Shakespeare.

image from google.

William Shakespeare, baptised on 26 April 1564 and died on 23 April 1616 but his arts remain alive. It is a timeless collection.

Want to know his biography?

Go to : Wikipedia.

One of my favourite sonnet of his is

 Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red, than her lips red:

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

I grant I never saw a goddess go, 

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,

As any she belied with false compare.

The main theme of this sonnet is love. A true love. The persona describes his mistress and express his love to her unconditionally. Love is blind. Beauty is in the eyes of beholder. When you love someone, you will accept her or him no matter what and that is what this sonnet is trying to portray. The persona truly know his love that he can describe so much about her but still love her. It is better to truly know someone and love him or her than to love someone that you do not really know. To love is to know.

How sweet isn't it? I wish someone could portray his love to me in such a beautiful poetry. :)

shikin hasnan.

Teaching Speaking : What Makes Speaking Difficult?

1. Clustering

Fluent speech is phrasal not word by word. Learners can organize their output both cognitively and physically trough such clustering.

2. Redundancy

The speaker has opportunity to make meaning clearer through redundancy of language. Learners can capitalize on this feature of spoken language.

3. Reduced forms

Contractions, elisions, reduced vowels etc all form special problems in teaching spoken English. Students who don't learn colloquial contractions can sometimes develop a stilted, bookish quality that in turn stigmatizes them.

4. Performance variables.

One of the advantages of spoken language is that the process of thinking as you speak allows you to manifest a certain number of performance hesitations, pauses, backtracking and corrections. Learners can be taught how to pause and hesitate.

5. Colloquial language.

Make sure the students are reasonably well acquainted with the words, idioms and phrases of colloquial language and that they get practise in producing these forms.

6. Rate of delivery

Another salient characteristic of fluency is a rate of delivery. One of the task in teaching spoken English is to help learners achieve an acceptable speed along with other attributes of fluency.

7. Stress, rhythm, and intonation.

The stress timed rhythm of spoken English and its intonation patterns convey important message.

8. Interaction

The creativity of conversational negotiation.

Source :Teaching by Principles by H. Douglas Brown.

future educator.

shikin hasnan.

Onomatopoeia.

What is onomatopoeia? Onomatopoeia are words that are sound like the objects they name or the sound that those objects made. Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it represents. For example like meow, roar, oink, splash, crack, boom, slurp, crunch, munch and etc.

Onomatopoeia Poem : Buzzzzz

Buzzzzzz bee buzzzz

swoosh by my ear

plink plank plunk

my feet in puddles

while buzzzz bee buzzzz

Buzzzz bee buzzz

by the huming bird hummmmm

whoosh around his head

hummmmmm bird hummmmm

buzzz bee buzzzzzz

buzzzz bee buzzzz

YOUCH, you stung me

oooch eeech ouch!

scat bee scat

buzzzz bee buzzzz

Onomatopoeia Poem : Kaboom!

KABOOM!

Kaboom!
Ka-blast
Way in the past
the miners mined for ore.
They searched for copper, iron and salt,
for that and much, much more.

Kaboom!
The bite
of dynamite
cut deep inside the earth.
The charge explodes revealing lodes
of minerals of worth.

Kaboom!
The dust,
the air so mussed
went swirling through the sky.
It was a sight, the dynamite
that made the mountains fly.

Kaboom!
The earth
was filled with mirth
so tickled by the boom.
The miner's pleasure,
each newfound treasure
that followed each
Kaboom!

by Denise Rodgers

Now that you know what is onomatopoeia, you too can start writing your very own onomatopoeia poem. Do share if you write one k!

shikin hasnan.

Let us take a minute to pray for the Tsunami's victims in Japan.

A massive 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 causing damage with blackouts, fire and tsunami. The quake was the fifth-largest in the world since 1900 and nearly 8,000 times stronger than the one which devastated Christchurch, New Zealand, last month, according to scientists. 

source from BBC News.

May God be with us and hopefully nothing will happen here in Malaysia..

Don't know what is tsunami? Click here.

WHY DO WE HAVE TO GO TO SCHOOL?

Functions of Education.

We go to school for :

• Socialization : Learning to be productive members of society through the passing on of culture. At school, we will learn the rights and wrongs, values and role expectations of the society. 
• Transmission of culture. Different groups of students are taught different norms, skills, values and knowledge.
• Social control and personal development. Discipline differs by social class, racial ethnic group and sex.
• Selecting, training and placement of individuals in society. School promotes social mobility.
• Change and innovation.

image from google.

the future educator.

shikin hasnan.

MUET.

MUET (Malaysian University English Test) is a test of English Language proficiency runs by Malaysian Examinations Council.


MUET has 4 components which are listening, reading, writing and speaking.Each has different scores and percentage. 

• Listening - 15%
• Speaking - 15%
• Reading - 45%
• Writing- 25%

We can see that reading has the highest percentage so it is crucial to score at reading component as it will help  you to increase your total marks. 

The score or the total marks are graded in 6 bands, the band 6 is the highest and band 1 is the lowest score.

Band 6- Very good user (Aggregated score:260-300).

Very good command of the language. Highly expressive, fluent, accurate and appropriate language: hardly any inaccuracies. Very good understanding of language and contexts. Functions extremely well in the language.

Band 5- Good user (Aggregated score:220-259) 

Good command of the language. Expressive, fluent, accurate and appropriate language but with minor inaccuracies. Good understanding of language and contexts. Functions well in the language.

Band 4- Competent user (Aggregated score:180-219) 

Satisfactory command of the language. Satisfactory expressive and fluent,appropriate language but with occasional inaccuracies. Satisfactory understanding of language and contexts. Functions satisfactorily in the language.

Band 3- Modest user (Aggregated score:140-179) 

Modest command of the language. Modestly expressive and fluent,appropriate language but with noticeable inaccuracies. Modest understanding of language and contexts. Able to function modestly in the language.

Band 2- Limited user (Aggregated score:101-139) 

Limited command of the language. Lacks expressiveness, fluency and appropriacy: inaccurate use of the language resulting in breakdown in communication. Limited understanding of language and contexts. Limited ability to function in the language.

Band 1- Extremely limited user (Below 100)

Poor command of the language. Unable to use language to express ideas: inaccurate use of the language resulting in frequent breakdowns in communication. Little or poor understanding of language and contexts. Hardly able to function in the language.

MUET is what you need to enter university so, it is important for you to score at least band 3 and above. Some course set band 4 as the requirements. Stress on your reading and writing components and be careful when you do your listening as well as speaking.

So, good luck for those who are taking MUET. And do not worry, if you're not satisfied with the first attempt, do not worry because you can try it next time, now it has 3 batch in a year.

shikin hasnan.

Leisure.

Leisure is one of the selected poem for Form Three students. It is written by William Henry Davies.
The poem is very beautiful and it remind me how I took every little things for granted. The world is such a beautiful place to live if we really appreciate it.

Sometimes we are too busy with our works, responsibilities and with our pack schedule, and we always forget that there is so much more to life to enjoy. Sometimes we have to sit back and relax and just enjoy the nature. Take time to really enjoy our surrounding and appreciate it.

stanza 3:

"No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass."

Have we ever stop to see the trees and appreciate it? I bet no because we are so busy walking or driving to reach to our destination.

stanza 4:

No time to see in broad daylight

Streams full of stars, like stars at night.

One thing that caught me is the stanza 4. When I was a little girl, I used to love to watch stars at night, I even ask my mother to accompany me watching stars because I always wondered how on earth that stars can be so bright yet so far away that I can't reach them. Now that I am so busy, I forgot how beautiful they are and I no longer enjoy watching stars because I have no time to do so.

So, lets start enjoying the nature even though we are so busy with life, make some time to enjoy the very simple things in life and may be we will find such tranquil when doing so.

shikin hasnan.