Finally, it is all coming to an end..

After receiving feedback on my first draft, I have to make some amendments in term of the sentence structures and the choice of words as they are confusing. According to Cik Pah, some of my arguments are not clear and I need to support it with more textual evidences. I am happy that she is so critical in her analysis of my research paper as I do not expect her to really read it on word to word basis due to her busy schedule. It takes me 3 days to revise and prepare for my final copy of research paper. I have added some extra points as well as the appropriate textual evidences. Hopefully, Cik Pah will be able to see some improvements in it. Overall, I would say that my supervisor is helpful in guiding me through the research paper writing. Now all I have to do is to cross my finger and hope to get good marks.

Classical music in classroom...

We were introduced by Dr Edwin on various types classical music. One of it was Mozart and Beethoven. In my opinion, I think it is useful to use classic music in the literature classroom because it helps to create a relaxing atmosphere for the students as there are a lot of thinking process involved during the literature lesson but one has to be careful not to overdo it as it will make their students feels sleepy. According to Dr Edwin, we should incorporate it while we are teaching poetry as both the song and the poem might share a similar rhyme and mood. However, I felt that it is difficult to be carried out as one needs to be experienced and have total control of the class. Some students may not like it as they think it is an old fashion music and for those who are easily distracted, playing the music might obstruct their reading of the poems. It might be more useful for students who are particularly interested in literature as they are able to see the connection.

The Emperor's Club

After watching this movie, it reminds me of the other film which was recommended by Dr.Jayakaran in our writing course last semester,“The Dead Poet Society.” However, this movie has a “lighter” feel and is not that depressing. I enjoys the unexpected twist at the end which help to underline the message that a single mistake can have life-long consequences. Besides, I also like the message of the film which says your mistake/failure doesn't define your life if you don't let it. It is important for us as further teachers as we are bound to face a lot of challenges when we are out to teach in schools. So we are to be persevere in what we believe in and keep on trying until we achieve what we one. Giving up halfway is an act of a coward.

Outline for research paper.

Hardly have the time to rest, I have to begin writing for my research paper. All of us are given a supervisor who will grade our paper. My supervisor is Cik Pah, I do not know whether I should be happy or sad because according to the senior, Cik Pah is rather strict in her assessment so it will be kinda difficult for me to get an A for this paper. However, on a more positive side, I will be able to improve my language acquisition as well as my writing style under her guidance. During my first meeting with her, she gives me a rough guideline on what she wants to see in the research paper, yet she says it is all depends on us. We can do on any texts we want and in any way we want. I appreciate that she gives us the freedom to decide but the instruction seems kinda vague and I have a tough time deciding what to do. I consult some of friends to get some ideas on what to do. During my second meeting with her, I show her some of the texts which I am interest to do, she prefers that I do on The Landlady and The Hitchhiker as the other texts such as Paul's Case and Barn Burning are too common for her. So, in order to please her, I follow her wish..hehe..Instead of doing on theme, she encourages me to look at the language aspects. It takes me 2 days to think and I finally decide to look at the author's usage of subtle network of hints and clues to portray the theme of the short stories. In a way, I am killing two birds in one stone. Hopefully she will approve it!

watching the freedom writer.

We were asked to watch a movie entitled “Freedom Writers’. In my opinion, this movie is very inspirational especially for us who are going be teachers in future. Although some of my friends said that it has been shown on Astro before, this is my first time watching it. In this movie, we can see the teacher's effort in trying all sorts of methods to help her students in their studies as well in their issues about life. Although initially she is not able to connect with her multiracial students and faces lot of challenges in her class, she does not give up but she continues to work harder to make connection with her students as well to encourage unity among the students themselves without considering the skin colour. Such depictions further encourage me to be persevered in working toward achieving my goals. Besides, I think it is important for a teacher to understand his or her students so that he or she will know what the students need as well as the teaching methods which will work best for them in their learning. Thus, one of the effective ways in learning about your students will be asking them to write journals. By exercising such method as part of the language activities, it will enable students to express their feelings freely as well to share with others their point of views on certain issues. I remembered doing it myself when I was in secondary school and I believe it helps to motivate students in doing what is right for them. The teacher's comments serve as the guidance for students to excel.

i'm over with the position paper

Finally, I have completed the position paper. I have made some changes to it based on the comments given by Sheila. During the peer review session, she is in charge to assess my paper. She comments that my points are not well explored and the points are basically about the same thing. I have a mix feeling upon hearing her comments. Somewhere between disappointment and relief because it is just a draft and I still have time to make amendments on it. However, I think I owe her big time for her honest comments because it serves as a wake up call to me that my paper is not good enough to get an A. Hence with all the changes done, I am confident that now my final position paper is good. As for the presentation of position paper, I remember that Mr. Omid has asked us to prepare at least 15 slides, so i try to put in as much information as possible into my powerpoint slides. However, during my presentation, I realize that my slides are too long and some of my friends seem bored listening to me. In a way, it is bad experience for me..Haih..i don't think my presentation marks is going to be good this time..

My metaphor

The metaphor that I choose to describe myself as a teacher is of an
artist's kit. I envision a briefcase-type of thing fills with paints,
markers, glue, clay, pieces of this and that, and brushes and cutting
blades etc. In this metaphor, the student's are the artist, the
teacher is the kit, bringing all of the necessary supplies and tools
along in order to create an opportunity where the artist can "make"
their art, the classroom is of course the studio, the curriculum
is/are the materials within the kit, the administrator is a provider
of materials to fill the kit, and the parent is a supporter of the
artist. It seems to me that within the framework of this metaphor, the
classroom effectively becomes a huge artists' lab, where the teachers'
purposes should be to provide a variety of materials and opportunities
for the students' to play with them and in doing so, assign to them
meaning and function. Each student should be given freedom to learn in
the way they are comfortable with, thus as a teacher, I will try to
provide knowledge that will cater students' various needs so that they
can decide for themselves which one they prefer in order not to
restrict their creativity and their abilities.

a new perspective for reading.

I have the interest in reading story books since I was in secondary schools. They are mostly love story books. However,as time goes by and with the encouragement and recommendation given by Dr.Edwin, I feel that I have become more mature along with my interest in reading. I have expanded my reading materials to include non-fiction texts and ironically, those texts are now my favourite. After reading a few non-fiction texts such as The Last Lecture by Randy Paush and Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, I have a whole new perspective about reading books. I am able to comprehend now with what people mean when they say reading is a discount ticket to everywhere. (Quoted from Mary Schmicd) It teaches me about life and widen my knowledge on what is happening around me. It is like a user manual that gives me some ideas on how to face the challenges in life. I am looking forward to obtain more reading texts especially those that are recommended by Dr.Edwin. I am confident with his taste of books..heheh

My final thesis statement......

After having my first thesis statement rejected, I was thinking of using another texts that discussed on issues that I was more familiar with. After searching through the texts that I had learned in the past 5 years, I decided on choosing the novel, "Sense and Sensibility". My first intuition was to write something on the positive side of the quality of sensibility because most of the readers seemed to think that sense was a better value and sensibility leaded someone to make irrational decisions. However, I faced some problems in justifying my points. So, I tried to look at another aspect which was on the character, Elinor. Besides being sensible, Elinor was not much of a chatterer, she often observe people and incidents that happened around her before making a statement or decision. Then it was like.."Bang! I got my thesis statement". My thesis statement was Elinor's silence is a mark of her self-restraint, trustworthiness, consideration of others and personal strengths. Throughout the process of forming my thesis statements, I had Jasmit to help me. She helped me to search for supporting statements to test out my thesis statement and restructured my thesis statement so that it was clearer. Thank you alot! Owe you big time!

Thesis statement for position paper!

During the tutorial session with Mr. Omid, he had explained to us on what thesis statements was about and what was the criteria of a good thesis statements. According to him, our thesis statements need to be argumentative, specific and based on our personal views of the texts. We can either do our position paper based on poetry texts, short stories, novels or plays. My first thesis statement was based on the short novel, "The pearl" by John Seinbeck. I chose to talk about the evilness of the pearl that had caused the downfall of Kino's life. However, when my other classmates were presenting their thesis statements and based on the comments given by Mr.Omid, my thesis statement will definitely be rejected as the idea was already mentioned by the author so it was not really my idea. So I was like, "Arg..god help me to think of one thesis statement" Furthermore, the facts that most of my friends had already come out with their thesis statements and Mr Omid had already approved them made me even more stressful and worried. I must come out with a brilliant thesis statement soon!!!!

Simplified text for Daedalus and Icarus

After having discussion of the text, Daedalus and Icarus in the class, we were told by Dr Edwin to come out with a simplified version of the text in order to be used to teach secondary school students. I believed that having a simplified text was useful in order to make sure that students understand the major events in the story especially for lower-level proficiency learners. It was better to get something than nothing. The reason for it was if we were to use authentic texts in the class but most students were not able to read it, what is the point? It will lower down their self motivation to read as the students felt they were not good enough. In this activity, we worked in group of 3, Pui looi, Jasmit and I were in a group. We discussed on the main events in the story together in the class but due to shortage of time, I volunteered to write out the simplified text based on the points that we had discussed. The simplified text was then given to Pui Looi and Jasmit to check for any grammatical mistakes and they can add in points if relevant. I think we worked well together. We were now anxiously waiting for Dr. Edwin's opinions regarding the simplified text.

The fall of Icarus.

I fell asleep when I read the text for the first time. It all seemed so confusing. Then i realized that the extract given in our texts was not a complete version. I was supposed to start reading somewhere in the middle when it started with Icarus's father trying to find a way back to their country and suddenly it all made sense. I believed that the proverb, "Curiosity kills the cat" can be applied as one of the moral lessons in this text. Icarus was warned by his father to fly in the midway as the heat from the sun might melt the wax of his wings. He obeyed his father's instruction at the beginning of their flying journey but he became more adventurous and went against his father's words as he wanted to fly higher like the birds. Due to that, the wax on his wings melted by the heat of the sun and caused him to fell from the sky and drowned. In a way, he represented a sense of freedom, Romantic spirit, aspiration and individualism as told by Dr.Edwin. This was proven when he tried to do something that he felt right and different from others. During the lesson, Dr Edwin asked us to bring a picture and a poem of the "The fall of Icarus", there were a various different pictures and poems. I managed to get the right picture but the wrong poem.
It was true that pictures said a thousand words. From the picture, we can see that there was a boy drowning with one of his leg still on the surface of the water. However, as a whole picture, we can see that the other characters in the pictures were not aware of what was going on around them. They were just continued doing their routine jobs as a farmer and fisherman. Well, what i can say from this picture was in life there were two choices one can make, they can either take the risks in doing something different and accept the consequences or choose a monotonous lifestyle where everything will always be the same and risk free. I was rather curious to see the expression of Icarus's father seeing the fall of his son but it was not shown in the picture. Too bad..

The Mahabharata

After reading the first the story, 'The Son of The Turtle-Spirit', I was rather looking forward to read the second myth story as the language used was rather simple and there were some sort of supernatural elements in the stories. In this story, there seemed to be a love at first sight situation when King Santanu proposed to the goddess Ganga upon seeing her. "You must certainly become my wife, whoever you may be." Although she had set some outrageous terms upon agreement to be his wife, the king still wanted to marry her. The decisions made by the king were indeed illogical because it was obvious that the goddness Ganga was a rather suspicious character and as a king, he can get anyone to marry him easily . Yet, he still obeyed to her requests. As the story developed further, the king's action became more insane when he chose to suffer in silence upon seeing his wife killed their children by casting them into the river, and then returned to the king with a smiling face. I think the king finally came to some senses when he stopped his wife from killing their eighth son. I did not understand the reasons why she had to kill her children and took her no eighth son with her and later returned him to the king. This story seemed somehow more complicated as it involved some aspects of the Hindus goddesses which I was not familiar with. The king and his son, Devavrata were happy with their life until the moment the king fell in love at the first sight for the second time with the beautiful maiden, the daughter of the chief of the fishermen. He wanted to marry her but the chief had requested that the son borne of this maiden should be the king after King Santanu. The king was wiser in making his decision as he was concerned about Devavrata. However when Devavrata knew about it, he on behalf of his father made an agreement with the chief so that the king will have the maiden as his spouse. Although the king seemed to be a weak character in this story, I did feel that he was a respectful character as he was loving toward his first wife and his son and tried to keep to his promise. Bhishma's willingness to give up the throne for his father's happiness made him a noble and godlike character. I believed that there might be some hidden message in this text and looked to the discussion in Dr. Edwin's class. Hopefully it matched my understanding of the text.

The son of the turtle-spirit

After reading the tale, The son of the turtle-spirit', I enjoyed the story as it was entertaining, some sort of a love story. Furthermore, the language used in the text was rather simple, thus making it easier for me to comprehend. However, I did not like the maiden's character, in a way she was betraying her lover and caused his death. Instead of sewing thread onto his coat, the maiden should ask her lover personally in order to find out his origin. What she did was to trap him. Another thing that shocked me was the maiden and the spirit actually had a child. How can that happen? Spirits were not human beings.
The maiden's action was questionable when she asked her son to lie to the rich man and the grave-seeker by putting his father’s bones (the turtle) in the dragon’s mouth. I often thought that mothers were always the one who teach their children to do the right things and the not the other way round. Yet, the maiden’s intention to do it for her husband should not be criticized as it was part of the Chinese culture to find a good burial place for the deceased as it will affect the life of their children. In a way, the maiden wanted her son to have a good life. All in all, it was a good story to read for merely entertainment and cultural enrichment.

first tutorial class

To be honest, I was quite worry that I will not be able to understand Mr Omid's accent as this was my time having a foreigner tutor. Due to that, I made sure that i sat at the front so that there will less distraction. However, the minute Mr Omid spoke, I felt that I was worrying for nothing. His prounciation was loud and clear.
From the tutorial session, I learnt how to produce a good thesis statement. Mr Omid had conducted a few activities that was helpful in directing our mindset in producing a thesis statement for our position papers. I was really greatful when he praised me on the thesis statement that I produced about myself..hehe.."Uncontrollable desires make my life more stressful". Moreover, he also provided a few examples of good thesis statements and somehow I felt it was not that difficult to come out with a thesis statement...Hopefully I really can.
Overall the tutorial session was kinda relaxing and not as stressful as I thought it will be. What I learn about myself is 'DON'T THINK TOO MUCH'

my very first class of EDU 3234

"Readings and Project work for teaching literature in ESL contexts"..from the name itself, this course seem to be difficult and involves lots of work. With this kind of impression, I entered the course's first lecture with worries and anxious..The most dreading part of the lecture was during the discussion on what we were supposed to do for the assignments.
What is position paper??? For our first assignment, we were supposed to write a position paper on a topic based on a literary text or writer. It was until Dr. Edwin explained on the procedures and requirements needed, that I began to see the picture of it..believe me, it is not easy as it required us to have a great understanding of a literary text and then come out with a stand or thesis statement as well as supporting details. For me, it was easy to read literary texts and enjoy the stories. However, to take a stand based on the text was very much different and challenging.
Haih..besides the position paper, there was another difficult paper that we need to do for this course in order to gain 40%..the paper is research paper. Again, we need to get a topic for our research paper and the research was either on a writer or on any literary texts. Fortunately, we will get help from a supervisor...I'm seriously keeping my fingers cross so that I will be able to get a helpful supervisor that I will be able to click and learn from.
Again, regardless how difficult the assignments are, I won't be able to change it..all I can do is try my best because I really need to get a good gred for this course..Praying for lots and lots of luck!..