Novelists and Reporters

Again, I 'm impressed with my students' creativity. For the past two days,they have submitted their designs of CD Covers and lyrics of their hit songs. They really seemed to enjoy this activity. From this activity, I've actually let them practice giving specific information, that matches with the learning point stated in the scheme of work for the Mainstream English I.

This week, I've created another activity that allows them to practice WH-Questions. For the first 10 minutes, each one of them imagined to be a novelist and a reporter. They had to think about the title of the novel and the storyline, as well as , questions to ask as a reporter. Each of them took turns in group of 4 to switch roles. Each one had 10 minutes to play the different roles.

Well, we'll read their responses about this activity in their blogs or here.

Before, I ended my class today,they were anxious to know what will the next activity be.

I told them,"It's going to be a surprise!"

The Notebook

As promised in my entry dated 19th July, here's one of my favourite novels, that I found and read 2 years ago and later watched the movie, twice, from HBO Channel.

Every so often a love story so captures our hearts that it becomes more than a story- it becomes an experience to remember forever. THE NOTEBOOK is such a book. It is a celebration of how passion can be ageless and timeless, a tale that moves us to laughter and tears and makes us believe in true love all over again…

At thirty –one, Noah Calhoun, back in coastal North Carolina after World War II, is haunted by images of the girl he lost more than a decade earlier. At twenty-nine, socialite Allie Nelson is about to marry a wealthy lawyer, but she cannot stop thinking about the boy who long ago stole her heart. Thus begins the story of a love so enduring and deep it can turn tragedy into triumph, and may even have the power to create a miracle…
(Taken from the back cover of The Notebook by Nicholas Spark http://www.nicholassparks.com)

e-Portfolio

I'm teaching another group of students to create tneir own blogs. This time it's the ED555 Curriculum and Instruction group. Instaed of compiling all the materials in printed version, I've taught them how to create a blog and turn the blog into their e-Portfolio.

Rather than compiling the printed version, you are able to link to all materials related to Curriculum and Instruction the e-way. So, I hope all of you will not be scared to explore and use this to reflect on your own teaching and learning.

I believe, by now, everyone has successfully created his or her own blog. Welcome to blogosphere! Please leave your comment here so that it will be easier for me to link to your blog.

Reading Habits Survey

For Wednesday evening, combined classes of D2A1 and D2A2 (60 students), I’ve prepared handouts for grammar review, as well as, an article from Reader’s Digest, June 2007 titled “Hooked on Comics’.

I did an oral survey about their reading habits. I started with English novels. Out of 60,only 2 students read English novels; both read Harry Potter. About half read Malay popular novels and comics.

What are the titles of comics they read?
I had to ask them, “Are you sure you are university students?” “ I thought these are the same comics that my 8 year-old Arif is reading.” Naruto, Sinchan, Doraemon, Sailormoon,etc…emm, makes me wonder???

Other than comics?
Magazines, such as Cleo, Seventeen, Galaxie, ‘Remaja’,etc

After identifying their reading interest, I tried to find out other interests that they have. I believe this is very important for me so that I’ll be able to prepare activities and materials that interest them.

To my dear students, if you really want to improve your English, you really have to read a lot. If novels are too heavy for you, start with short stories.
In my next entry ,I’ll write the blurp of one of my favourite ‘light’ novels that you might enjoy. Go and search for it at MPH. Only RM34.90, slightly a little bit more than the cost of your ‘top-up’.

CD Cover

I’ve turned everyone in my class into a ‘singer’ this week.
Imagine that you are a singer, promoting your first CD.
These are the things that you have to do in 15 minutes, individually. No discussions are allowed.
1. Name your first album
2. Design the cover.
3. Give 10 titles of your songs:
(5 songs will be about you and another 5 songs about your future, dreams, hopes and aspirations. Preferably, original title; but existing songs are fine too.
4. Tell us why you have chosen that name as your title of album.
5. Tell us about any of the songs that you anticipate will be a hit song. Why?

After 15 minutes, I called for a volunteer to start presenting for about 2 minutes, until everyone in class has spoken.

They were, indeed very creative! I’m impressed! I’ve asked them to write about it in their blogs. I’ve assigned another task for them before I ended the class. Each one of them has to create lyrics of their hit songs and submit the CD cover to me.

Can’t wait to see the product!

First Three Days

It has been a wonderful first three days of teaching two groups of Diploma in Accountancy students. Up till now, I have met them 3 times. As usual, I always take the time to know all their names (nicknames) and by the end of the first class I often can say everybody's name correctly. Besides introducing themselves to smaller groups as the initial activity, each of them had to introduce a friend. They only needed to speak for 30 seconds.

While introducing their friends, the most common error that I can detect is the usage of pronouns. I noticed,not only these few days, that students often make mistakes of using 'she' and 'he'. To use 'she' for a boy and to use 'he' for a girl. In this case, most of the time, their friends will correct them and they also realize the errors. The next is the misuse of 'his' or 'her'.As an example,"She name is..." when it should be "Her name is..."

I often see that students are very happy whenever I manage to say their names correctly by the end of the first class. They will give me their round of applause. I believe it's a 'gift' that I can remember so quickly and hope that I will continue to be able to do this for all my students for the rest of my teaching career.

In the second class,for both classes, I'm so glad to have my class at the Cyber Lingua Lab, where I could guide everyone to create their own blogs, including creating this blog. Although I already have Through My Eyes, this one is especially for my students and is more focused on the teaching and learning of the English language. I hope to make my reflections more interactive and some things that I might have missed in class will be communicated through this blog.

In the evening class, I have the combination of both classes. I started off by giving the scheme of work and the course outline for the whole semester. The next 20 minutes, I showed them the slide presentation which I have prepared,which cover topics on Clauses, Coordinators and Semicolon. Upon completing my explanation, I proceeded with the pair work activity. In pair work activity, each one had the chance to explain to their partner what they have understood from my explanation earlier. During this activity, I often can detect if my students are unable to catch what I've said or otherwise. If they are able to explain clearly and do not have any questions, then I proceed to the next topic.

In the final activity, I divided the class into 8 groups and they have 15 minutes to creatively prepare their presentation on the 8 Parts of Speech on a piece of mahjong paper. I gave each representative from each group to present for 1 minute only. I'm impressed! They were able to present the basic explanation and examples. They had learned the details for each Parts of Speech when they were in Part 1. So, what we did was only more of a review. They made some minor mistakes;which I have corrected.
Hopefully, everyone learns something and have enjoyed the classes, so far. At least, I have!

Till I write again!

Welcome to my English Learning Zone

Hello everyone!

It has been a year since I first started blogging, both in Malay and English. I'm creating another blog now , especially for my students,to be included in my daily teaching. I want to share the joy of blogging with my students. To give them opportunity to express themselves and to have real audience to read their writing. To allow them to have as much practice as they can to use the language rather than merely learning 'about' the language. I realize that some of them may make a lot of mistakes and some may be excellent, but I want them to be confident. I want them to be an independent learner.

To my dear students,
I know that it's going to be very challenging to let yourself/ your writings be exposed for everyone throughout the world to read. You will find that it's going to be a wonderful journey of self discovery as well as meeting other interesting people all around the world. For me, I even found my very good friend whom I've not met for 16 years.

There are so much more that you can discover. I will only spoil the fun if I reveal everything to you now. Besides writing in your own blog, I hope you will leave comments in my blog and your friends' blogs as well.

Just remember ,I want you to write fully in English. Write full words, not in SMS form. Save that for your mobile phone.

Hope to see everyone in blogosphere!