Finalizing the research paper....

Finalizing the research paper

Finally....
At last....

I am in the process dealing with the final draft. Doing this research paper is not easy. Editing this research paper is challenging. My supervisor said "you need to look for new information, the info you found are from the year neither me nor you are born."

Getting such a comment is just like a blow on my head!!

Alright, now I have to look for more new information... I got a number of them from the internet. I guess it will not be supportive enough to support my points. Hence, library is my last choice, looking for books and finally found a few that have recent publications. I found that UPM library is useful when a person needs information. It just need time to browse and look into.

Mending this research paper, gives me a heart attack. Imagine that you are correcting the work and the computer restart by itself and you lost all your data in a blink of eyes!! It makes me feel so helpless...

Fortunately, sending in Draft 1 helps a lot.

Just re-type like a typist and add in the information I want.

Doing this assignments cause me to grow more grey hair in a night.

What image represents you as an English teacher?

What image represents me as an English teacher?

I would say

a firefly...

The reason is that firefly provide lights in the dark. although it is small, but it will make changes and help people who trap in darkness. this is the role of an English teacher i guess. guiding the lost and provide information for students.
Besides, firefly is just small, but it does a lot of sacrifices. flourishing in the cool night and fighting to live when it environment changes. the growth of firefly is not easy, it goes through challenges and challenges before it become adult. it is just like teacher who keep building their knowledge from time to time, learning and re-learn. Striving the best for people around it.

One whole week watching movies

"Lecturers won't be around this week!!"

"Hurray!!"

Is it unofficial holidays?

Too bad, it will never happen after the ISO is introduced.

Is it not a waster of time attending classes without lecturers?

They says student-centered. How??

Time is precious, it should pass by instilling knowledge.

Watching MOVIESSS

we are to watch movies for the whole week.

Fortunately, the first movie is "Freedom Writer". it is the first time that the whole class enjoy a movie! everyone is so punctual when it is screened at the second lesson. the students in the movie attracts my attention. the life of the students are so impressive! they are living in fear and nobody care about them, not even in school or home. their only hope is to survive in the violent society. this imply and give an image to me about Malaysian education system. we are having integrated school system. Why we are not in their situation??

Apart from that, this movie highlights that low proficiency students and second language learners can develop, change and improved! it is a matter of time, interest and attentions the students need. thus, it is important that the teacher realises them.



For the second movie,"The History Boys". it is quite boring. i nearly slept off most of the time. in the movie, there is an issue that i seen:

"what the teacher teaches is what the students learn"

in the movie, the students have high language proficiency. they have strong foundation that will enhance their bright future. the teacher plays the role in putting more information for the students. most of the time, teacher gives outline and students are working on it independently. it is a student-centered learning classroom. However, this movie also highlights the selfishness of school in wanting the students to score for the fame of the school. there are a lot of morality values in the movie, it is just too draggy.

Finished draft 1

Working weeks and weeks with all the assignments, finally all are done. Feel satisfied? unfortunately, that is not the feeling i get. the feeling is just indescribable: excited, satisfied, anxiety....
Finally draft one is "out from the oven!" it is time to give it to the supervisor.
On the path of furnishing the assignment, problems and problems need to be encounter and solve, for instance, going through the books, notes, research paper, journals and more. There are so many quotations available! i need to have the skills in organizing this paper. Having footnote in my paper makes it look more organized and precise, it helps to organize the details without mixing up with the main issues of discussion. it is a challenge, everything seems can be put in one point! distinguishing them take time, putting them into sentences is a task, coherent and unity need fluency.
Now, this paper is with the supervisor. heart is pounding waiting for his comments...

Fighthing for time to have Draft 1

Have you ever involve yourself having no time for entertainment. the only joy you get is attending classes and not facing the computer. this is what happening to me. I realise that having a timetable taht i try to follow strictly does not help....
There are just so much work to work on.
Worst still, group members that involve in groupd assignment ignore or should say "hiding" and the assignment is delayed and piled up.
This causes time frame for a work to be done is prolonged.
it is not that i want to critize about people. but having to be friends foryears, is it not we should work together and have things done according to schedule??
Having myself involve into finishing the group work.... it is +-*/ (speechless)
Worst, time is running fast like a blink of eyes. it will soon time to pass up the first draft, supervisor is warning of the due date...
Life in having load of assignments is a suffer.....

Working on draft one

Fortunately, having done the outline, it makes easier for me to put them into paragraphs. Furthermore, having all the sources and critics in hand, it goes quite smooth. In addition, I get a sample of how research paper can be organized from Internet. This research paper provides a helping hand in lowering my anxiety in writing my research paper. Referring to style of writing raise the level of confident while writing. I want to have my first draft to be quite perfect so that further editing can be spare and it will safe up a lot of time. Besides, hoping to strive the best, a number of rephrasing, rewrite, and correcting grammar take up a lot of time. Hence, i would say that this research paper is not an easy task to accomplish, it needs wisdom, patients and knowledge and guides.

Looking for more information!!!

Thinking that this research assignment is easy. However it turns out to be disaster! I went to the library to look for resources, such as books, journals and more. it turned out to be a large number of source. there are two big blocks of shelves of books that can relate to my topic. This tested my skimming and scanning skills, where it took up almost one hour just to pick the suitable books. Then holding these big pile of books to sit at a corner for further reading. This again took me another two hours in the library, fighting the cold, and finally came out by chosen 3 books that are most suitable for my paper:
1) Faw, T. and Belking, G.S. (1989) Child Psychology, Singapore - Mc Graw Hill Publishing Company
2) Gartner, A. , Kohler, M.C. , Stendler, C.B. (1953) Children Teach Children Learning by Teaching, New York - Harper and Row publishers
3) Martin, W.E. and Stendler, C.B. (1953) Child Development: The Process Of Growing Up in Society, New York - Harcourt, Brace and company

Having the outline as guideline to look for sources never turn out smoothly for me........

Looking for books is a disaster.....
What about going through websites to look for more critics and more........=/

Third stage of project paper...

Finally, i got back my outline for this assignment. There are a lot of writing on it. Mainly it is about requesting to look for more supports from various sources. At the first glance on the paper, it gives a shock as there are wrtiting- big, cursive letters. It gives me the impact that whether i am on the right track. Fortunately, reading in-depth, i came to realization that the supervisor only wants me to search for more details and supports.

Now, another headache occur, where to search for more information?
If i go through internet, there are plenty of sources which i do not know how to quote it down. There are so many critism which i do not know whether they are reliable or not.
If i want to look for books, what title should i look for.

I had brainstrom on what books i can look for. For instance phycological studies on children. Children's development and effect of environment on children.

Just hoping that the sources that i come across will help in my project.

Meeting with supervisor

After detemined the topic I want to put in my research paper, it is time to meet with the supervisor. Before hand, personally i would want to be more prepared. However, thinking that all, it is better for me to choose topics that i am familiar with. I can also depend on my knowledge to develop my project paper. Frequently i ask myself,

What you love to study?
Which topic interest you?

Coming to the idea to use children growing up as a basis, a thought strike my mind to study children's phychology changed. This has been my favorite topic as looking at young generation develop is an art. It is also important to highligh to the young generations the impact of teh environment, society and their roles in influence and help themselves in the stage of growing up.

Hence, I would finalise that i will focus on the children's development in society through the novels.

Going through chapter two of the text book

This is a smooth start after struggling in chapter one, as I went read through chapter two. This chapter provie an insights of what type of literature texts can be used in different stages/level of students.
This chapter provides a whole sum of literature texts. All these texts include fairy tales, folks tales, short stories, collections of poems and novels.
Reading through this chapter provide me an insight where it shows that we have to choose suitable texts for different level of students' proficiency evels. Apart from that, texts should also suit the aims and purpose of introducing literature to students.
In addition, in order to create a reading environment among students, several activities have been introduced in this chapter. While reading through, these examples have been given and taught by Dr. Fauziah in the reading subject. For instance, NILAM is to raise students interest in reading any form of texts. On the other hand, NILAM in this text book highlights the reading of literature texts.
Since both subjects do touch about NILAM, i can see that the aims of NILAM still remain but the content changes where one highlights any kind of reading materials while the other highlights the use of literature texts.

second stage of research paper....

I finally came to an idea what to compare in my research paper. I want to use the theme of growing up. This idea came to me when I go through the second chapter of this text book titled " Teaching of Literature in ESL/EFL contexts."

There are a number of literature texts taht are mentioned in this book. For instance,
The adventure of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Little Women by Loisa M. Alcott
The Secret Garden by Frances H. Burnett
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
and many more...

By using the theme of growing up, i can compare the story between
The adventure of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Both stories are written by different author. However, both author uses a young boy and the narration is about the child hardship in life to gain success.

Therefore, having hope that these stories will be approve by supervisor. My next step will be looking up for more materials and information to highlight my thesis statement for this research paper.

Research paper....

No idea...
Nil idea...
"Mei You" idea...
"Tiada" idea

How to come out with a thesis statement for research paper???

In the assignment, the instructions are to analyse two texts that we have learned, come out with a common argument for this task. My mind is blank until now. What topic should i choose? How to organize them?

The first stage of choosing topic is the hardest. At first, i plan to use the text that learned during foundation and degree course. Now, i change my mind, can i use the text i familiar and favorite in? For instance Nancy Drew or Famous Five texts? Can i use something that out from academic texts??

I am still in confusion.

Reading Chapter 1

Reading through a text book for teaching literature is not an easy task, especially when encounter with unfamiliar words. While reading, I usually skip the unsure words and keep on reading. Most of the time, i will get the content and idea of the text. However, this style of reading does not work for this text book. This is due to too many unknown words, I was in confusion while I keep on reading. It has finally forces me to open up the dictionary to search for the meaning of these words after three pages of reading.

While reading the first page, there are words that never come across and not really explained what these terms mean. For instance, acrolectal speaker, basilectal speaker, and mesolectal speaker.

Basically, this chapter is about how to teach literature, should we teach according to native way or the style that the nation is using. In this chapter, it eventually come to a conculsion through Raja Rao (1943)
" We have to grown to look at the world around as a part of us."
"Time alone will justify"

We can use thematic approach and linguistic approach. Before reaching till the last two pages of this chapter or should be before reaching these two approaches, i eventually have my dictionary accompanying me to get an idea the content of this chapter. This is amazing as the technique of skimming and scanning has to lead to meaning searching. Reading only this chapter took me around two hours. And it is only the first chapter!!
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Activities presentation...

there are a numbers of activities we are given to work on... for instance activity for set induction and pre-reading. Fortunately, there are some activity we do not need to presents.

Having presentation in front of the class is view as a necessity, since we are going to be teachers. (Who said that??)

However, to overcome nervousness or stage fright, it is believe that the more practices the better the person will be. And that is what frighten me...

i admire teachers standing in front of the students, teaching, talking, joking, giving orders and carry out activities. they seem like they are not afraid at all!!

Most of the time, teaching in front the class can be seen as an easy task. however, when i was given a topic i am unfamiliar with, that is where the fright just over take me..

Planning an activity to teach is never a problem to me. This is due to there are sources around to be imitate, re-design and adapt. Giving instructions is never an obstacles. HOWEVER, CONTROLLING A BIG CLASS... that seem scary.

Tuesday wif morrie

i am reading this book since the day i get it... since last week.

At first, when my lecturer introduced this book, i was thinking that another boring book to read...

However, the first page of the story manage to attract me into continue reading. Hence i would say that, "Never Judge a Book by Its Cover"

this book only cost rm20.00 as it is the cheapest version and it is on sale when i bought it. i would say it is lucky to get this book.

By reading this text, i came to realization that Death is no longer scary. Through Morrie's idea of death, it seems funny. Death is certain but never have a person really accept this fact. In matter of fact, everyone is trying to live a longer life. they tend to buy medicines, all sort of it. they also try to keep themselves fit by going to gym and having diet meal. Some even try to find ways not to die.

There are two setting in the story, the flashback and now.

these two setting highlights the strength of Morrie and his students. It also highlights the role of Morrie and his character traits. through reading the story, Morrie is portray as someone with strong will. He is brave in accepting dying.

This story teaches me a lot of things, it talks about teacher and students relationship, death and the naive of human.

I am still half way through the story as works are becoming loaded and loaded. Hope that i can share more next time.

thesis statements

Have anyone come across being asked to write thesis statement?

It is not a topic....

Thesis statement!

Taking this course, i have to start to think of thesis statements

Thesis statement is a sentence that tells people the content of a writing. It has to simple, clear and understandable...

Writing a thesis statement is not as simple as just popping out a sentence that cross into the mind. For instance, we cannot just say our writing will be about love and just give a sentence like "love is blind"

The thesis statement has to be specific and justified. it should not be a general statements. This is due to that a general statement provides a large area to write on... it will have no boundaries to stop. It will have a wide range of points to insert in the writing.

Thesis statement acts as a guide for writer. It should help in keeping the writer focus on the writing and does not stray around without directions. It helps writer to develop points that related to the topic focus. For instance, in literature, writer wants to focus on the a character's character traits, hence in the thesis statement there should have a specific character writer want to focus at, then the content should just surrounding the character.

By learning ways to work out a best thesis statement, it needs choice of words and wisdom to develop one. it needs to look into the purpose of this piece of writing. this is because, every piece of writing focus on different purposes, for instance writing for pleasure, reports, essays, research and story telling.

In conclusion, writing a thesis statement tests a person's patient. most of the time, i have to rewrite and rephrase and reconstruct. it takes time, but i believe, once a person master the way for thesis statement, it should not be a matter anymore.

Continue of Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus and Icarus again...

This time, the exercise turn out to be to write a summary for Daedalus and Icarus. Writing a summary is never easy as one page long story needs to be shorten into 200 words! And it is a story!

Usually, i write summary on factual passage, because it has its points to highlight. While in a story, it is just like writting a shoter version of the story. The summary has to consist of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. There are many details that need to be summaries. Then the summary will not sound like a story anymore as the version is much shorter.

Fortunately, there are guidance given by lecturer. He asked us to identify the development of the plot in the story. He used picture to highlight what is important in the text. Hence, writing a story's summary turns out to be much easier.

Therefore, writing a summary out of story is a skill. It needs a wide range of vocabulary to express the feeling of the story.

Daedalus and Icarus by Ovid

Looking at the title "Daedalus and Icarus". The first thought that come into my mind is
"Hurray! Another story to read." This story is just two pages long, hence it should be easy reading it.

However, while reading half way through, it is a struggle to finish the story. The first paragraph and second paragraph i should say has no link, it is just like using a liniking verd to link the two paragraphs together. Both paragraphs are telling two different stories. At the first paragraph. it is about Minos and Minos's daughter, while the next paragraph and the next, it is about Daedalus and Icarus.

Thus, i would say that the text actually begin at teh second paragrpagh where it is focusing on Daedalus and Icarus.

Now, looking at the picture, it is so colourful. It portrayed how the Icarus is killed as the colour eventually symbolised them. Personally, I would say that Daedalus actually want to kill Icarus.
It is a question to ponder upon
"Has Daedalus never think of the heat will melt the wax?!"
"why is it Icalus? Why not himself"

As the story develop, Daedalus is a selfish and insane inventor. he gained his fame upon sacrificing other people. it is just so unfair.