I was in frenzy learning that I had to attend an interview in a week time. Despite the lack of time, I had not been able to study well. In that short time, I flipped back books, watching news programmes and searching online to look for related information. From the frantic week I had learnt many valuables lessons.
First, as a teacher makes sure you know your thing. Last minutes cover up makes me an incompetent teacher. Learn and know your things such as what your jobs roles and responsibilities, information on your profession, learning new things and equip with related field knowledge. Example I teach English, I should grasp the knowledge of the language and increase my proficiency in that language. I feels bad to be caught in limelight, when I can’t answer questions by pupils, teachers, parents and maybe interviewer.
Second, please apply what you asked your pupils to do. Example during my interview today, we were asked to pass up our files. What we did was individually put the file on the interviewer table. What we got was, is that how you teach your student to manage their homework? We are supposed to get a representative to collect and arrange it according to the sequence to the interviewer. So we actually failed from the beginning of the interview.
Third, please know what you are supposed to do. Seriously, I felt rather pathetic to fall for such an easy thing. The interviewer asked me whether I had read the syllabus specification for Art, being defensive I gave 101 reasons.
I got pinpointed that he said you just need to tell me yes or no. Seriously, I felt rather stupid at the moment. I was said to be reactive, but he said needed to be proactive not reactive, listen well and answer accordingly. But, what surprise me next was others also happened to interviewee. Examples being used to asked us was “Did you do any written work for teaching physical education?” The answer given was “yes, during health education”. It seemed that in Malaysia Physical and Health Education was combined into a subject hence often causes confusion. Well, it seems like something common that many will makes mistake on.
Fourth, please be innovative. The world itself cannot be contained in a box, so do knowledge. Knowledge was interconnected as in teaching itself. Examples being used to asked us was “Did you do any written work for teaching physical education?” Physical Education was mainly regarding as something physical can include elements such as language in term of listening, speaking, reading and writing. How? Listening involved during giving instruction, speaking during pupil giving feedback, reading during certain words appearing during lesson and writing when pupil are being evaluated by writing. Subjects such as values, history, music, mathematics and other subjects can be integrated. A subject itself can be easily integrated as written in both KBSR and KSSR curriculum that focused on this point. So please be innovative and integrate what you can in the lesson to make it more innovative.
Back to being innovative, we were asked a question on “What is set induction?” We came out with all the purpose and techniques being used during set induction. What we received was “I want a general answer, I didn’t ask for purpose and technique.” He came up with lots of examples and asked us can we do set induction with animals and plants. Everyone just silently answer yes. Well, we are asked to give examples of set induction. Some answered dog trainings. It was then we were asked of examples we had learnt, some came up with Pavlov and Skinner behavior theory. In the end, we came to another round of “what is set induction?” Some answered the beginning of something with purpose, some said to prepared and etc. It happened the real answer was the beginning of an interaction. It felt like we came back to the world after making such a huge turn of induction and deduction. We are being commented as limiting our thinking to lesson constraint and couldn't see the big picture. Hence, we should think out of the box.
Many things go on throughout the interview, but what I would like to say here was thank you to the interviewer for such a great lesson for I felt like I had learnt a lot from it than being interview. Don't misunderstood I meant it in a good way. I had got to know some new friends to. Hope that we managed to pass the interview.
