​PERSONAL REFLECTION

PROFESSIONAL SKILLS I HAVE LEARNT FROM THE PRACTICUM

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At my previous university, I had the opportunity to take part in a few field excursions and internship programs while I was an undergraduate student. However, the practicum of this TESOL course could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me because I could obtain assessment skills, planning skills, communication skills, cultural competency skills, and leadership skills via this valuable practicum.

 

To begin with, my assessment skills could be improved throughout the practicum. This can be explained by the fact that when I observed my peers’ microteaching presentations, not only could I identify their strengths and weaknesses, but I could also assess their students’ ability to understand, speak, read, and write in English. To be more specific, when carefully observing one of my peers’ microteaching presentations related to grammar about past continuous and past simple tenses, I found out that although she was well-prepared for the lesson, her students were not really engaged in it. And I thought one of the reasons for this could be the fact that she taught the grammar points in a traditional way - a deductive approach. This means that she taught English starting by giving learners rules about past continuous and past simple tenses, then giving examples, and then practicing. In my opinion, it is a teacher-centered approach to presenting new content, which can not make the students develop the power of thinking in English. In other words, they can become mentally lazy. More significantly, via various observations, I can assess that even though NTU students’ ability to understand, speak, read, and write in English is not good enough now, I strongly believe that their ability could be gradually improved if teachers apply appropriate approaches and methods, and students are willing to practice English frequently. Therefore, it is obvious that the practicum helped me enhance my assessment skills.

 

Secondly, my planning skills could be also increased thanks to the practicum. Specifically, different planning skills, which involved planning micro teaching lessons, planning seminars, and planning the gala, were sharpened. In terms of planning micro teaching lessons, as a team leader, I assigned specific tasks related to lesson plans, and PowerPoint slides to my group members. Besides that, not only did I track the group's working progress but I also went through plans for each activity for the last time before sending them to the supervisor. Another important point I always keep in mind is that rehearsing with my team members is extremely necessary to be able to have a rewarding result in micro-teaching. As for planning seminars, our group was responsible for designing a poster. I assigned different tasks to different group members. To be precise, I divided my group into three small groups, one of which was in charge of the content of the poster. Meanwhile, another group was responsible for double-checking and designing the poster. Then, the other group was in charge of presenting the poster. With regard to planning the gala, I scheduled to send an invitation letter to a lecturer of NTU, Ms.Hoa, after which I picked her up at her house so that she could participate in the GALA with us. So, it is clear that my planning skills could be improved via this practicum.

 

In addition, the practicum provided me with a golden opportunity to practice communication skills. In fact, when joining the TESOL course at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities, I had little chance to make an intimate conversation with my peers or my lecturers because I had a tight schedule to follow, and sometimes I felt so exhausted that I became lazy to start a conversation with others. However, thanks to the practicum, I suddenly got to know a wide range of new friends with unknown talents and preferences. Although there was some misconnection at first, I was very grateful for their willingness to cooperate, lessening my pressure. I realized that effective communication is beneficial for creating better relationships, helping handle conflicts better, building empathy, increasing self-awareness, and building trust.

 

Moreover, my cultural competency skills could be improved via the practicum. Particularly, my intercultural awareness was considerably increased when I had a wonderful opportunity to practice teaching English to non-English-majored students at NTU, where most of the students are quite shy and not willing to share their ideas and experiences. This was an unforgettable experience for me because I just had the chance to work with students in Ho Chi Minh City before, where a majority of students are active and ready to raise their voices in my English class even if they are not proficient in English. Despite this difference, I still feel that NTU students are very friendly. And more importantly, they always show their respect to me during and after class even though I am just a student teacher. I realized that cultural competence was of extreme significance for the following reasons.

 

Firstly, it helps me improve my communication with NTU students although we have different backgrounds and personalities. Secondly, it helps me increase my diversity awareness. In other words, it facilitates my open-mindedness towards NTU students’ traditions and lifestyles, allowing me to easily tolerate their different ideas or perspectives when they share any different ideas or views in class. For example, when I asked NTU students about their hobbies, I was willing to listen to and accept their ideas which might be totally different from mine.

 

More significantly, I strongly believe that when I raise my intercultural awareness, I can become a role model for my students including NTU students, and educate them as the next generation that they need to promote their acceptance, tolerance, and respect in order to amplify comprehensive awareness of the value of embracing different cultures. 

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Finally, the practicum provided me with a golden chance to sharpen my leadership skills. To be more specific, I had never realized how challenging leadership skills were until I became a student leader. The workload was much heavier than I had previously imagined. However, thanks to this, I learned how to distribute and assign tasks to my beloved group members appropriately. Also, tracking the working progress of other people was sometimes more troublesome than doing it by myself; however, the result was more fruitful and impressive because I had more than one brain by my side. Furthermore, since I was the one who knew almost every information, I got the whole picture of every activity. Therefore, I am quite confident that I am likely to know how to organize seminars and gala events in the upcoming time if I have a chance. Most importantly, I realized that a good leader is a person who should be adaptable and responsible. In other words, if I am a leader, I should be adaptable to unexpected situations, and be responsible for what I said and did.

 

In conclusion, I highly appreciate that the faculty has included the Practicum course in the TESOL program. The practicum provided me with invaluable experiences as my various skills including assessment skills, planning skills, communication skills, cultural competency skills, and leadership skills, are achieved. More importantly, I was welcomed to do tasks, make mistakes, and learn from mistakes.