Students Profile:

Name: Lim Jin Boon Date of Birth: 13-2-2002 Place of Birth: Hospital Daerah Segamat Birth Certificate: 020213-01-0287 Religion: Buddha Number of Family Members: 6 Position in Family: Eldest son Mothers Name: Chin Lee Lian Mothers Occupation: Waitress IC Number: 800413-01-5776 Position in School: Assistant Monitor Uniform Body: Scout Society: Malay Language Club: Badmintion Hobby: Swimming Ambition: Chef House Telephone: 06-9510423 Address: 160, Pesta 3, Kg Ken Tun Dr Ismail, 84000, Muar, Johor. 1

A. Case Study: Human development is a continuous process form birth to the stage of adulthood. Changes in the physical aspect are often referred as basic growth while the concept of development is principally explained as changes in the mental and social behaviour. According to Karl Garison as cited by Mok Soon Sang (2003), he considers human development as the result of human action which is related to physical and learning development. Children in the middle childhood at about 6 to 12 years old whose brains are usually fully developed would have acuity in perception and learning. I had done the research on a standard five student. As we can see from the profile above, Lee Jin Boon is standard five and eleven years old this year and he is the eldest son in this family. He has 6 family members in his family there are his mother, grandmother, uncle, and two brothers. His parents had divorced for many years, so he is from an incomplete family which short of one father. As what we can see this student is an assistant monitor in the class selected by his classmates. He takes part in scout uniform body, while the society and club he had chosen are Malay Language and badminton. His hobby is swimming while his ambition is to become a chef. As we know too, his mother worked as waitress in a restaurant, and maybe this one of the reason this student wants to be a chef. These are all about the basic details about the students that I managed to get from his class teacher. Lee Jin Boon is the selected student for me in this assignment. He is a standard five student this year. He is from the middle class in the whole standard. I had a survey with him and I found out that he can speak and just a bit shy. He managed to send the message to me and express his feeling well. Lee is a boy from an incomplete family since his parents had divorced for many years. In my view, every child will follow and copy exactly what their parents did at home. And Lee is a shy boy; he can speak but used to speak in a low voice. He can speak out a complete sentence and managed to tell us more about his detail or biodata very clearly. I had observed him for the whole week. He can speak and mix well with his peer groups and classmates well. He has no any problems in communication or speaking in his daily life. He is the assistant monitor in the class. I had consulted his class teacher and knew that all of his classmates like him very much. He had been selected as the assistant monitor in the class and he can lead the class well maybe this related to his position in his family that he is the eldest

son. He has some leadership skill in this age, and all of his classmates willing to listen his order. Besides, I had surveyed his classmates, about his attitudes and

characteristics in class. Most of them had given a good comment about him like he is a leader, he used to hand in homework punctually and others. According to his standard and age, he supposed can speak well and can express everything well to the others in communication if compared to other standards and the result showed that his level had reached the required age. I found that Lee Jin Boon can communicate well with the others by using the proper words and sentences but just a bit shy by speaking in a low voice when communicate with the strangers like the teachers or other older persons or some other people out of his peer groups maybe he is lack of self confidence since he is form an incomplete family. These are all about his communication level in his 11 years age and standard five levels. Lee Jin Boon is standard five this year, and he had some new subjects and syllabus compared to lower standards. He had writing in his language subjects like Chinese, Malay and English. I had checked the result that get from his form teacher and found out that Lee managed to write out the full essay for all the languages but he just get a low grade in his Malay language subject. If compared to other lower standard like standard one to two, they are unable to write out so many words to form a full essay. He is standard five this year and he managed to write out a full essay. This had fulfilled the level of himself according to his standard and age. He can understand better more languages compared to the other lower standards and his level of progress had reached his age that is 11 years old. I had carried out a survey on him by using Malay language. He managed to understand the language and can give out the correct answer. His language level is reached and had fulfilled his standard. But unfortunately, he can only understand some simple languages which out of his mother tongue, Mandarin. His

result showed that he gets a very low grade in his Malay essay writing. Although he can speak a simple Malay language, he still failed to get a good result in his writing. In his level and standard, he managed to understand some simple foreign languages like English and Malay but he still weak in understanding more complicated and higher level of Malay language. He can speak simple Malay language but not in writing a good full Malay essay. I had asked him the reason and he said he is not interesting in the languages subjects and this is the reason he cannot get well in his language subjects included Chinese. Lee Jin Boon still can fulfill his language level based on his standard.

So, Lee Jin Boon had managed to understand other languages like English and Malay which are out of his mother tongue in simple words and sentences but he still not reached the level of understanding some complicated and higher level of languages. I had mentioned above that, there new syllabus in every subjects for the higher standards which are standard four to six. Same as the Science and Mathematics

subjects, standard five students had learned more complicated Mathematics and Science studies. Lee Jin Boon had scored a high grade in his Maths and Science subjects. I had asked him why such a big differences between his language subjects and these two subjects. He had answered that he likes more Mathematics and Science subjects if compared with language subjects. This is the main reason why he can get a better result in his Maths and Science subjects. According to the syllabus, standard five students will learn how to multiply, divide skills in Maths and they are exposed to more higher level of Mathematics skills like multiplication in 5 digits and others. He managed to get a good result in Mathematics and this means he can perform well in his calculation subjects. I had surveyed his classmates and all of them had said he is very good and smart in calculating. Besides, he had got a high grade in his Science subject too. As what I know, the syllabus for Science subjects is mainly focused on the creative thinking for the higher standard students and Lee had managed to score high grade in his Science subject too. His level of progress in calculating and thinking had fulfilled the age and standard supposed he is in. Lee can calculate well and can think well in a creative way. From his result showed, we can know that he likes more in subjects which need more thinking but he dislike languages because there are no any thinking needed in languages. Normally, Chinese students showed more interest in Maths and Science subject and they are dislike language subjects. Besides, we can see from the result he scored, there is a new subject for high standard students that is Kajian Tempatan a subject which almost likely with Geography. This subject needs more thinking and is more complicated if compared to the subjects learned by those lower standards students. Lee had scored a high grade in his Kajian Tempatan, and this means he managed to handle a more complicated subjects. He can think and memorize more things for this new subject if compared to last time. His mind had developed and the result showed his level of progress had reached the age of 11 where he supposed to be in. So, Lee Jin Boon can manage to learn a higher standard skills based on his standard and age besides he managed to think and can handle more complicated subject.

Cognitive and Language Development : Jean Piaget from Switzerland is a well-known education psychologist believed that cognitive development of children normally goes through four stages according to their growth and development. I will discuss on the pre-operational and concrete operational periods as the student I have used to test on Piagets Conservation Task are at the age of 11 years old.

Developmental Stages

Years

Major Characteristics of Piagets Cognitive development

Pre-operational

2-7

Development of symbolic thought. Centration: focus only one feature of a problem. Irreversibility: inability to visualize

reversible actions. Unable to master conservation of concept due to centration,

irreversibility.

Concrete Operational

7-12

Developmental of mental operations applied events. to concrete objects and

Able to learn operations of reversibility and de-centration. Master conservation of number at the age of 6-7, mass and length at 7-8 and area at the age of 8-9.

Table 1

I had selected Lee Jin Boon, a standard five student to carry out the test by using Jean Piagets theory. As we can see from Table 1 above, there are two main

development stages stated by Piaget. Piaget described cognitive growth as occurring through 3 interrelated processes that are organization, adaptation, and equilibration. Piaget believed that development proceeds from the individual to the social world. Egocentric speech suggests that the child is self-centered and unable to consider the point-of-view of others. Piaget also maintains that development precedes learning. These are the theories stated by Jean Piaget. He believed that children move through stages: pre-concrete to concrete to abstract (formal). The selected student is 11 years

old and standard five this year so I will categorize him into concrete operational stage which the child is between 7 to 12 years old. We can see the major characteristics of the children in this stage from the table above. Piagets theory on the selected student. The concrete operational stage is the third of four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the preoperational stage, occurs between the ages of 7 and 11 years and is characterized by the appropriate use of logic. The first test I had carried is the test about the arrangement of people surrounded him based on the importance. As what had stated in Piagets theory, that one of the important processes during this stage is classification the ability to name and identify sets of objects according to appearance, size or other characteristic, including the idea that one set of objects can include another. It means that the student had to rearrange the people surrounded him according the importance. For example, family members are the most important person for you, second follow by the teachers in school and third are your friends. Lee had managed to finish up the test. He had thought twice to arrange the people surrounded him in daily life and wrote the answer on the empty paper. He had stated that the most important people in his life is his mother, second followed by his grandmother, followed by his siblings and lastly his friends. Based on the Piagets theory, we can see the this 11 years old selected student managed to finish his classification and his cognitive thinking is reach the operational stage. Another They can think logically, concretely,

abstractly and can reverse the way of thinking. I had carried two tests to prove Jean

process in this stage is transitivity, which refers to the ability to recognize relationships among various things in a serial order. For example, when told to put away his books according to height, the child recognizes that he starts with placing the tallest one on one

end of the bookshelf and the shortest one ends up at the other end. Lee had fulfilled this process too by putting his family members and his friends in a serial to answer the question. Lee Boon Jin had reached these two processes which stated in the theory.

The first test that had conducted to the student.

The second test that I had conducted is the word search. There are another two processes too in this stage stated by Piaget. One of them is reversibility that the child understands that numbers or objects can be changed, and then returned to their original state. For example, during this stage, a child understands that a favourite ball that deflates is not gone but can be filled with air again and put back into play. The children can be reversed their thinking and can think more abstractly on a thing or situation. The word search test that I had carried up is like that, there are nine logos about sport in the question and the student was required to find out the correct names for the sports among the alphabets given. There is lots of alphabet which arranged randomly and the correct answers were hidden among them. The sports were presented in logo forms to test the cognitive thinking of the selected students. The theory stated that the child in this stage will able to think reversely and abstractly. Finally, Lee had managed to

answer all the questions. He was able to understand the logos mean which kind of sports are and able to speak out the answers correctly. Lee had reached the concrete stage that he can able to see things from a reverse or abstract ways. He able to

understand the logos mean without any help from pictures. He knew to answer based 7

on the logos given and had reached the stage which stated by Piagets theory. Another process in this stage is decentring where the child takes into account multiple aspects of a problem to solve it. For example, the child will no longer perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain less than a normally-wide, taller cup. The children in this process will able to differentiate the importance of everything in his life. Lee had

managed to find out the hidden answers from the randomly arranged alphabets. He is able to pick out the correct answers and ignore the useless alphabets. This had proved that he is able to differentiate the importance in everything and can make the correct decision. This test had shown Lee reached the concrete stage which stated by Piagets theory and this is fulfilled his age and standard.

The second test that had conducted to the student.

The two tests I carried had managed to show that Lee Boon Jin, the selected standard five, 11 years old students had reached the concrete operational stage. He able to think logically, and managed the things based on the level of importance. He can think the things in different ways abstractly but logically.

B Academic Writing: I had done the research on a child who is 11 years old this year. He is a standard five student this year. I had conducted the test and survey on him and found that actually, there are two main factors can influence the development of kids in academic development or even physical. The two main factors are school and family. In school, the children will interact with their friends, while at home they will close to their parents. Different child will have different living environment and different school

environment. That means different child has different interaction with different person every day. Every parent will have different occupations and jobs and for sure the

children will have different influences under different environment. What actually had influenced the children? Let us discuss. Many research studies have proved that factors such as family background, peer group, socioeconomic status, society culture and belief, technological resources, teachers and school also influence every stage of an individuals growth and development. Firstly, I will like to touch about family factor and according to my view;

this is the most important factor in influencing the child development. Parents are the closest people to the children in this world if compare with others. Parents gave birth to them, educate them, protect them and even sacrificed for them. The family unit itself poses a great influence over human development. Family factors which influence the development of an individual include home atmosphere, food, guidance and socioeconomic status of the family. It is generally known that differences in home atmosphere, food, guidance, and family socioeconomic status will produce individuals with different levels of development. Different families have different kinds of living

environment or we can say different parents have the different ways of teaching their children. Maybe some of the parents are very strict to their children, while some of them are quite friendly to their children, so different level of development will occur on the children. Some parents they used to speak friendly to their kids, while some of them are very strict and used to scold the children. Different families will influence the childrens academic performance in school. All right, let me list out how the family factor can influence the children in physical, social, emotion, intellectual and spiritual aspects. And I will like to prove that the family factor is the most important factor in influencing the students academic performances.

Children who are born in a friendly and affectionate family will experience healthy emotional development. This can be seen when I was interviewing students in SJK C Pei Yang where I recently went for my school based experience activity. There four in each standard. All the students are divided into four classes according to their result and other performances in school. The school will arrange the position of each student every year based on the class teachers observation. Many students in the first classes who come from middle to upper middle classes are better at communication in answering my questions when compared to the students coming from last classes who are mostly not from well to do families, they are either a bit shy or rowdy and not listening to what I ask. I supposed that they do not often speak to their parents who usually leave these children to take care of themselves while going to work and hence they do not know how to behave appropriately. I had asked the relevant class teacher about their performance in school. Their socioeconomic status are explained by class teacher who kindly spent some time with us to show the webpage where all of the details of the students are kept. All right, this is the first influence in the child development that is emotional and social aspects that I will like to touch. Like what I had mentioned above, different families have different kinds of style. Actually, children will follow what their parents did at home, like the way of speaking, the words used by the parents, the style of communicating, how the parents communicate with others. The selected student had an incomplete family which his parents had divorced. He is shy in talking and had quite poor conversation skills. What had influence him? The answer is the family. The children actually are looking at the parents. According to his standard and age, he supposed can speak well and can express everything well to the others in communication if compared to other standards and the result showed that his level had reached the required age. I found that Lee Jin Boon can communicate well with the others by using the proper words and sentences but just a bit shy by speaking in a low voice when communicate with the strangers like the teachers or other older persons or some other people out of his peer groups maybe he is lack of self confidence since he is form an incomplete family. They will follow exactly the parents did. As a teacher, we supposed to know that how the parents are. Some parents maybe are the high class society people likes doctor, lawyer. While some worked as low class job likes hawker, labors and others. Logic thinking will tell us the ways they speak in different classes, likes white collar and blue collar. Normally, a white collar worker like doctor will speak very polite and the social communication skills are very good. They know how to speak 10

nice words, nice sentences and know how to communicate well with others. There are no rude words from them. While for those blue collar workers, most of them are They do not know to speak nice words, nice

normally lousy in communication.

sentences in communicating. Maybe some of them even speak rude words in their conversation, that we normally can see from those hawkers especially those Chinese workers. What will happen on the children? The result is they will learn and copy the ways of talking that learned from their parents. So, from my observation I had found that there are students used to speak rudely because of the influences from parents. I had checked a few details for several students and found out actually the way of their speaking have a very close relationship with their parents occupation. For those

students who from the first class, normally their parents are those white collar workers like doctors which I had mentioned before above. For those students, they can speak well and communicate well because of the parents. While, for some of the students from the last class, most of them are very shy in talking and communicating. They cannot speak a proper sentence when communicating with me during the survey because of shyness and mostly influenced by the parents. Lee is from the incomplete family and he is influence by his family and cannot really speak confidently. That is how the family factor influences the child development in the emotional aspect. Second thing that influenced the child and students academic performance are the food and nutrients provided in family. Sufficient nutritious and balanced food diet will help them to develop their physical health in satisfactory condition. Family is the most important factor in building up the childrens healthy. Parents have the responsibilities to take care of the childrens healthy in providing them sufficient nutrients and food to eat. Enough food will help in building up their physical health and as well as other body parts. If a student does not have enough food to eat, how we can aspect him or her to pay a full attention in class. According to me, some parents do not care about their children well and they are just simply giving them money without taking care of their health. Based on the research I had done on Lee, I had found that he actually healthy enough. He told me that his grandmother will in charge of cooking everyday for his family. He had used to eat home cooked things and he will bring the food from home to school. I can see that he had grown healthy and can pay a full attention in the class. Nowadays, there are lots of fast food restaurant here and there likes KFC, A&W and Mc Donald. Those kinds of food will attract lots of attention from people especially the children. They

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will like eat fried fast food like French Fries, nuggets and others, besides they love to drink soft drink too. These kinds of food we called as junk food, and they are not healthy to the bodies. If the parents just give the children money, and do not bother what kinds of food they take the children will face health problems because lack of nutrients in their daily meals. Let us imagine, a child who does not have enough food and nutrients how he or she can performance well in their academic? The answer is no. That is the reason how the family environment can influence the childrens performance. Some students are from the poor family, and they do not have enough money to buy enough food to eat. What will happen to them, they will have no enough nutrients and cannot grow well as other normal children. They will not pay a full attention in class and sure cannot performance well in their academic. A normal kid supposed to have a proper meal in their daily life and parents must have the responsible to take a good care of the children and must prepare proper meal for them so that the children can gain enough nutrients and can perform well in academic. And the selected student of my

researcghhad fulfilled the requirements and he used to the home-cooked things and he had get the enough amount of nutrients he supposed to get in this age of 11. So, this is another reason. Children who are nurtured and educated properly will normally able to develop their potentials, behaviors, and emotions optimally. As I have mentioned earlier, most of the students in the first class consists of students who come from middle class onwards. Their parents are usually government executives or teachers. As I had mentioned also above that different families have different styles, and this is same too in the education style in different families. Some of the parent we know they are highly educated person in the society like lawyer or doctor. They surely teach their children well and lots of knowledge to them. Let imagine, a father who is a doctor what he will aspect from his son or daughter? The answer is the good result from the children. Different parents have different thinking for their children. Some aspects the best from their children while some just want their children to be grown physically healthy only. Based on my

observation, I had found that the children from the first to middle class have parents who are highly educated and highly classed in the society like doctor or lawyer. Their results are very good yet excellent in every team. Lee has a mother who is They gain a good performance not only in studies but also other fields too like co-curriculum, sports and other performances. What had made them so excellent, the answer is the parents. For

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those groups of students who have a highly educated parents they will gain lots. The parents will teach lots of extra knowledge to them like the knowledge for language. Parental resources refer to income levels, parental education and parental employment. As we can see from the result of Lee, he had not got a very good result. Since he has incomplete family, and his mother has no enough time to bother about him and his mother used to work a long time outside. His grandmother takes care of him and the rest and how we aspect an old lady can teach the students well? Lees grandma is lack of knowledge and she just takes care of him by cooking and teaches him to be a good human being. That is all the grandma can do for him. And very obviously, we knew that Lee is from an incomplete family, and there is only income for his family that is his mother. And, the family income is a bit low, since his father had divorced with his mother. Lee has no extra money to go for tuition classes and buy more books for extra knowledge. So, the result came out for languages are a bit low. Based on my views, a high family income can increase educational opportunities and means that there is more likely to be educational materials in the home such as books, computers and so on. Having a parent who has a high level of education is also an important factor. Research shows that children from highly educated families often follow in their parents footsteps and are more likely to complete high school and undertake further study. In addition, a parents employment may affect their childrens education. Children with unemployed parents are less likely to complete school and less likely to do well at school. See how the family can affect and influence the students in academic performances. It can be concluded that pupils from educated or well to do socioeconomic status family will normally experience optimal intellectual and physical development. This is due to the fact that educated and well to do parents usually try their best to provide nutritious food and sufficient education facilities simply because they know the ways around to improve self-development and they can also afford to do so. Family environment had influenced lots in forming the students academic performance by giving them a well education system. This is the reason of family factor in forming the childrens academic

performance. Another factor that will influence the students academic performance is the experience in school. Beside family, school is another place that the students will stay for a half day. In school, the students will interact with their peers, their seniors and their teachers too. They will learn how to communicate, how to learn with others in society.

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Actually, the school environment is a society which contains of peer groups, older people than them like teachers and others friends from different culture background. So I will like to discuss how the second most important factor, school environment influences the students academic performances. Peer group plays an important role in influencing individual development, especially in intellectual, personality, emotional and social aspects. Examples: Children who mix with industrious peer group will be an asset for their intellectual and potential development. From what I have seen, this is valid but I am sure that children mix with their industrious peer group not for the benefits but rather of the common interests. Usually the students from the first classes are friends with their own classmates and do not mix with other classes even during occasions when they have the opportunity to do so. Perhaps the difference in attitude and topics to talk about are the obstacles.

Children who frequently socialized with courteous and well-disciplined peer group will tend to follow their good example. This is also known as peer pressure and it is known to many parents who usually fuss about the friends their children mix with, which is a good thing. Surely, every child will have their own friends, their own groups. And it is same too for this selected student. I had observed him for a long time and found out Lee has a regular peers group. He used to have discussion among the group and shared

everything with them. Peers are the friends who are same age with them and they used to spend time together and share the same things. Based on my observation, the

students normally will mix around with their classmates, and in my view peers are the important person that will influence the student. Lee is a good behaved student,

because based on my observation the group of students are all well behaved and their results are good. That is the reason Lee never get bad and he become better then better. His friends will teach him good things and share the knowledge they have to him. They had influenced Lee so he can become good student and perform well in his school life. Children will be easy to influence by the actions of their parents and as well as peer groups too. What their friends did, studied they will just follow and copy their actions. If their friends are the group of good students, for sure they will follow all the good deeds by them and study hard with them too. While if a student had mixed with another bad student, the condition will be opposed. They will learn all the bad things and surely the result come out will be very bad. What I want to say is peer groups are the important factor in influencing the students in school environment. As I said, children will like to

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modify the actions from their surrounding because they are nave. As a teacher, we should take the role in teaching them. We should know them well, do not let them mix with those bad guys outside or inside the school. Children are very nave, what we said and teach they will follow. Peer groups play an important role in influencing students academic performance. As a teacher, we must pay attention on those weak students to make sure them mix with good students to get better result in academic. This is how peer groups play the role in influencing students academic performance. Besides, schools society is an environment for people and students to interact. Different culture and belief of a society will influence childrens development in socioeconomic, personality and spiritual aspects. Examples: Differences in values of life will form different philosophy of life among individuals. I noticed that some people in the school are religious Muslims, some female Malay teachers who wear wide and long hijabs and the Malay children mainly know how to read the Al-Quran. Most of Chinese female teachers do not wear head covers, while the Muslim women of course and many of my classmates who are Muslim are wearing too. Difference in culture and religion will produce different ways of living as well as human behaviors. This is also relevant to my explanation above. Another Islamic culture they have in school is that some of the Malay students will recite a prayer before and after their classes. Materialistic society will influence individual attitude with emphasis on self-importance and materialistic gain, and tend to ignore spiritual and psychological values of individuals. This statement is the direct opposite of the environment in the school I visited. Fortunately, the students there care nothing about materialistic gain or anything that revolves around that. They are contented with what they have and they have such strong religious faith. This is different if you were to visit a town school where all children are aware of who is richer and poorer which I experienced back then during my time in the 90s. Like above the statement I had found from the website, www.scrib.com we can see that actually schools environment actually is a small society and small community. How school influences the students academic performances? The answer is very obvious, the schools society. I had done my school based experience in SJK C Pei Yang. Like the observation I had mentioned above just now, although it is a Chinese type national school there are still some Malays teachers, staffs and students in the school. I can see the differences between the culture among Chinese and Malays. There quite a number of Malays study in this school. I can the others mix around with the Malay classmates well and there are

15

no any conflict happened too.

All the students can communicate well with their

classmates who are from different race included Lee. Lee had managed to be friend with the others who are from different race. He had known about the different cultures, languages, and other religions. Lee had learnt to tolerate when spending time with the different races. He also had gained extra knowledge about the tradisional habits,

religions from other races. This had influenced him in the aspect of experiences in society, and as well as extra knowledge. That is how school experience can influence a students academic performance by letting him or her to interact with different people from different society and culture. A student will learn how to communicate with others and surely they will perform well if they can mix with a friend from different race like Malay. Not only the differences in culture, but as well as the characteristics of different people too in the school. There are different persons in this world and we cannot aspect them to be like us. So as well as in the school environment, every student will expose to different types of friends and they will learn to communicate with the others. What will be done to them? The answer is they will learn the suitable and well communicate skills, so slowly they can survive in the community when they had grown up. This is how the school environment can influence the students academic performance. Lastly, teacher and school environment also pose great influence on the development of pupils in terms of physical, intellectual, emotional, and social aspects. Teachers who are emphatic and efficient in class will be able to produce educated, competent, good behavior and responsible pupils. Based on my observation of my SBE this time, I had found that teachers are the most important role in the school environment in influencing the school students. Teachers are the second parents for the students, how they can influence the students academic performance? Let discuss. Firstly, a teacher will always encourage and support his or her students. Teachers normally

encouraged their students, from "Come on, you can do it...you've got this!" to "Hey, I believe you can achieve more; give it your all!" Uplifting words made the difference. These kinds of word can influence a students academic performance. Besides, the memorable teachers conveyed a belief that students could succeed. This went beyond encouraging words to crafting assignments to fit their needs, personal after-school tutoring and others. They will support their students in any aspect like sport, music, art and studies. Teachers will try their best to support their students by giving them help such as tuition that I had mentioned above. I had get the full information from his class

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teacher. His class teacher had known well her students. She knew everything about Lee just exactly like his mother. What this means? This means the class teacher had concerned about her students and cares their everything like result, homework, health and even the family background. A good teacher will always care his or her students. The students will know the teachers cared about them and had the students' best interests in mind. Good teachers demonstrated liking, respect, and a desire for students to do well. Teachers will care about the students; respect them and always what they need. By doing this, students will be influenced by the teachers and they will obey the words from the teacher and can perform well in their academic. While, some teachers went beyond the call of duty to invest in their students outside of the classroom and take an interest in their lives. This I had seen from the teachers who taught Lee in different subjects. Every teacher from each subjects had given Lee extra tuition during recess time. They are so dedicated and keep improving Lee without giving up. I had asked Lee whether he likes his teachers or not. He nodded his head. This means the school teachers had managed to influence him in school life. Lee likes his teacher s very much, and he will do and follow the teachers instructions. He will become beteer and better and will become a well behaved man in future with the moral values that he had learnt from his teachers. The teachers from SJK C Pei Yang are good and

responsible. They knew students personally, and this is what made the difference to the respondents. Some of the teachers will not force their students to study inside the classroom because they will know the talents in their students and will let the students do what they like and what they want. Normally, students will be easily influence if a teacher knows their interests because they know there still a person cares about them. Teachers normally will set a high standards and pushed students to excel, calling out the best from them. They didn't just raise the bar, though--they also knew how to help their students jump over it. Every class teacher will set a target for each student to let them achieve their result. Teachers will keep improving the mark and target that had gained by the students. They will keep on pushing and influencing the students so that they can have a good academic performance. The class teacher will let the student know their weakness so that they can achieve the target and get a good result next term. Teachers were described as kind, patient listeners and were remembered for modeling the faith, being good examples, teaching passionately, helping students discover their strengths, and encouraging a love of learning. Teachers are the second parents for the student in school and they can influence the students academic performance. 17

C Reflective Writing: First and foremost, I am grateful that this assignment has been completed in time thanks to our lecturer who has motivated us to be on the right track to finish this task and not to forget my classmates who are very informative and helpful. This task requires us to conduct a research and observation in our assigned schools during the school based experience with reference to Piagets Conservation task to test a childs cognitive development. I am glad that this task has been given to us as I realized that educators to be need to be aware of these theories to better understand our students and have reasonable expectations of them. It was fun and educational during the observation period. I realized that there is so much more to a teacher than just teaching in class. One needs to be patient and kind and a teacher doesnt only teach but also learns. And I definitely had learnt lots experience. Data collection went on handily although there were some hitches and glitches during the write up. I was unlucky when my Words application crashed and 2 pages of what I have written went down the drain, it disappeared into thin air. Then, after that frightful incident, I save my essay into my pen-drive at every paragraph and I was still skeptical if the application would crash seconds before I manage to save. I am glad that it was a smooth sailing despite that one horrific incident and I am sure that this task will benefit us most in the near future as teachers. The most important thing that I gained from this coursework is the observation of the children and the students in school. I had learned lots of theories in this subject, child development. I knew there are different kinds of children in this world. There are different children with different interest, different potentials and characteristics. I had managed to apply some theories in my observation on the children. As a teacher, I feel it is actually interesting to teach different students in different ways. Throughout my observation in school during my school based experience in SJK C Pei Yang, I have noticed that some teachers are not aware that every child is unique is his or her own way. Some may be more intelligent than the rest and others simply need more time to digest the new information and lessons in class. Hence, teachers should learn that these theories that prove the differences of physical and cognitive 18

differences between individuals. We must know which stage the students reach, so that we can able to teach them well with more suitable methods. Piagets stages of cognitive development provide a clear framework for looking in details at the process on how children develop. As such, his theory has been extremely useful to for educators and other professionals working with children. In fact, it has come to be the guiding force in planning curricula and in educating parents about reasonable expectations for their children. On the other hand, as I may know, there are always two sides to a coin. There are some weaknesses in Piagets theory. If we were to depend solely on Piagets theory, we might think that intellectual development occurs independently without taking notes on the social and emotional changes described by other psychologists such as Erikson, and Vygotskys. We, as the teachers we have the responsibilities to guide the students. Those theories are just a guideline for us to follow, the most important thing is we must care about our students and teach them well to make them be a capable human who can contribute to the society and country in future.

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Bibliography: Wikipedia.com, Child Development surf on 1st April 2013,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_development Essayforum.com, Good parents influence their children essay surf on 4th April 2013, http://www.essayforum.com/writing-feedback-3/good-parents-influence-children-e Npr.org.blogspot.com, Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform surf on 7th April 2013, http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/18/161159263/teachersexpectations-can-influence-how-students-performssay-8096/ Joan Littlefield Cook (2010), Child Development, Peardon.Education, Inc

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