Introduction

My name is Yeat Nai Jiun, I had been working in the childcare environment for

the past seven years and still enjoyed working with young children. I came to know

from my ex-colleague G I G educational centre does provide this course. When I

checked out the programme and looked at more information about the classes, it

straight caught my attention and interest to enrol in Diploma of Educational Studies

– Early Years Enrichment Education as in containing most of the modules which I

wanted to learn the most.

Speech Development and Creative Drama

My first module was speech development and creative drama. My short time

spent in this class has been so much fun, yet it has helped me grow so much as

an educator. The strategies that I have learned in this course have provided me

with valuable tools when developing personal classroom management strategies

and teaching a variety of learning styles. I recognized that creative drama

strategies were effective classroom management strategies as I observed how my

students engaged and responded to the conducted lessons where I integrated

creative drama strategies.

I have learnt that to be able to speak clearly and articulate each syllable

correctly, breathing techniques and our articulators include the teeth, lips, tongue,

jaw and palate play a vital role. As so I have tried some fun breathing exercises and

articulation exercises such as fish breath, imagine chewing bubble gum, licking ice

cream, or blowing a bubble gum exercise, etc. as an icebreaker before the lesson

or brain break games in the mid of the teaching. My class children were all giggled
 and laughed while working on these exercises. Through this engaging exercise not

only helped my class children to strengthen and stretch the muscles involved in

speech. It also enabled them to warm up their vocal apparatus, build up an

atmosphere where children felt comfortable to share ideas and expressing

themselves.

One of the activities which I conducted with my four years old students were

choral speaking. I used short and simple words poem “pop, pop, popcorn” which

was easy for children to read and comprehend. First, I bought a box of popcorn to

show the children. Children were excitedly said “popcorn” as I showed them the box.

Together, the children and I had a small sharing session about popcorn. Then, I

introduced children the “popcorn” poem which they will be choral reading. I read the

poem to the children, and everyone followed and read through the poem aloud. I

also incorporate some vocal, facial expression and group action to make the choral

speaking interesting for the children. Once the children familiar with the poem, I

divided them into small groups and encouraged each group children to recite the

poem in unison with others. The result was remarkable when I observed some timid

children willing to step up and did their choral speaking for an audience without

hesitance. Although their voice was slightly soft or even being covered up by the

other children from the same group, it was a joy to see them have the courage to

come out from their comfort zone and present in front of a group of people.

Phonics

The second module which I took was Phonics. It has been an eye-opener for

me. I always thought that phonics only involved letter sounds and we need to blend it.

After studied this course, I realized phonics means a program of instruction for helping

children identify and pronounce sound- symbols pattern as they were seen in complete
words. To do so, children need to be familiar with the vowel/ consonant sound patterns

and also thoroughly acquainted with some basic phonics generalisations such as

vowel generalisation, consonant generalisation, etc.

As an English teacher, I introduced phonics to children by teaching them all

the letter sounds as there were the essential tools in helping children to read. I used

the songs and actions from Jolly Phonic to teach children the letter sounds. Random

testing of the letter sounds was also critical as some children tend to memorize the

sounds but were not able to recognize the symbols. I used alphabet flashcard and

incorporate some games to help children in revising letter sounds. For example, I

placed the alphabets into an envelope and asked the child to sound the letter he/ she

picks. Children were excited and volunteered themselves to come and choose a letter.

Some children can’t recall the letter sound, and I gave them some hints like the action

for the letter sound or the head start of the letter songs to help them remember the

letter sound. This method works most of the time; otherwise letter sounds drilling also

able to help children mastered the letter sounds.

Music and Movement

In this module, I have learnt that Music and Movement is having different

mixtures of Music Elements (Dynamics, Tempo, Melody etc), Rhythmic

(songs) and Movement (dance) that is used in classroom learning. This leads the child

to have an early appreciation of music and dance and is believed to benefit and

enhance the childhood development.

In my classes (2-year olds), I used singing and dancing to learn about rhythm,

tempo and dynamics. The song I used was "Ring Around the Rosies". The methods

used Direct Approach since they are all very young learners and I wanted them to
enjoy learning the song and actions/gestures with a potential for them to make the

least mistakes. At first, I sang the song as per normal (neither fast nor slow), as the

children and I held hands and went around in a circle in rhythm. We marched along to

the song (e.g: For every beat in the song, we lifted and put down our feet). We also

did simple hand actions (especially when it came to Atishoo! Atishoo!). However, I

slowly increased the speed of my singing, thus increasing the tempo of the song.

Unconsciously, the speed at which the children went around the circle also increased.

Likewise, when I slowed down my singing, and decreased the tempo of the song, the

speed at which the children walked around decreased. Then, I decided to try to play

around with dynamics. I demonstrated to the children that when I sang loudly, I wanted

them to make their steps heavier and to also make their bodies big and round. I told

them to imagine themselves as inflated balloons. When I sang softly and quietly, I

instructed them to pull their limbs in, and to make themselves as small as possible and

to tiptoe along. In this way, I hoped to demonstrated how big my voice sounded when

it was loud and how small it sounded when it went quieter.

In conclusion, these three modules assisted me tremendously in my teaching

career. With the integration of these three module’s knowledge in my teaching

career, I have strived to produce positive results with my group of children and get

them ready for Primary schools. I was truly contented that I have made the right

choice to take up this Diploma in Early Years Enrichment in Speech Development

and Creative Drama, Phonics and Music and Movements which served as a huge

stepping stone for me in this Early Childhood industry. I am also very grateful to all

my lecturers for imparting their wealth of knowledge to us!