how Malaysian culture affects English language: Education Policies

            We are asked to discuss how Malaysian culture affects English language. Our group has been selected to discuss on how Educational Policies affect English language in Malaysia. We had discussed among ourselves and try to search information in books and from internet about the topic we get. We also must find the supporting details about the information that we gets. Then we asked to created a PowerPoint presentation and present it to the class.

            From the topic we get a lot of new information I get. This topic is very suitable for me as future English teacher and it also reflected most of my childhood moment in learning English. Almost 90% of what we found is true based on my own experiences. Malaysia educational policies are the effect English language proficiency among people in Malaysia low. For an example, Malaysia educational policies are based on exam oriented. The teachers teach just for passing the exam. To them product of the learning is passing examination so that they don’t care whether their pupils understand or not. They just give a rote learning and teaching and pattern drilling of questions.

            Besides that, the teachers also give a lot of affect in English language. From what we had found, the teacher is the main factor to this problem. The teacher was the one who lacked of proficiency and pedagogical knowledge. They are not confident to teach English language in English. So they use Bahasa Melayu as the medium to teach English language. It will reduce the time for pupils to speak English in class. So when the language not been practice we will not mastered it. So, as a conclusion from this assignment I can say that teacher is the main factor that student cannot master English language skills. As a future English teacher I hope that I can change this situation so the next generation will mastered all the skills of English language.

language games

           

           Some people have a negative mindset towards English language. This mindset is caused by their own feeling when they think that English is not important to them. Some of them think that there is no fun and joy in learning English language. In order to mastered English proficiency, as a learner we have to feel the joy in learning English language. This is where the teachers play his/her role to create good and interesting activities so the student will motivate to learn English language.

            To teach English language is just not use chalk and talk method. We can use a song to teach English, we can act to teach English or we can use games to teach English. Language activities are invented for learners to acquire the proficiency of language in a fun way. Teaching is not something that only using books and pencils, we can use anything to teach such as video clips, foods and others. It depends on how creative the teacher is.

            This week task is to create an interesting language games. My group had created a game named Word Poker. This game is adapted from two games which are poker and scrabble. To play this game we must have at least two players or groups. Then someone will be the dealer who will give the cards to the player. When the player get the cards the dealer will open three cards on deck and the players will be given 30 seconds to form a word that can produced the biggest marks. The marks are based on scrabble games. Each cards of alphabet has its own marks. I hope this task can increased my creativity so I can make good and interesting games for my student.

 

             

Continues: Phonetics [Tongue twister]

What is tongue twister??

When most people think of tongue twister a childhood image comes to mind: Attempting to recite a tricky rhyme or phrase as fast as possible without tripping over the verbal challenges and hurdles lurking within these tongue-tying sentences, such as:

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?

If Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled peppers,

where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

She sells seashells by the seashore. 

The shells she sells are surely seashells. 

So if she sells shells on the seashore, 

I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

Red lorry, yellow lorry.

Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches? 

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck

If a woodchuck could chuck wood? 

He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, 

And chuck as much as a woodchuck would 

If a woodchuck could chuck wood.

After learning how to pronounce the IPA symbol we are asked to recite tongue twister. Each group must recite at least 2 tongue twisters and it must be as fast as we could. At first when I get the tongue twister I thought I will be easy to say it, but when I try it myself it become the hardest thing in the world. My group had chosen this 2 tongue twister:

Fresh fried fish,

Fish fresh fried,

Fried fish fresh,

Fish fried fresh.

Rory the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural brewery.
 

Denise sees the fleece,

Denise sees the fleas,

At least Denise could sneeze,

and feed and freeze the fleas.

When I recite it slowly it becomes easy to say it properly but when the speed increases I just hear the beginning and end part only. When I see my friend recite it, somehow it becomes very funny. Learning using enjoyable method is more effective than just listen t what teacher said. This makes me think that when I start my career as a teacher I must use various ways and methods to teach student, not just using traditional method such ‘chalk and talk’. From this activity lot of thing that I have learned. I hope that this will help me in the future as an English teacher.

worksheet - tree diagram

     This week in class we had learned about phrase. Phrase is a group of words, which makes sense, but not complete sense, is called a Phrase. It is a group of related words without a Subject and a Verb. There a lot type of phrase such noun phrase, verb phrase, adverbial phrase and others. Than we learned about tree diagram. Tree diagram are use to break sentences into smaller part from sentences to phrase and words.

    This week we are asked to create a worksheet with two sentences using tree diagram and its suggested answer. This worksheet will be exchange with partner in class and we will try to answer the worksheet. From this task I learned how to create worksheet and the suggested answer, so I can use when teaching at school next time. Besides that, I also can increase my knowledge about the topic that we learned in class by refer to book and Internet while doing this task. I hope from this activity I can truly understand how to analyses sentences and use the right words for the right places. I hope this task can helped me to create a good worksheet for my students.

 

Example of tree diagram

a short mime video clip

            Last week we became a script writer and an actor, but this week we become director, actor and producer. Such a great thing that I never imagine ever. In this task, we had to make a silent movie. This week assignment was difficult than last week assignment. We had to act without any sound, just a silent short video about 3 minutes. So our friends can try guess what happen in the short video and tell us the answer.

            To find a suitable scene that we going to shoot is the hardest thing that happens while doing this task. Lot of ideas coming from our mind but when we think it is hard to act because it need lot of scene and costume, so we decided to stop thinking about it. The ideas come when my friend going out early in the morning to see his friend and we had decided to use that scene in our short movie.

            It takes us only half an hour to shoot this video but it takes a lot of time to edit and make the video interesting. This process is something new to me and my friends. Although it’s new but we try our best to create a very good movie so our lecturer and other classmates enjoy the show.

            What I had learned from this task is the cooperation in group that my friends give makes this task easier than we thought. My friends and I are not very good in acting so it very difficult for us to shoot this video, but because of cooperation and commitment that our group gives. Finally can finish editing the video and present it to whole of our classmates. To see other classmates give good impression makes me happy and all the effort that we put in was worth it.

           

Phonetics

This week we had learned how to pronounce in a correct ways. There a lot of symbol that represents the sound of the alphabet. This symbol known as International Phonetic Association symbol (IPA symbol).

IPA symbol

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp/Phonetics.html 

We also had been taught to pronounce the symbol correctly. Some of the symbol are easy to say but some of them very difficult to say. In this video we can learn and follow how to pronounce it correctly.

Beside from this video we also can try to learn by using fun method such as in this website.

http://cambridgeenglishonline.com/Phonetics_Focus/

Role Play : Sentence Functions

Language and Communication

 2012, another new year has come. After enjoying the holiday, its time to be serious again. This semester I will take a new subject to enrich my knowledge to become a great English teacher. It is English for Language Teachers (ELE3103). This subject been taught by Madam Ira Bhattacharyya. The first thing that Madam Ira told us is about the learning outcomes from this subject. There a lot of learning outcome that we should mastered in the end of this semester. These are the learning outcome that we must master to be a great English teacher:

1.    Compares features of language and communication

2.    Explain how sounds are produced in English sound system.

3.    Produce accurate English sounds in discourse.

4.    Analyses the different types of morphemes and word formation processes.

5.    Analyses sentence in relation to their word-order and the groups of words they contain.

6.    Transfer knowledge of semantics and pragmatics in different contexts.

7.    Assess own language progress through reflection/journals.

For the first topic, we learn about language and communication. What is language? Some of my friend told that language is a medium to communicate. Some told us language is various. Some of them also said that language can be learn naturally. There a lot can we say about language and communication.

I hope this subject can help me improve my language and writing and help me to teach in the future.If you want to know more about language and communication you read the article from this link:  http://www.trueorigin.org/language01.asp