Experience With Montessori Method and Special Needs Children !

Since seven months +, I had been working in one of the Montessori Preschool in Seri Kembangan area. This school attracts me to work due to two reasons : 

1) Montessori Method enhance the children in the aspect of independent level and motor skill which I found out that Occupational Therapist is doing the same thing. Hence, I think I can get some experience from here to prepare me getting in Bachelor Degree of OT. 

2) This school accepts special needs children no matters they are autistic, having motor skill problem, speech delay .....

My life goal is to help the society in aspect of special needs children. As a child care teacher, I taught 2-years-old children and one child with development delay. These children were in the same class. At the first time, I had no idea what is Montessori Method and how to teach the children. Little by little, day by day, i learnt and learnt. Finally, I built bond with my students and them to learn as much as possible. I believe the fact that children before 7 years old will absorb 80% of our knowledge.

Montessori Method emphasizes on five aspects :

1) Practical life : which consists of four elements -> elementary  movement ( fine motor skill and gross motor skill ), care of self, care of environment and social grace & courtesy

2) Sensorial 

3) Language

4) Mathematic

5) Cultural

I need to learn how to use the materials and how to present the materials in front of children. I feel touched by my achievement in this workplace are 

1) One of my students cannot talk in English and refuse to socialize with others as he is the ones child in his family. Initially, when I told him this is "alligator", he will jus repeat "tor". He cannot pronounce the words with three syllabus. After three months of teaching him, prompting him to talk. finally one day when I said 'good morning" , he said "gooooooood, mor------ning". Although he said it not so smoothly, at least he can say it. Even now, he can say a lot of things in English and play with others. I even had toilet training for him. Now, he can tell when he wants to go to toilet.

2) One of my students has speech delay problem. I was quite worried at that time as I had no idea how to teach. He refused to open his mouth to say something. I knew he is quite clever and he knew a lot of things but just didn't want to talk. My intuition told me that I needed to talk with him more and asked him more questions daily. Every day, I would force him to say "good morning" to me even it's not so clear. I would ask "what type cup you want today ? ", " who want do this ? Tell me your name " and so on. Actually I didn't know whether it's work. I was quite anxious too. Eventually, after two months, he started to say something clearly. "teacher", "aunty" , "at home", "in the car" ... He even make 3 words sentence. When his mummy told me this, I was really quite touched. Although I had no experience being speech therapist, I knew I learnt something from here. This is why i change my ambition from being occupational therapist to speech therapist.

3) Actually, I was teaching special needs child in the afternoon for one hour. The child has severe symptom of autism. She will throw tantrum anytime and anywhere. She will cry suddenly and scream suddenly. She always wants your carry, run away and eat whatever food no matter clean or dirty. It's quite tough time for me because at the first time, she threw tantrum to me every time I taught her. For the whole week, I felt so tired because of her and I felt really wanna give up. I knew the rule is even when she threw tantrum, I need to force her to complete her work. Therefore, I need to comfort her feeling and then be strict on her simultaneously. As it's my job, I need to continue on teaching her. After one month, she seemed knowing that I am her teacher and once she completes her work, she can have a nap. She started to listen to me a little bit. I taught her Language, Mathematic, Social Grace & Courtesy and Sensorial mainly. She loves to listen to song and sing song. She can sing the phonic songs and can recognize the phonic sound of alphabet after some time. When I asked : what is the sound?", she normally repeat my question " sound". I will sing song and she will pronounce phonic sound of that particular alphabet. So I will ask again the question. Initial stage, she still didn't get it but after some time, she started to know it. I always prompt to talk with her and force her to say the things she wants. Although sometimes when she cried badly, I felt pitiful for her and not to force her. I knew in these few months, she did some small improvement, She knows how to trace alphabet, how to say "good morning' clearly, how to express herself and know who am I.  I know one day she will be better than now. I am looking forward on her BIG achievement in the future although I was not working there as I wanna further my study. I love her very much as I had put a lot of my effort on her. She tried so hard to prove my effort. I felt grateful being her teacher although it's tired mentally and physically. 

I hope that after finishing my study in Speech Science, I can help autistic children and other special needs children so that they can express what they want and communicate with the society. They are special but not abnormal. There should more awareness in the society on these special children..... 

One more thing I felt touched is the love from my colleagues, children and appreciation from the parents. Before I leave, they texted my principal about the appreciation for me and even gave me some presents so that I can prepare myself for study. Even when I came back one day after I left the school, the children ( although not taught by me ) didn't allow me to go home before they went home. HAHA. They are soooo cute and adorable,...

Life goes on......

Getting UKM Speech Science and Occupational Therapy Interview!!

In May 2016,very nervous day, I got to know that I got interviews from UKM for Speech Science ( Sain Pertuturan ) and Occupational Therapy ( Terapi Carakerja). Somemore I had one test MEPSI for special education UKM too.

Due to GPS problem, I missed the test but it's okay for me because what I really aim at are Speech science and occupational therapy. As my third choice ( special education ) was gone, I need to put harder on my interview.

HOWEVER, I don't really have much time to prepare my interview as I was busy working in Wendy Montessori Preschool ( one of the Montessori Kindergarten which accept special needs children. AND this's where I get my experience on Speech Delay and Motor skill problem children ). Therefore, I did preparation one day before INTERVIEW. Very geng, right? I went to search interview questions and answer.... Finally I found out the it's not really useful. Please JUST let yourself relax and get a little knowledge about your course. When I gave up on searching, I found out that I forgot to prepare my CV. CV is a kind of resume that you need to write your biodata and involvement in school. But I still added on my working experience in related field so that I can increase my change of getting into that particular course.

Okay. Now come to interview day. I needed to Kolej Tun Syed Nasir near Taman Titiwangsa. It's a very nice garden for jogging ! Haha. I knew next time I may go to this garden for jogging if I study there, One thing that's not nice was there's not sign board to show where is UKM. I actually missed up the road and I made a round in the garden.

I think this map is quite better than GPS. You may have a look on this map so that next time you will not have the same mistake like me. Finally my sister and Ｉ arrived KTSN. There were two counters. Depend on your course, my Speech Science interview was in counter 2. There were different courses in the counter 2. Therefore, you need to go in front to look where is your course name and queue up. I did queue up in the wrong line ( Sains Pemakanan ) then after 15 minutes only I realized as I was thinking why so many people went in front and didn't come back and there's short queue in another line. Finally, I went in fron and realized I was in wrong line. Normally, queue of Speech Science and audiology were little bit people. The least was audiology and the most was biomedical. Even when I came out from interview, there're a lot of people lining up for biomedical. Quite SHOCKED.

I came to the stall and did registration. I gave all the documents needed. Tips for you : it's better to make a copy of all the documents needed （ even it's not written as "salinan" ). If you have two interviews, please prepare two sets of documents. I did put one passport photo on my CV so I thought i didn't need to give one more passport photo. Actually the photo was used for interviewer to know what you look like. Hence, if you want to put photo on your CV, better just print photo from printer and give passport photo to them. As i glued my passport photo on my CV, the person in charge of me took out the photo and stapled together with the documents. I felt that it's not nice. ONE more mistake I made was I forgot to print surat tawaran as I didn't know the link but it's okay as my name was on the list.

After registration, I needed to sit aside and waited for calling. It's not one-to-one interview. A group of 3/4 people will be called at the same time to be interviewed. I can even see a group of 5 people being called. I think it's depending on how many candidates registered on that course. During my turns, two candidates and I were called. They will call randomly. I had ants on my pants. We were brought to a room and waiting for second calling. During the interview,  there were three interviewers and three chairs for interviewees. We just sat on the chairs randomly so I sat on the first chair. Each interviewer will be in charge of one interviewee, Before sitting, I greeted them first to make first impression.

If the questions asked in English, you need to answer in English. If the question asked in Malay, you need to answer in Malay. Sure will not asked in Bahasa Cina and Tamil xD.

The questions asked are : 

1） Is Speech Science your first choice? 

- if yes, answer why

- if no, what is your first choice ? If you get Speech Science and your first choice course at the same time, which will you choose ? Why ?

2) Kalau dalam perjalanan ke temuduga, anda nampak seorang orang tua sedang melintasi jejantas. Anda sudah nak lewat ke tempat temuduga tapi orang tua tu berjalan perlahan dan susah. Adakah anda akan tolong orang tua tu melintas jejantas ? ( the question almost alike as I forget the real qeustion. You need to answer the reason too. )

3) What is the criteria for you to choose a teammate ?

After interviewers ask question, you can be the first ones to answer. It's not depend on the sitting place. Some question I let others answer first and Some I answer first. Actually it's a quite short interview. Within five minutes, we all came out from the room. Just one thing was at that time, I purposely wear a blue POLO collar t-shirt with a ribbon and formal pants which looks like jean and I was not wearing black shoes. Blue shirt with autism ribbon was worn purposely so that I can tell the interviewers I have experience on autistic children. Nevertheless, the interviewer in charge of me called me to stay for a while and gave some kind comments on my attire as my attire seemed too casual and not formal. She did say that the interview will not be based on the attire but the performance during interview. I just kept on giving my sincere apology and appreciation on her comment. After that, I asked the documents I wanted from them ( as I didn't make salinan ) and shake hands with them.

Although she said the interview will not be based on the attire, I was still afraid of not getting Speech Science. I felt that my first impression for them had been affected, so I need to make good impression on my second interview. As my second interview of occupational therapy (OT) was held in the afternoon, my sister and I went to Pavillion to have our lunch and buy a new formal attire. All the queues for interviews in the afternoon were quite short not like in the morning ( soooo terrible ). As there's little people, so I was called to interview immediately after I registered and brought to a room again waiting for second calling. Three interviewers and three interviewees ( same in the morning ).

Before asking questions, the interviewers gave us some briefing about "If the questions asked in English, you need to answer in English. If the question asked in Malay, you need to answer in Malay." Actually the interview in the morning, the interviewers were devoid of time so they didn't gave such briefing. I knew this rule because I went to ask other candidates in the morning.

The questions being asked by OT teachers were :

1) Please introduce yourself including your family and the involvement in your previous school. ( Luckily I had done the CV yesterday as the CV had involvement in school. )

* one additional question for me ( although I change to formal attire, i still wore ribbon on my clothes. ) : Why are you wearing that ribbon ?

2) What were you doing after you have graduated from the school ?

3) Who is your role model ?

4) What is the criteria for you to choose a teammate ?

5) Apakah masalah pernah dialami oleh anda semasa melakukan aktiviti ? Bagaimana anda menyelesaikan masalah itu ?

6) How you ensure the group work is doing well ?

Some of the questions the interviewers will request the particular interviewee answer first. This interview used up more than 5 minutes so i felt it's the real interview i had imagined. Before leaving I shake hands with the interviewers and say thank you to them. Of course I asked some documents back as I didn't make salinan.

In a nutshell, I had an intuition that I will sure get one of the courses. The chance of getting Speech Science is quite low but the chance of getting OT is quite high. It's my fate......... waiting another two months for semakan keputusan upu ...........................