MUET 800/2 : SPEAKING TEST.

Assalamualaikum WBT,

How do you folks? It has been a rough week for me last week. It was tiring and I am drained to my last energy. All the hectic schedule really affecting my performance. Tiring indeed.

Now, I am going to write about the incident happened to me last week *obviously.

Here is the chronology.

12/02/2017 (SUNDAY)

In the morning of 12 February, it was great day but unfortunately, my feet were not. As you all already knew that I have gout. It stroked me for quite good hours. I really thought I would recover after taking painkillers, but it really did not. I had to suffer from it for the next day.

13/02/2017 (MONDAY)

The morning of my Speaking 800/2 MUET examination. I studied the night before the exam and I had several points remembered to make the test smooth sailing. Now, due the fact that I did not be able to walk to the school *not really walking, but I need to drive myself to the school, I was ready to move on from the exam. Meaning, I was ready to move on and take it again on May session. 

14/02/2017 (TUESDAY)

I tweeted English Jer on Twitter because he is good English moderator and he knows things too. So, I asked him and he said that I need to ring the Majlis Peperiksaan Malaysia to ask about it. I rang them and got answered by the person in-charged. He said that I need to email to the MPM using, tukartarikh@mpm.edu.my along with FORMAL LETTER with concrete reason for not be able to attend the exam. Now, I wrote that I have gout and alhamdulillah, praise Allah, they accepted my email and they gave me a new date for the speaking test.

15/02/2017 (WEDNESDAY)

I studied more on Speaking with pointers given by my teacher. Thank you teacher Junaidah. You helped me a lot.

16/02/2017 (THURSDAY)

The day of exam. Before that, I went to my Uncle's house in Bentong *because the exam was in Bentong, SMK Sulaiman. I had a sleepover. In that morning, after (LAST NIGHT) I went to do hijama aka cupping (bekam) at Janda Baik, my gout got a lot better. At 10.00 am, I went to SMK Sulaiman and waited at the Quarantine Room. There were two more people who had trouble like me. They too had trouble attending the examination. One was from Rawang and another was from Shah Alam, originally from Perak. YES! PERAK and SELANGOR. And I am just an English tuition teacher from Raub. WOW. 

Now, at first, we were asked to put our signature on a three-piece of paper. Then, my name was not there. My number was 3028 and line up started at 3030. How 's that? Later, I asked the head of examiner and he took the letter that we have to bring along to the examination room. They accepted the letter and we were able to take the exam. *fuh! thanked God for that opportunity.

The two late comers and I were placed at the last session. Meaning, we had to wait for the non late comers to finish their session then us. Now, did I mention that it was like 5 years ago, I practiced my English language? YES. Fully. Fullstop. Haha... 

This is analysis of the 800/2 SPEAKING TEST.

The question was to explain about THE MOST INTERESTING job.

CANDIDATE :

A: a career in music

B: a career in sports and recreational

C: a career in art and design

D: a career in Multimedia

For the task A, I was the Candidate B, so, I was assigned to give my opinion on a career in sports and recreational. It was quite tough to talk about something that you know nothing about. But, anyhow, the two minutes given used by me quite well. 

Then, the task B, where we need to interact with each other and give our opinions on the given topic. I let candidate A and C first because obviously, they agreed on my points which, I did not interested in agreeing.  Now, after they talk about agreeing with my points, well, I refused to agree with my point and I change my stance by agreeing with having a career in art and design. Art and Design to me have vast paths. Everything with art nowadays sells. Yes. So, I talk about quite a good amount of time and I really hope that I could score good marks for it.

So, that is all for last incident.

Moral of the story :

1. Do not give up.

2. Study hard.

3. Be natural.

4. Speak with ease (good choice of words)

5. Study hard to score for the next 3 other papers. *Listening, Reading Comprehension, and Writing *nervouse!!!)

Assalamualaikum WBT

p/s: Waaahhhh

Good Luck UPSR Candidates

Assalamualaikum wbt,

Hi everyone, I would love to wish all the best to all UPSR candidates and today was the English papers.

They made two Papers now. Paper 1 for Reading Comprehension and Paper 2 is for Structured Questions.

My nephew was among those candidates, actually. With given tips and points by me, it was very last minutes, I hope he can do well.

Tips :

1. Read the questions carefully
2. Skip questions that give you troubles
3. Answer ALL the questions
4. Do not leave blank answer space
5. Broaden your mind

I really do not expect him to do well, even if he got C or B, I would be much grateful to Allah. I know his ability in English language.

InsyaaAllah.

Learning Styles : Children Edition.

Assalamualaikum WBT,

Well, it has been awhile since I wrote about Learning Strategies, but now, I am going to write about its sister, Learning Styles. Hehe.. Both learning Strategies and learning Styles have their similarities and differences, but they actually quite different.

Today, I read about learning styles written by Priscilla Dunstan who is a behavioural researcher and creator of the Dunstan Baby Language and author of Child Sense and Calm The Crying. Dunstan pointed out four (4) types of children in learning styles. 

1. Visual children

2. Auditory children

3. Tactile children

4. Taste/smell children

1. Visual Children

Visual children will love the order of the alphabet. They love learning using visuals such as pictures, words, writing on chalkboards and whatnot. Visual children actually need help from the auditory aspect, why? because no matter how good their styles in learning using visual, but without great auditory support, I mean, those who assist them to pronounce the words correctly, well, it is the defect of learning style.

2. Auditory Children

Auditory children love sounds. They will love musics, why? Music is sound. In terms of creativity, they would recognised the words easily because they listened to it. But, it too has its own defect, one for sure is, these auditory children would have tough time recognising the words, for example, if they were showed with flashcards, they would not straight away know the words, why? Because, flashcards does not have sounds, Unless, they created one now. One good way to escape from this problem, the parents MUST incorporate visual with the sound. That would added up the value to the learning style.

3. Tactile Children

Tactile children is quite special. In learning language, we have a lot of unique identities with children. Some learned very fast, some would have a hard time just to remember the letters. Hard right? But, tactile children sometimes are very clever but they have this feeling of hypersensitive, whereas, they happened to hate or dislikes a lot of things. Sometimes, they need to be treated as much care as possible. Having said that, they need something that really could keep them occupied. Usually, tactile children love games,  arcade, physical games, moulding words using Play-Doh and whatnot. As long as it keep them occupied, they its good. So, tactile children involved almost all of the learning styles. What ever that you could think of. Yes. 

4. Taste/Smell Children

Taste/smell children really need something else. They need to feel safe and nurtured in order to learn. Interest is the key point here. Everything must have the interest, they are special. Let say, books that have example of any skin of animals, let say, a crocodile, and it has the rough skin. By reading together with taste/smell children, it will create this bond and this bond is the key point too. It shows that the parents are also interested in learning and it makes the children feel that they on the right track with learning. Lovely. By making the experience of learning to read sensory, your child will not only gain valuable skill but also build on the pleasure of learning. Hows that for a start? 

These styles were researched by Dunstan, and lovely, she really captured the essence of learning styles in children. In learning language, the best ever to learning language is from birth to two years old. Linguists also came out with this hypotheses, Critical Period. So, that is why, you will determine your children's mother tongue. Why? Everything you speak will be the first language for you child, if you determined to speak English language and wished that English language would be your child's first language, then, you have to expose your child with English language by speaking English language all the time with correct Grammar, otherwise, without proper grammar, your child with 'inherit' the grammatical errors made by the parents. It would hard to correct the mistake then, when the child acquire the language already. 

So, if you reader have children, then it is better to actually look thoroughly what are the preferences of your children. Visual? Auditory? Taste/smell? or Tactile? It is important that you walk with your children through the learning period. Vital. Crucial.

That is all for now.

Assalamualaikum WBT

p/s: reading is too crucial. Mark that Parents!

Language Learning Strategies : Memory Strategies

Assalamualaikum WBT,

Now, in the last entry I wrote about this,

Learning Strategies 

Bear in mind, this is about learning strategies not learning styles. They have their differences, okay? 

Now, we are going to talk about Memory Strategies.

What is memory strategies? Is it that important in learning language?

Memory strategies is a particular activity to help learning language by memorising the words and the structures of the language. 

It is actually very important because, since we are English Second Language Learners (ESL), we need to actually memorise words at the beginning but eventually memorising will become retrieve. Meaning, we know the word already, we have memorised them and all we need to is just retrieve. That is all. But at the beginning, it is memorising then it turned into already there. Hope this work. hehe... I am not really good in explaining things. hehe..

So, what are the memory strategies?

Well, as an example, have played flash cards before? Kindergarten maybe? So that is memory strategies, well, one of those million activities in learning English language using memory strategies. In Flash cards we tend to memorise them right? 

Usually in Flash Cards, there are two separate elements, which are, images (pictures) and also words (alphabets). Either way, the intentions is to make our mind memories the shown cards and learning language *thats the ultimate intention. 

It is also the same with songs. We remember the lyrics with the songs together but then when we know the words already, do we need to look for the lyrics in paper? No right? Why? Because we remember the words, the structures already. Why that happened? It happened because the words already stored in our mental lexicon bank. Amazing right? Cute. 

Well, that is all for now. Thank you.

Assalamualaikum WBT

p/s: memory strategies is quite okay. Love it. It is learning acquisition. hehe...