the better.

It does seem like a long and arduous journey to becoming this vision of an ideal citizen. Yet, having mentioned this, a good citizen will then already be defined by his effort and the willingness to try.

Educational Psychology.

The Institute actually conducts pretty interesting modules, it's enjoyable just sitting in and listening.

One of these modules is educational psychology. I've always been fascinated by how the human mind works and this module helps to put certain things, that anyone may understand from life experience and observation, into clearer perspectives. This is achieved through theoretical explanations such as the Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory..

We all know that teachers play an important role in the development of their students. But now, we know for sure that teachers' significance lies right in the microsystem, according to the theory. And that actually means that as teachers, we directly impact students on the same level as their parents!

Wow!

Such responsibility!

Theories like this help to guide student teachers like myself in having clear mindsets and attitudes towards teaching in future. And I personally find them to be very essential in preparing me for my role upon leaving The Institute.

An Introduction to 20th Century Music

Today's recommended listening is Penderecki's Threnody for the Hiroshima Victims.

I actually stumbled on this piece while doing my readings for my Teaching Music as an Examination Subject module in..The Institute.

Just a fair warning, it is not easy on the ears and it can be unsettling right from the very start. Not for the faint-hearted, especially if you choose to close your eyes and listen. Yet I appreciate it because I'm impressed by Penderecki's ability to manipulate the orchestral instruments into creating such realistic sounds that seem to put one in the very heart of the scenario he was trying to create through this composition.

On top of helping me visualise the bombing through his music in my head as I listened, I actually sensed fear.

Also interesting to watch how this particular video walks the audience through the original musical score of the piece and enables one to appreciate Penderecki's interesting 20th Century music notation.

An additional piece of trivia: Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood is a fan of Penderecki and has written and performed compositions inspired by the latter.

For more information on Penderecki, visit his myspace page here.

My Second Entry.

Okay, so I'm still in the early testing stages to see how NIeFolio works and I just thought that I should make this current showing blog page on the site seem a little more dynamic.

As a music teacher-to-be, here's sharing an amazing video recording done by a musician. It's something I saw a few weeks back and apparently uploaded only a month ago.

Hope you enjoy this as much as I did and still do.

For more information on Mike Tompkins, his music and videos, visit here.

My Very First Entry.

hello.

(that was pretty innovative, wasn't it?)