Full-Assignment interview report PDF

Preview

Summary

Download Full-Assignment interview report PDF

Description

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN FACULTY OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE

UALE2003 ENGLISH FOR MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT 2 (INTERVIEW REPORT) COURSE FBF - AC FBF - AC FBF - AC FBF - AC FBF - AC

NAME Cheng Jo Chien Har Joo Yee Loh Sze Wei Tew Wen Qi Yip Lai Mun

STUDENT ID 1603514 1602404 1603330 1602731 1602927

Tutor: Ms.Viji a/p Ramamuruthy

TUTORIAL GROUP T4 T4 T4 T4 T4

Introduction This is an interview report constructed by a group that included five students for the assignment purpose of subject English for Management. This report is the outcome of the interview with our tutor, Ms Viji a/p Ramamuruthy. It is talking about the main duties and responsibilities of Ms Viji as a tutor in UTAR. Besides that, it also consists of the requirements needed for this position and the issues faced by Ms Viji at work. Assignment Purposes The purpose of this assignment is to let us understand the working condition UTAR staff. Besides, we would also like to know more about the overall working environment of UTAR staff. Apart from that, we also hope to know more clearly about our tutor. We hope to understand their hardship and difficulty so that we can lend a helping hand to them to solve various problems. Moreover, we could also able to develop a better personal relationship with the tutors if we know more clearly about them. We could also have a better understanding about the course materials and messages delivered by the tutors. Lastly, this assignment also allows the students to solve the hesitation or inquiry towards the UTAR staff. Step that have been taken to achieve the objectives of the assignment We have taken several steps to achieve the objectives of the assignment. Before the interview with Ms Viji was carry on, we had a meeting to discuss about the tutor’s job and to construct questions for the interview. The questions that we discussed are focus on three categories which are the main duties and responsibilities, requirements and issues faced at work. We finalize our discussion and listed down the questions to be ask in the minutes of meeting. Then, we had an interview session with Ms Viji during the tutorial class. We wrote down the information given by Ms Viji. In order to avoid missing of information, we also used a recorder to record the conversation during the interview session. Then, we arranged the information that we got and transferred them into the interview report. Throughout the process of constructing the interview report, we get to achieve the purposes of the assignment.

Interview Findings Main duties and responsibility According to Ms Viji, UTAR’s lecturers have a flexible hour working system. They can just come in when they have class. Apart from that, they will be doing their own works. As a lecturer, there are many others duties besides teaching. Every lecturer has their leading area. For example, Ms Viji’s leading areas are Teaching of Grammar for Education Programme and Teaching of Vocabulary for Education Programme. These two subjects would be offered for the coming semester therefore she will be appointed as the lead lecturer. As a lead lecturer, she has to prepare teaching plan before the semester begin. Then, she has to prepare the assignment brief, details and marking scheme for each assignment. As usual, she has to develop the lecture notes and tutorial questions of her lead subjects. She will update and modify the teaching materials used for the previous semester. When she found something didn’t work for the group that she taught previously, she will think of to change the activities, way of delivering knowledge. Others than that, she also need to develop the final exam paper. She will normally start working on it from the beginning of the semester and it need to be submitted at the end of Week 3. Basically, she would have to prepare two sets of questions paper included the main paper and the replacement paper for absentees. These two sets of paper will be prepared by the lead lecturer together with the answers schemes. This would be a very long process as it takes time to think a lot so that the same questions in the previous exam wouldn’t be asked again. Once the sets of papers are done, they will be sent to the internal moderators. Every lecturer would be selected as the internal moderators. The internal moderators are responsible to check the sets of exam papers prepared by the lead lecturer. It is just to have an extra eye to go through the work. Mistakes or errors such as spelling mistakes, punctuations will be corrected. Sometimes, the internal moderators will view the sets of exam papers from different perspective. They will put himself or herself into the students’ shoes and try to understand or answer the questions. If it is difficult for the internal moderators from the students’ perspective, they will give comments to lead lecturer. After that, the lead

lecturer will make modification or amendment for the sets of papers. Finally, the sets of papers will be sent to the exam department for printing. As a lecturer, they also need to evaluate and mark the assignments of students. At the end of the semester, they have to list down the coursework mark for the students. Besides, they also need to allocate time for students to make revision before the final exam is conducted. While the final exam is going on, the lecturers will also be assigned as the invigilators. Once the final exam papers are collected, the lecturers would start marking. Every lecturer would have unless 80 papers included their own and others papers. They have to ensure that the papers are finish marking within 7 days. Then, the whole team of lecturers will gather for a moderating session. Next, we discussed about the time preparation of a lecturer to face other works such as academic advisory or administrative duties. Ms Viji stated that she would have to spare some time from the busy schedule to face them. For the academic advisory session, the lecturers must have the consultation hours. They have to spend the four hours in the office so that students will get the opportunity to see them and discuss problems with them. Others than that, she mentioned that no specific time needed for the administrative duties as they will just appear without any signal. Once they appeared, they will just need to done within a period of time. During the interview, specific duties for tutor’s position were discussed. According to Ms Viji, they do not have much thing to prepare before the tutorial class because all the teaching materials such as tutorial question and power point slides are prepared by the lead lecturer. Therefore, for Ms Viji, she will go through the materials given to them and plan on how to deliver the lesson to students before going to tutorial class. She also mentioned that if they have to carry out the student test, they need to arrange accordingly to the section and duration allocated for individual classes. For instance, Ms Viji need to distribute the students according to the group for 2 weeks to carry out the speaking test. Next, we discussed about the percentage of time spent on tutor’s key job tasks with Ms Viji during the interview. She specified that she spends 60% of her time on her work, 30% on her PHD studies and the rest of 10% for her family, friends and personal life. When the lecturer has no classes or they are somewhere at home, they still doing their works. It is a must to have time for their families, friend, and personal life. According to Guo (2014), he will spend 15 hours on teaching, 18 to 25 hours on solo research grind, 4 hours research

meetings with students, 5 to 10 hours on random-ass meetings (RAMs) and 3 to 6 hours on service work for his whole semester as an assistant professor. He also claimed that this brings his aggregate work time to around 45 to 60 hours per week, which feels feasible at this point in his life. His work time wouldn’t occupy all of his time. We also discussed about the contribution of a tutor to the social, emotional and academic development of the students. According to Ms Viji, she needs to make sure that every student speaks during the tutorial class and to give student the opportunity to try out what he or she know and what he or she do not know. She always tries her best to make sure that she had successfully deliver the knowledge to every student. Today's schools are progressively multicultural and multilingual with students from varied social and economic backgrounds. Social and enthusiastic learning (SEL) gives an establishment to protected and positive learning, and improves students’ capacity to prevail in school, vocations, and life (Weissberg et al., 2014). Therefore, the academic skills can be accomplished and the social and emotional competencies can be supported and refined over the course of a student’s school experience also determine by research. Moreover, we had questioned Ms Viji for the best part of tutor job. Ms Viji mentioned that she had experienced working in the institution or college where everyone need to punch in when coming and punch out if going out. Her previous workplace evaluates the lecturers mainly based on their teaching performance. They are not expected to be active in activities, presentation outside the workplace, teaching practices observation and so on. UTAR has a totally different working hour system, evaluation system and requirements as compared to her previous workplace. Ms Viji stated that the best part of her job is the flexi hour system in UTAR which is not implemented by most of the universities or colleges. Furthermore, Ms Viji also stated that UTAR required lecturers to have a publication every 2 year once apart from teaching. They also need to be a presenter in international conference and fulfil the requirements which is 40 hours of workshops, training, seminar or talks within a year. Requirements Several requirements that required for a tutor in UTAR were discussed during the interview. For the specific requirement in terms of academic, Ms Viji emphasized that Bachelor’s Degree is the basic measurement that measure the foundation of the applicants, follow by Master Degree. From the aspect of qualification of education, Master’s Degree is a minimum requirement to become a tutor. Ms Viji also highlighted the documents that are

needed to be submit, such as SPM result, STPM result (optional), MUET result, Bachelor’s Degree certification and transcript, Master’s Degree certification, and any copy of curriculum activities certifications. However, as an academician, the organization will first look at the Bachelor’s Degree in order to place them in a faculty. Ms Viji explained that if the applicant has Bachelor’s Degree in education, definitely it would place him or her into Faculty of Arts and Social Science. Nevertheless, the other faculties can always ‘borrow’ staff from other faculties as well in the sense of serving staff. For instance, lecturers and tutors who teaching the subject of English For Management are not belong to Faculty of Business, but they are serving on the faculty, so they will be the servicing faculty. In addition, she explained that Master’s Degree is an added value for applicants since it reflects that the person has went through further study, either in the same field or in different field. In other words, Master’s Degree is to let students to gain additional information and extra knowledge or just to let the students went through different field, so that they can have multi-disciplinary knowledge. The next question that has been discussed is the knowledge and experience that are required to be fully competent in her job. From the aspect of specific experience, Ms Viji mentioned that it is not necessary to have working experience in order to become a tutor or a lecturer, with the condition of having high profile, excellent academic achievement and very active in the other co-curriculum activities. She stated that in the case where the person is not really very active, he or she needs to have certain years of working or other experience. Moreover, Ms Viji has been required to have at least two years of teaching experience in higher learning institution when she applied for the job in UTAR. Therefore, she concluded that whether experience is important or is a requirement, it depends on achievements Furthermore, she pointed out the requirement of language and behavioural competencies for her to be successful in her job. In term of language competency, it is divided into two areas, which are linguistic competency and communicative competency. She mentioned that a tutor or a lecturer will be able to deliver their knowledge accordingly to the audiences or students regardless of the subject matter, provided that he or she has the competencies in these two areas. In addition, she emphasized on the requirements of behavioural competency in two terms, passionate and patient. She explained that it is important for her to passionate in whatever she is doing regardless of what occupation she is committed, only then it can drive her to the next level of achievements. She added that being patient will let her to achieve more and learn more.

Apart from that, the specific progresses to become as a tutor in UTAR were discussed. Ms Viji described that once a tutor or a lecturer has been appointed regarding whether he or she has PhD or not, it is compulsory to attend a specific workshop that known as “Essence In Teaching And Learning” within the provision period. She said that she was given two years of provision period when she was applied the job. Within the two years of provision period, she has to attend and complete the workshop as mentioned to get her confirmation from UTAR. Besides, she mentioned that every tutor or lecturer in UTAR has to register or sign up to enrol themselves in a postgraduate study once they have obtained the position. In short, she concluded that it is a requirement for them to have further study, and there will be a second interview section with UTAR President for those who did not follow this requirement. Since Ms Viji is a Master holder, she has to register for PhD study. She also pointed out that teaching evaluation is another requirement in her job. In order to fulfil this requirement, she has to make sure that her teaching evaluation is more than three. Another question that has been raised up during the interview is the professional field of tutor and the specific tools, resources, materials, and equipment that are required to complete the job. Ms Viji commented that if she would to teach something that is not related to her field, she have to do a lot of preparations and it could be time consuming for her. This is because she have to develop the topics in the students’ perspective, therefore she have to develop specific knowledge first, then only she can develop it well to students. Besides, she informed that educational and professional development will be the main tools for her to improve her teaching styles and the way she deliver her knowledge during lecture or tutorial classes. She also read something every day and she does not stop learning in order to fulfil her job task. The reason of a lecturer or tutor need to always keep on further study to a higher level of education also being discussed during the interview. Ms Viji commented that an academician is expected to keep continue learning every day, even though he or she has Master Degree or PhD, they cannot claim themselves as resourceful and that is the end of their learning. She added that they have to go beyond that in order to have more development in terms of their knowledge, and it helps in the professional development as well. In short, she explained that the reasons for a tutor or a lecturer to keep on further study is to ensure that he or she does not stop learning. Moreover, Ms Viji suggested that if someone has reached to the highest level in education, or that is nothing more to accomplish, he or she is

suggested to explore the field by signing up for courses or take up Degree courses in other fields which is not related to the previous study. Issues Faced at Work During the Interview session for our tutor, Ms. Viji, we found that she is facing some challenges in her job in many different aspects which are challenging her and she need to face those whatever happens. According to Ms Viji, a tutor will face a lot of challenges from different aspects as there are too many things to be done. Therefore, time management is very challenging. They need to arrange their time for work and others personal matter especially for families. Tutors need to make preparation for class. Besides, they are required to give social public presentation to outsider in the social organization talk. Last but not least, they have to spare their time for research and Ph.D. study. Ms Viji told us that she has her own style and solutions to handle those issues in an effective way. She will prepare a day-to-day planning, plan a to-do-list for the day. After that, she only will plan for the next day. This is the effective way for her to manage her time accordingly and efficiently. This could also be a stress releasing way for her to get a comfortable and simple lifestyle. We also discussed the hardest challenge that she meets in her work with Ms Viji during the interview session. Ms Viji mentioned that the one of the main challenges is about the student’s attendance. She also stated that it is difficult for a lecturer to handle a big lecture class which has around 300 students especially in the case of taking attendance. Attendance need to be taken within the 2 hours lecture class. Students tend to sign the attendance for their friends and think that they are helping their friends. However, if anything happens to the students, many unexpected negative consequences and problems may occur toward the lecturer as well as the students. She advised students to avoid and stop doing that again. The other challenges that she had met before is sick during her working time. This is because she has to work constantly until the workload is done once she gets back to work. Every people would have his or her own unforgettable experience and interesting situation in their working place. We questioned Ms Viji about these during the interview session. Ms Viji mentioned that the most interesting experience would be the ultimately different type of students that she met during her teaching life. Students in UTAR are formed by different religions, cultural background, intellectual knowledge, behavior and so on. Every

semester, she would meet something new. This is an interesting experience during her teaching life. Ms Viji told us that she did not have any experience of being complaint by students so far. She had just received some comments or remarks from students about her voice projection. She is actually trying to improve but then it seems like it is still remained in the same situation. She thinks that this situation is depend on different students as some may think that it is good enough and some may expect for improvement. Everybody has the desire to achieve a successful life whether it be in the career or personal life. The secret of successful is experiencing a fail. We should learn from the failure and avoid doing that again. (Hudson, 2015) Failure is a simple and common experience that people would experience it. Ms Viji pointed out that she experienced her greatest failure when she first time applied for Ph.D. study. Her proposal was being rejected. She had spent so much of her time to prepare the proposal but it had been rejected at the end. She had to start working on another proposal and it was very time consuming. This would the “greatest failure” that she had experienced. Finally, her second proposal was being accepted. English language is used by Ms Viji to communicate with students. When communicating with international students, language barrier may exist sometime. In order to handle this situation, she will demonstrate multiple techniques such as using simple language, drawing, demonstrating and so on to convey the messages to them. She would always try her best to ensure that she managed to deliver the preparation and quality of the ...