Teaching Development

I started teaching at the age of 22 when I just graduated as a substitute teacher, teaching junior secondary students English and Science for a few months. Then, almost two years of teaching Matriculation students at a private college followed by Perak Matriculation College for almost seven years now. In my writing after this, I would refer my teaching period at school as phase 1, Matriculation at private college as phase 2 and Matriculation at a government college as phase 3.

• Phase 1 (Secondary School)
  
  As a degree holder in Chemical Engineering, not education, nervousness conquers all! I presume every new teacher experience having that feeling whilst adapting to the new working environment. My aim at that time was to give good first impression to the young teenagers (Form 1 students).
  
  Good impression?
  
  From my discussion with my husband who is also an educator of Arabic language, to teach a difficult subject (Arabic language is difficult to teach and learn),

“The first easy step to approach students is to make them like you, the educator.”

This really makes sense because even if the students do not like the subject, they will still learn just because they like you. Eventually, sooner or later, when the students understand the concept, they will realize that the subject is not that hard after all.

I guess I did succeed in presenting a warm and approachable personality to the students. They were wonderful - warm and friendly with the teachers. Maybe one the reasons being the students are from rural areas where they still respect teachers no matter how new the teacher is. I believe that was why I enjoyed teaching at this particular school. In terms of workload, of course I found that teachers are given many but still tolerable clerical works from time to time. I guess that’s parts and parcels of a teacher’s life!

I would love to share my knowledge in Chemistry with others. I would like to share my experience in learning, the ways to discover the right way to learn and grasp the concepts of Chemistry. Although at this school I did not get to teach Chemistry (I was a novice after all), teaching science was good enough. To watch them enjoy the lesson, apply the knowledge, give me indescribable satisfaction.

• Phase 2 (private college)

Then, in August the same year, I was offered a job as Matriculation lecturer which deals with adolescents between 17-19 years of age. I had to experiment different approach from sister or mother-like approach to friend-like approach. Teaching here gave me different challenges to what I experienced at previous school. Lecturers have to concentrate more on the content of the subject matter in contrast to dealing with disciplinary problems at school. Lecturers must be very-very articulate on the subject matter. Hence, preparation must be done properly, especially in terms of teaching strategies and techniques.

Another different aspect is the size of the class. At college, teaching and learning is carried in two different sessions, mass lecture and small scale tutorials. Lecture groups are big, comprising from 100-200 students, whereas tutorial can accomodate around 20-30 students at a time.