Identifying the academic and Behavioural Support Needs of Teachers Dissertation - 1

Identifying the academic and Behavioural Support Needs of Teachers Teaching in LINUS classrooms in Malaysia - Dissertation Example Professional development is very essential in supporting teachers teaching in LINUS classrooms in Malaysia in the sense that the teachers feel motivated and appreciated for their effort as it will be discussed in this chapter. 2.2 The Effectiveness of Screening According to Mohd Sham Hamid (2012; p. 7) there is total faith in the literacy and numeracy screenings programme in Malaysia. The LINUS programme conducts screening on the student’s literacy and numeracy ability, hence giving room for learning institutions to identify pupils who are weak. There is a distinction between the former system and LINUS. With LINUS, teachers are in a position to distinguish excellent students from the less excellent ones. This gives an avenue for the teachers to comprehend the exposure of knowledge of the weaker students. By understanding the knowledge level, it helps the participants to formulate extra plans to enhance the ability of the students while concentrating on the prescribed LINUS pr ogram which was established by the Ministry of education. According to Mohd Sham Hamid (2012; p. 7), the teacher normally depended on the same component and method of teaching but this was broken down by LINUS programme. The same method cannot be used to train children in a learning environment as some of the methods have a poor standard of comprehending the subject and hence require extra attention (Cohen, & Spenciner, 2007; p. 13). In such a condition the teacher will not be in a position to know whether the pupil is weak till the pupil takes the exam and scores below average or fails the exam. By this time the student will have advanced to the next stage and will still be left behind as the topic gets tougher to go through. The LINUS curriculum has a complex set of subjects for all levels of learning. There are pupils who are in a position to identify the alphabetical order after seven months of continuous recitation. These students can be discovered after sitting for the LINUS s creening tests. Extra attention can now be administered to these students in class. Learning in this environment is made more interactive and more of fun by use of music and activities to assist the pupils understand the subject more easily. There are times when issues of absenteeism and other uphill tasks which might derail the process of indentifying weaker children or helping them through the stated topic more challenging. Remedial lessons can be helpful if given keen attention with the use of specialized modules in enabling the pupils to deal with the learning challenges to a particular level. The education office through the Malaysian ministry of education gives abundant support by providing books of reference and usually giving supervision to the LINUS curriculum in the school. Currently, pupils from both year one and year two inclusive of the weaker students are reported to be going through the LINUS curriculum classes where teachers use laptops, charts, books, and flashcards as teaching aids. This has seen a remarkable improvement in the performance of the pupils over the recent time period (Pliszka, et al, 2007; p. 897). 2.3 The Significance of LINUS In ensuring that some of the programs are executed for the present school year, implementation of the programs is already underway. The first semi-annual implementation has seen the

Transition Periods Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Transition Periods - Essay Example How children react to transiting situations and how their teachers deal with them at such situations. According to the example in the article, the teacher feels helpless when he is unable to change children from playing to cleaning. These children would not listen to the clean up time voice from the keyboard because according to them their play time should continue endlessly. The reason as to why they feel that way is because they have recognized and adapted to the game time. The author states that children should be left alone to deal with transition periods so as to grow up only after ensuring that the classrooms activities are satisfying and age appropriate. The reason as to why children feel stressed up during transition period is because they feel uneasy, anxious and threatened by unpredictable situations. They feel more comfortable when faced with a predictable situation that they can quickly determine the outcome. Teachers also feel anxious when faced with transitional situations. They also prefer ongoing situations than unlikely situations that keep them worrying if everything is okay. The report also states various factors that lead to transitional anxiety including boredom. Waiting builds up anxiety, even the most composed children with good manners gets anxious when they are forced to wait. Insistence on uniformity, when children are forced to move uniformly, they get anxious and mostly they act in accordance with the way their teachers did when they were anxious. Unclear future also causes anxiety because children get scared to perform a task they are not familiar with or are not sure of its outcome. Most children fear failure. They get scared of a task if there is a probability of failure especially if the teacher has to be using praise on those children who do well. Clarification of tasks helps to reduce stress during the transition. When children know exactly what they are expected to do and the results that will come out of such a task,