TEACHING METHODS OF THE COOPERATING TEACHER

Known to be the major source of education, schools are expected to provide adequate and functional materials and experiences for the purpose of maximizing the students’ potential leading towards individual’s growth and society’s development as well. However, the school remains as a plain structure alone without people who will work for its functionality. Thus, the presence of knowledgeable and skilled teachers is a must. With this, it is foreseen that the respective teachers have the capacity of employing the right combination of teaching methods that will suit each and every student and the class as a whole.

Given the specific span of time for observation, the following constitutes the list of the teaching methods used by Mr. Nutthaphob Sungrung, an English teacher during his English classes at VRU Demonstration School:

a) INSTRUCTOR/TEACHER-CENTERED METHOD

This method was employed in all his English classes. He usually begins new topics by relaying factual information which includes principles, concepts, ideas, and all theoretical knowledge necessary. On one of the lessons he conducted about present perfect tense, he began teaching by describing what present perfect tense is. He went further by explaining all the related concepts the students must be able to know through listening and understanding. He was very active in doing all the talking while the students remained as passive receivers of the content. According to him, since most of the Thai students have difficulty in the usage of the English language, he does most of the teaching-learning tasks primarily the giving of lectures. Since he was also aiming for an immediate transmission of information considering that the class lasts for only 50 minutes except for double period classes which lasts for more than an hour, the teacher-centered method appears to be more convenient for him.

It was quite an advantage that the teacher knows how to speak English, however, it seemed that little or no attention was given to students’ differentiated needs as well as their attention span. Some students were very attentive at the beginning and were so constant in raising their hands but after a while, they obviously got bored and became inattentive. Furthermore, the flow of the discussion seemed to lack organization. The discussions also lack the use of sufficient learning materials and visual aids which may be of great help for keeping students’ attention. I saw various materials at what they call as the English Room but none of those materials was used.

b) DISCOVERY/RESEARCH-BASED METHOD

Giving learners the opportunity to seek answer for themselves develops a number of skills such as inquisitiveness, independence, and resourcefulness. In some of the classes that I have observed, the teacher let the students do their own researches beforehand and engage in further researches every after a lesson is presented. For the researches done before a certain lesson, the teacher makes use of the first few minutes of the class to call the students randomly to share and write on the board everything that they have researched about the given topic. Afterwards, the teacher checks which of the given answers are correct and which are not. He then explains what makes each answer correct and gives the reason why some of the answers are not considered. The teacher continues to the class by discussing more about the given information through series of lectures and then an objective type of test is given every after the entire discussion.

The utilization of this method incorporated with the lecture method was good, but not in all aspects of learning especially when the students give answers which they think are correct but were not accepted but insufficient amount of explanation was given. Preferably, learner-centered methods might have been more effective for learning instead of a plain discussion. Moreover, the fact that students still need more support in learning the lessons and the language itself, giving them guide questions may also be a consideration so as not to mislead them and cause any confusions.