Reflection on the course "Communication Skills for Teachers"

Throughout the course, the notion of Purpose, Audience and Context (PAC) has been emphasised many times, in both oral and written communication. This has influenced the way I organise my writing, I now pay closer attention to the tone and register while making sure that the content is presented clearly in a neat structure. This was put into good practice during the oral presentation test because it comprised of both writing the speech and its delivery. As the topics given were very diverse, I was able to observe how my classmates speak while giving appropriate gestures, pertaining to the specific context. Our audiences vary from students, parents, colleagues and even the Principal for my case. All these could well be useful for me when I teach in a school next year. 

Besides that, the module on pronunciation has taught me the correct pronunciations and the proper syllables to stress certain words. Among the commonly-mispronounced words, “biology” was one of them and as a beginning Biology teacher, it is important that I get it right! Other words like “opportunity”, “morale” and “divorce” sounded strange when I first heard our tutor pronounced it. We have heard so often the mispronunciations of these words that they became the conventional ones and their actual pronunciations ended up becoming foreign. Nonetheless, I believe that it will eventually become natural after I make conscious effort to pronounce them correctly.   

On writing student report cards and testimonials, I have learnt a useful tip that will allow me to write meaningful comments for the students. As our tutor has rightly put, the average students in the class are the ones whom the teacher will find most difficulty in commenting on because they would be easily “overshadowed” by their more outstanding or the more problematic classmates. Therefore, it would be good to keep notes of individual students throughout the year and these notes should include his or her academic performance, strengths in CCA, as well as observations of the student’s overall behavior in school.

With regard to the online module on voice projection and vocal health, the videos were very informative. As teachers, we will be using our voice all the time, it is thus important that we take good care of it. When I teach in the near future, I will ensure that I do warm-up exercises before going for classes. I will not repeat the same mistake that I did during my ESE: to put on a brave face when I was on the verge of losing my voice due to flu and the students had to put up with my frequent throat-clearing and awful voice.