a. Give your opinion on the importance of basic counselling skills in assisting the process of teaching and learning (30%).

The term counselling is much used in English language teaching today and has come to be used as a blanket label covering a wide range of activities inside the classroom and out. The fact that it is used in such a general way leaves it open to the dangers of abuse, misconception, and the dilution of its true meaning, from a highly-developed skill that requires a great deal of training into any kind of advice-giving that might be needed. In this essay I should like to clarify some of the confusion surrounding the term and suggest that the introduction of counselling to teachers and teacher-trainers can be of real benefit to institutions in our field. I shall be concerned not so much with language teaching methods based on counselling techniques (i.e. Counselling-learning, Community Language Learning) as with attempting to describe and illustrate how the acquisition of such skills can contribute to teacher development. More specifically, two vital areas in which they could have immediate application are, first, in teacher-training, getting the teacher to understand why things have gone wrong, accept responsibility for them and adjust his/her behaviour in the future to avoid such situations recurring; and second, in the classroom, getting students to recognize realistic aims in terms of their time and ability, to accept the limitations of their individual aptitudes, and to understand their personal balance of strengths and weaknesses. What is counselling? At its most potent, it is about putting pupils in touch with their true feelings so that they may be receptive to the kinds of insight that will enable them to work towards greater self-knowledge and an understanding of how the conduct of their lives causes their problems. The ability to counsel is within every one of us, but before we can reach other people we have to be in touch with ourselves. We have to learn to recognize our own inhibitions and anxieties, blocks and prejudices, safe and unsafe areas, and how far we are prepared to listen to other peoples feelings. To do this we must first recognize our own motivations as teachers:

Part of the problem of being involved in education is that most of us have a desire to educate; that is, to change or influence other people for what we believe to be the better. It tends to give us tunnel vision and to make us dismissive of people who do not see things in the same way as ourselves. Our normal professional position is that of instructor, imparter of knowledge, priding ourselves on our ability to weld groups and to control and to direct. Even if, to help us feel more at ease, we use more humanistic terms to describe our activity (e.g. the knower, the learning facilitator, the guide), we cannot disguise the fact that our work makes us anxious to influence, anxious to provide input. We and our students have been conditioned to think that this is what teaching is about, and so it is to a certain extent. But these very skills and attributes which enable us to stand up in front of a class and perform can block our way when the need arises to reach people (including ourselves) at a personal level. It is important to understand that both counselling and teaching are deeply concerned with human relationships . learning and learning processes are at the heart of counselling. It is therefore a particularly proper activity for a teacher, provided that he/she is able to allow pupils to learn and not simply instruct them in a rigid way (Hamblin 19743). The essential ingredient is self exploration which is guided and directed to enable the individual to understand and come to terms with those elements in his/her personality which have formed blocks and blind spots and prevented further growth. These are present in every one of us and are at the root of our everyday anxieties and the way we conduct relationships.

It has been identified by several authors that 10-20 percent of school-age children exhibit emotional and behavioural problems. This fact highlights the primary and significant role of the teachers in the use of basic counselling skills in helping their students. Counselling is the skilled and principled use of a relationship to facilitate self-knowledge, emotional acceptance and growth, and the optimal development of personal resources. The overall aim is to provide an opportunity to work towards living more satisfyingly and resourcefully. Counselling in schools involves helping students individually or in small groups to deal with the concerns or difficulties they are experiencing. The need for counselling skills among teachers is a basic requirement that is integrated in their duties in the development of human behaviour and knowledge. In order to optimise the help they can provide to children and to their parents, teachers need to develop their knowledge and skills in the areas of counselling and consultation. Also, teachers are now expected to work more closely with parents and other professionals such as psychologists and social workers. In addition, senior teachers are expected to be able to support and appraise other teachers. To fulfil their roles in each of these areas teachers need to possess basic counselling skills. But the question is: what are the characteristics of an effective counsellor?The attitudes, knowledge and skills which teachers need in order to provide effective counselling and guidance to students as well as parents are ones which will help them develop collaborative working relationships. Hall and associates (2003) provides several characteristics of a good counsellor that teachers must acquire and develop. In terms of attitude, the following attributes must be present to a teacher: genuineness, respect, and empathy. These three attitudes are the bases for healthy relationships. Thus, students and parents need teachers to be people of integrity who will not shy away from being open and honest with them, but will do this with sensitivity. In terms of knowledge, teachers need to have certain knowledge which is over and above that which they require for effectively teaching children. A good counsellor has a good knowledge of the strategies for working effectively with students and parents, good understanding of students and parents' perspectives, and awareness of family dynamics. Teachers as counsellors need to be knowledgeable about the range of services and other resources which are available to parents. They need to be sufficiently aware of the diversity, for instance, in beliefs and customs of the ethnic groups with which they work. This is to be able to adapt their interventions and make such culturally appropriate.

The skills which a good counsellor possesses include excellent interpersonal skills such as listening, assertion and collaboration, organisation and communication, integration, and leadership. In addition to communicating appropriate attitudes and possessing relevant knowledge, teachers need to have good interpersonal skills. An essential part of this is the possession of basic listening skills. Other interpersonal skills required by teachers include the assertion skills needed for working with students and parents and for collaborating with colleagues. Teachers also need the organisational and communication skills necessary for maintaining contact with students and their parents through meetings, home visits, letters and telephone calls. Finally, teachers need group leadership skills so that they can organize workshops for both students and parents.

In the fullest level of integrity and self-actualisation, I can say that I have most, if not all of the characteristics needed by a good counsellor. My current strengths include my positive attitudes towards humanistic development. Being able to identify genuineness of emotions, respect of each persons conditions and individuality, and established state of empathy or understanding, and integrated with my focused interpersonal skills and continuous knowledge, I can affirm that counselling is no difficult task for me. However, I must acknowledge the fact that sometimes I have difficulty in relating my existing knowledge. Thus, I recognise the need to continuously learn the dynamics of counselling and the latest facts related to the practice (something which most teachers seem to have forgotten). The incessant development of knowledge and practice of effective counselling calls for constant upgrading and re-evaluation of the counsellors capabilities and competencies. As numerous experts and scholars take time to further study different fields of counselling, the body of knowledge is also transformed. In some cases, what was acceptable and believed to be the best strategy or idea a decade ago is no longer so pertinent to today.

The improvement of the knowledge that we possess in relation to counselling is one of the most important qualities of a good counsellor. As a consequence of modernization and technological innovations, the call to upgrade our knowledge and to be kept well-versed in and adept at the underlying principles of counselling is indispensable. In order to address this requirement, we must be able to read professional and academic publications focusing on counselling. Meanwhile, as learning is not only contained within printed sources, we must engage ourselves in more experiential activities with colleagues so as to share, adapt, and revalidate personal knowledge and philosophies. One last thing that we should improve is the relationship of our teaching and counselling abilities. Since teaching is proven to be the noblest profession, we should not only focus on imparting theoretical and conceptual knowledge but must incorporate it with practical and realistic situations that will lead to eventual holistic development. In terms of counselling, the integration of our passion for teaching is deemed to be necessary. Teaching and counselling are related. In teaching, there is a need to contribute knowledge to a person, whereas, counselling also requires knowledge, but at this case not to be imparted but to be applied. To end, the best quality of a counsellor, in my own opinion, is the ability to remain authentic and realistic with what is really practical and functional to daily human existence.

b. You are required to integrate basic counselling skills in daily lesson plan during your practicum. Prepare a report (critical writing) about the use of basic counselling skills in teaching and learning. (70%)I am doing my practicum at Sekolah Kebangsaan Buluh Lima, Alor Setar, Kedah. I was assigned to teach Level 1, Year 3 Gading. This class is the first class and based on my observation, their level of proficiency is average. While conducting the teaching and learning, I can see that some of my pupils need guidance in order to motivate them to carry out the task as well as to help them to understand the task. Thus, I regard myself as a teacher and a counsellor at the same time. Basically, education is for everyone and the need for education has increases in comparison to the past and according to Kangasharju & Pekkala, (2001) it is view as investment for the future. Education, in general plays the role to educate and produces well-rounded person and useful for the development of the country. Therefore, school is the roots of all the work to educate and be the first institution to produce well-rounded person for the nation. In school, teacher is the main person who involves directly teaching the students and deals with their performance and behaviour. Not only teachers are involved in developing the students but also the school counselling unit.Firstly, let us go deeper to the understanding of counselling. What is a counselling skill? One application of the word skills pertains to areas of skill: for instance, listening skills or disclosing skills. Another application refers to level of competence, for instance, how strong your skills are in a particular area. Competence in a skill is best viewed not as an either/or matter in which you either possess or do not possess a skill. Rather, within a skills area, it is preferable to think of helpers as possessing different levels of strength. In all skills areas you are likely to possess a mixture of levels of strength. For instance, in the skills area of listening, you may be stronger at understanding clients, but less strong at showing your understanding. The counselling unit started back in the 1960s in the Malaysian education system. The counselling unit in school first introduced as the guidance unit in the 1960s. Counselling is always mistaken by many negatives beliefs that it is only meant for the problematic students. Solving and dealing with problematic students is not the main objective of school counselling. According to Suradi Salim (1996), there are three main purposes of school counselling which are to understand students, to develop students and to fulfill the school responsibilities towards the society. Therefore, as teacher, I should be able to deal with any students need, behaviour and guide them. Therefore, in order to do so, the counselling skills are required and should be possess by the teacher as well. This is due to the counselling skills would lead to an organized classroom and guide teachers to make learning session interesting and reduce misbehaviour in the classroom. The skills are generally, being used by the teachers whether they are conscious or unconsciously. The skills that the teacher should know should not be as complex as the counsellor does. The basic skills in counseling such as empathy, genuineness, self-closure and few more at least put into practice by the teacher in order to know their students and create or invent interesting learning and teaching sessions. Hence, in order to access the skills of the teacher, it is good to see it from the perspective from the students. Therefore, the characteristics of rapport building, empathy and active listening are evaluate through students observations of the trainee teacher application of counselling skills.There are several basic counselling skills that I have implemented in my teaching and learning. According to Drab (2010) in his websites, www.askmikethecounselor2.com the basic counselling skills are: Active listening Empathy Genuineness Unconditional positive regards Concreteness Open Questions Counsellor self-disclosure Interpretation Information Giving and Removing Obstacles to Change Rapport building

All the skills listed above are some of the skills that put into practice by the me as a teacher. These skills are useful and can be beneficial if the trainee teachers (TT) are aware of the skills and know how to use it. Firstly, empathy is a skill that can be use in order to understand the need of the students. The needs of students are differing from time to time and required teachers to understand and possibly to attend all the needs that are necessary for the lesson purposes. It is important to have empathy during the lesson because it will ensure the smoothness and organization of the lesson for the teachers. Despite empathy and rapport building, it would not come to implementation if the teacher did not listen to their students. Therefore, the teacher should own the listening skills in the first place. For example, when my pupils could not understand my instructions, I will have to refer to the used of open questions. By doing this, I will be able to help my pupils to ask questions and to get the information better. From my understanding, teaching is the first step towards developing a well-rounded person and can contribute to the nation. Other than that, I always bear in mind that conducting the lesson in a classroom would never be easy due to students easily lose their attention and to sustain it might difficult. This is due to the students feel board in the class that lead them to misbehave in the class. Lacking of empathy can lead to many classroom issues that the teacher either can control or not. I will definitely try to promote a guided learning to my pupils. For instance, they need to know on to construct simple sentences. So, I should show some related examples and also explain to them. Aubrey (1997) quoted by Moris.H,(2001), If teaching involves helping others to learn, then understanding the subject content to be taught is a fundamental requirement of teaching. Therefore, classroom teaching is not only teaching itself. The students and even the facilities in the classroom are also involved. This is not to mention any distractions outside of the classroom. Therefore, the teacher shall listen to what the students want and problems that can distract them from learning. In addition, I should always refer to the term acceptance in the basic counselling skill. Acceptance is recognizing or accepting an individual with a positive regard, treating him as a worthwhile person. Corey, (1990) is of the view Edo Journal of Counselling Vol. 2, No. 1 May 2009 105 that acceptance is a means of respect for an individual without discrimination. In other words acceptance implies an unconditional regard and care for an individuals person no matter what his personality attributes are, acceptance is demonstrated through listening attentively with understanding and communicating warmth and liking to other person. It is important that these responses are expressed genuinely for the other person to perceive them as genuine. When they are not, the individual perceives the relationship with doubts and withholds expressing himself freely and genuinely. Acceptance does not imply approval of everything the other persons does; it concerns the worth of the individual as a person and not necessarily his behaviour. (Kolo 1997). We can disapprove of an individuals behaviour and yet communicate to him that we have regard, care and respect for his person. Acceptance in teaching practice supervision means that the supervisor develops a non-threatening relationship with her student teacher, communicate warmth and likeness and genuinely demonstrates interest in helping him/her. These responses must be perceived as genuine by the students through their interactions with the supervisor. The teachers good interpersonal relation with his student teacher to a large extent can reduce this anxiety. Also acceptance during the conference session is important, it releases the pupils and makes him/her feel safe and free to take part in the discussions. It makes the pupils more likely to accept and elaborate on his/her deficiency pointed out by the teacher. For example, my acceptance of my pupils is important for creating a warm, nonthreatening welcoming atmosphere. This means, that I will listen, respond genuinely and shows warmth and likeness. This make the pupils perceive the teacher as someone who genuinely respects and cares for him/her. With such perception he/she feels relaxed and safe to express himself/herself freely.Next is modelling. A good teacher will never forget to give a good model to her pupils. Modelling is a process of learning whereby a person (the model) exhibits a behaviour which serves as an example for another person (the observer) or reproduce or imitate because the learners observe the behaviour before reproducing it. (Ingule, Rono and Ndumbuki 1996) limitation is influenced by how the model is affected by the consequences of his behaviour. Bandura, Ross and Ross (1963 as cited in Gesinde 1991) asserted that if the model is rewarded for his behaviour, it is more likely that the observer will imitate the models behaviour, if punished, the observer is less likely to imitate him. Reinforcing the observer while he is observing a model tends to increase the probability that he will reproduce the models behaviour. Observational learning can occur in teaching and learning process in two ways; firstly, when the pupils imitates a teachers behaviour, which the teacher has not meant to serve as a model. Secondly, when the teacher and the pupils deliberately and systematically utilize modelling to shape certain skills or responses of the pupils. In the first case the pupils may pick certain responses of the teacher, like how she sits, how she pronounces certain words, her accepting and supportive responses, how she reinforces and gives feedback. When this happens, it means the pupils had grown to like and to identify with the teacher. The second case is utilized by behaviour teacher through their deliberate use of models to help pupils pick up certain skills or responses, the teacher can use herself or another adult as a live model to demonstrate certain specific responses or she can utilize the pupils peers in a small group situation (group counselling) to do the same thing. The use of symbolic models such as films, audio, video tapes, computers etc can be employed in modelling certain skills to the pupils. Modelling techniques is often time used by the counsellor to help pupils overcome phobias (unreasonable fear) to acquire desired responses and to inhibit undesirable ones. The use of modelling to help teachers is very relevant in teaching. One deliberate way of utilizing modelling techniques to help pupils is through discussion of procedures they can adopt to solve some specific teaching problems in their classroom. A method once demonstrated, discussed and used successfully serves as an example for solving similar problems in future. For instance, in my class, this boy seems to have lost confidence to achieve it like other children. The teacher needs to map out the following procedures for solving the problem:i. Defining the problems in behavioural terms e.g. Boy cannot form words out of letters. He cannot write words. He has no interest in learning. ii. Description of objectives to be achieved by the boy in behavioural terms e.g. after treatment (a) boy to be able to have interest in learning, iii. Determining reinforcement complementary to the boy e.g. boy likes teachers approval. iv. Building a friendly relationship with the boy, v. Developing graded tasks from very easy task gradually to difficult ones (very easy tasks being in the ability level of the child). vi. Assigning tasks to child-beginning with very easy task and moving up the ladder and reinforcing him when he is correct. vii. Increasing confidence level of the boy to achieve, through further tasks and reinforcement. The mapped out method serves as a model to be tried by the teacher and if successful, it can be used in solving similar problems in future.Then, let us talk about the use feedback in teaching and learning. As a teacher, I need to always give feedback to my pupils. Feedback includes self disclosure and sometimes we discover that feedback can be a form of The Adoption of Some Counselling Techniques in Teaching Practice Supervision Osagie Obazee G. E. & Obaseki F. N. 106 confrontation, it can be a source of support as well as challenges and guidance. Feedback can be constructive or destructive. Destructive feedback is not meant to help another person but to hurt or belittle him. It is given in a blunt judgment way with focus on the person instead of the behaviour of the person. This is given disregarding how it affects the person receiving it. Constructive feedback on the other hand, aims at helping and not hurting or belittling. It is given in a nonthreatening way so as to make the receiver decrease his defenses. It describes the behaviour instead of judging it. It focuses on the behaviour of the receiver and describes what is observed and not inference with the observations. For example, I will say, you speak so softly in class that about half of the class at the back do not hear what you say. The feedback thus comprises of observation, information on strength and weakness of the student teachers teaching behaviour. By doing this, they will be able to know their areas of weaknesses and to improve them. This includes giving information about my perception, or reaction to the behaviour of another person is giving the person feedback.As a conclusion, the use of basic counselling skills is very crucial and importance in teaching and learning. A teacher should act as a counsellor as well. A teacher cannot make much headway in understanding others or in helping others to understand themselves unless he is endeavouring to understand himself.

References Guiffrida, D.A., & Marquis, A. (2006). Taking time to listen. School Business Affairs, 72 (5), 35- 36. Kottler & Kottler. (2006). Counseling skills for teachers, 2nd edition. Corwin Press. Meier, S.T., & Davis, S.R. (2001). The elements of counseling. Toronto, Ontario: Wadsworth. Roger, C.R. (1961). On Becoming a Person. NY: Houghton Mifflin Press

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