Reemsaqer TP’s Weblog

Sunday, November 4th was my first day in the Teaching Practice in Al Wahda School which is located in a place called Al Qarayen in Sharjah.  Before beginning my day in the school, I encountered a problem with the bus I was supposed to go to the school by because of the rush hour and therefore I arrived quite late which disappointed me in the morning, yet the day after that was full of excitement.   I wish if I get my driving license soon.  When I went to the school I noticed that it has students and teachers who mostly are from Arabic countries such as the UAE, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Syria.  However, there is an English teacher who is from Britain to teach primary students the English subject.  The school is devided in to seperate boys and girls section but in primary they are mixed even the entrance and exit areas are separated. 

Al Wahda School buildings

I was happy to be welcomed by Mr. Mohammad, the manager of the IT department who later on took me to the computer lab.  In that class, I was extremely delighted to see the KG students coming in a neat queue and completely engaged in the web-based activity about finding out the place of numeral keys in the keyboard via using PCs.  Even more when I discovered that the learning process had a constructivist approach where the learning was basically very student-centered and pair work with means exchanging information between each other.  On the other hand, I was disappointed because there were not adequate resources in the lab such as chairs and headphones (Imagine two children sitting in the same chair!).

In the next two classes of Mathematics and Science, I was amazed to see the teachers were using the smart board to teach their lessons about human resources and addition and subtraction which eased delivering the information actively.  Furthermore, I enjoyed attending the Science class as the teacher was contextualizing the lesson for the learners by going to the playground before answering the textbook questions as the students will be more likely to remember the information afterwards.  I was delighted to see her operating the smart board effectively by underlining, drawing simple graphics and giving clear instructions for the students bearing in mind punishing those who were not to be models for the class.  I was sad to know that the students couldn’t yet write their names let alone reading simple-structured texts.  Whereas, the math teacher was not able to log on to the computer and therefore not being able to use the smart board which means as I believe, she ought to check the materials before beginning the new lesson as well as not giving clear instructions for the whole class which created a lot of noise.  Finally, when I had a tour with Mr. Muneer, my SST, and was disappointed to see some high-grade students showing disrespect for their teachers.

                  1                                              2

1. The students and the teachers looking to the environment

2. The teachers used the smart board effectively by drawing some graphics

In the end of the day, I was satisfied when my SST sat with my peers and gave us feedback in order to negotiate some important strategies and plans we are expected to achieve such as attending seminars and getting a schedule.