my thought on EDU3234...

finally, the semester has come to an end and it marked the end of EDU3234 course. after a long 14 weeks, i have successfully finished two major works of the course which are position paper and research paper. these two writing projects allow me to polish my writing skills and at the same time i gain a lot of information regarding the topics that i use in both of the writing projects. plus, the research paper give me some exposure on the real research paper if i'm going to pursue for a master or even phd in the future (i really hope that i will, someday...).
moreover, i do learn a lot of things from the lecture by Dr. Edwin on various aspect of literature and how literature can be taught in the language classroom. all the lessons are clearly an eye opener for me and make me thing of my own role as a future teacher. it is very interesting to know that music and paintings can be use in literature classroom and i do believe that using other types of literature rather than writings would increase students' interest in the lesson.
in conclusion, i find that this course is beneficial for my future as an English teacher and also as a human in general. ^^

my opinion on doing research paper.

hmm... (a very deep thinking mode)
personally, i think that doing research paper is an unforgettable experience. not because it is a 3000 words assignment (though i do feel some weight regarding it) but because the time i did the paper is a time when i had to do various other assignments that is due on the same week as my first draft research paper due. i had a headache thinking of organizing all my works that is due in 2 weeks time. some of the works that i had to do are lesson plans, position paper and also CBI. after thinking 'critically', i decided to finish all other assignments on the first week and i will devoted my time on the second week for the research paper.thankfully my working mode is a success and i'm able to finish other assignments in one week (miraculously). now the time has come for me to do the research paper. as i had already think of the issue i want to do in the research paper, outlining my research paper is not that difficult but writing it is a challenge. this is because, i cannot make myself focus on the project and i tend to be distracted by other thing (very bad of me..). however, i did finish it on time and no harm done. from the experience of doing the research paper i learned that i need to do my work quickly and procrastinate is not an option.

my opinion on doing position paper...

position paper that i have done in my first half of my course work semester, is an eye opener experience. this is because previously i had a 'not so good' memory on writing and i always had a very difficult time in writing long assignment though i know that i can do it.in doing the position paper, i realize that if i have interest in the issue that i want to discuss in the paper, i can write a lot and that is what happened in my position paper. my topic for my position paper is on the issue of companionship in "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck and "Of Mice and Men" is a very good and interesting novel on friendship and companionship. i had a good time reading the novel as the novel shows various emotions and the way John Steinbeck writes the novel allows me to understand the story easily as the language in the novel is not really hard and the story itself makes me feel close to the story. that is why i have a lot to say on the issue and it makes my writing experience a good memory.

playing with limericks

limerick is a five-line poem written with one couplet and one triplet. today we had a chance creating a limerick and guest what... it is really fun!! I'm personally like creative writing and creating poems are some of the thing that i do in my spare time (not lately though...). when Dr. Edwin asked us to create a limerick poem by using the templates given in the coursework book, he is actually giving us the way of using the activity in the literature classroom. by allowing students to create a poem with a help of template, they can have a hands on opportunity of writing their own piece of literature. this is because, when i did the activity, i feel happy and i enjoy the activity plus at the same time i do learn something and it is creating a poem. obviously i will try using this activity in my future classroom. here, i put my group limerick poem that we've created during the activity:
i once met a clown from Siberia.
every day he made people laugh like hysteria.
but whenever he breaks the law.
the clown ran away on a trishaw.
the strange clumsy clown from Siberia.

classical music?

one thing for sure, i love music. classical music? i'm not sure whether i'm a fan of clssical music but one thing for sure that i appreciate good music and it can come from various types of music whether it is classical, pop, rock or even ballad. in one of my lecture with Dr. Edwin, he suggested the use of music in literature classroom as it will make the lesson more interesting and worthwhile especially classical music. after listening to some classical music played by Dr. Edwin, i can see that some of the songs are the songs that i like and i do think that this types of music would interest the students as it allows students to interpret the mood of the music and at the same time they can interpret the tone or even the theme of the lesson that they are going to learn that day (if the song is inculcate in the lesson). one of the song that i like is 'rhapsody in blue'. it is an interesting piece of art and i do enjoy listening to it. i'm not sure why i like the music but the sound is so synchronize and beautiful and the song is fun and probably it makes the music is so interesting! ^^

my experience meeting mr tham siew inn

i am very fortunate that i had a marvelous chance of visiting an art gallery owned by Mr. Tham Siew Inn in malacca recently. it was a memorable experience and i learn a lot from the visit. all the paintings in the art gallery are beautiful and interesting. most of the paintings by Mr. Than are inspired by nature and i can see that he is so interested in nature. as the art gallery is also his living space, i can see that he devoted himself to nature. he has a wonderful garden in the middle of the house and one of his d=son mentioned that the landscape is done by Mr. Tham himself. the son also mentioned that he would spend some times at the small garden and he sometimes get some new ideas to his new painting by looking at the small garden. i am so interesed in Mr. Tham's works and i want to consider his works as my teaching material when i become a teacher in the near future. this is because, most of his works allow for various interpretation and i wanted to improve my students' interpretation skill. last but not least, the trip was interesting and memorable and i hope that i would have another chance to visit him again. ^^

the us of other types of literature in teaching literature

besides the common types of literature such as novel, short story and poem, there are many other types of literature (material) that can be use in literature classroom. some of the example of other types of literature is paintings and songs. both of these materials are interesting and it is good to be use in the literature classroom. this is because, other types of literature can enhance the students understanding of the texts they are learning in the classroom. other form of literature can be use as a variation and it would make the learning process more interesting as they have other form of literature to look and study rather the common types of literature which are always in the form of writing/text. moreover, by using material such as paintings, students would have the chance to improve their interpretation skill as they need to interpret the meaning of the painting. i do think that it would make an interesting lesson!! ^^

My self-image as teacher

As my time grow closer to being a teacher, it is best for me to picture myself as teacher and what my perception of being a teacher is. For me, teacher is like a spoon, a useful tool to help us eat. Spoon helps people to pick or grab foods in order for them to eat. It is the same with teacher’s role in class where I need to help students get the information because teacher is a facilitator and not the source of information. How much students able to absorb the knowledge depends on themselves as they are the one who decide how many information that they can digest at a time. Same situation would happen to a spoon where the person who used the spoon would be the one who decide the amount of food he or she would want to eat at that time. Spoon is just the tool to scoop the food and not the decision maker of the amount of food that the person is going to take. Moreover, when a person do not want to use the spoon anymore he or she can use his or her own hands to scoop the food and if he or she thinks that the spoon is not good enough, he or she can change the spoon and use a better spoon that can fill his or her needs. Teacher would also be in the same situation as spoon because the aim of teaching the students would be to help students to learn to be independent in learning and when they can depend on themselves in learning would the day of celebration for a teacher. Moreover, if the students think that a teacher is not good enough, they could try to search for other teacher that can teach more useful and important knowledge. That is why teachers need to fill themselves with every possible knowledge in order for teachers to be useful and beneficial for students.

The distinction between sacrifice and love

On the 6th week of the course, Dr. Edwin discusses the distinction between sacrifice and love as we are looking at the story The Mahabharata. When Dr. Edwin asks the meaning of sacrifice and love, I kind of create meanings that overlap each other. The distinction between love and sacrifice is very small as they overlap each other. According to Dr. Edwin’s meaning of sacrifice, it means that to give something at a cost and it is not worth the outcomes. When we sacrifice something we would lost something and the after effect of I would not be at worth as much as what you’ve sacrifice. As for love, Dr. Edwin’s definition for it is that to give something and something good happens in return. It is an act of love where we do something that at the end would result in a good way. For example, a mother who spend her whole life caring for her child and not to herself and at the end of the day, her child becomes successful in life, it shows that it is an act of love where she her hard work is worth it. On the other hand, when the child becomes not filial, then it is a sacrifice where she has wasted her time with the child and at the end of the day, the child is not worth the care.

My first meeting with my supervisor

On the 6th week of learning in the course, my lecturer Dr. Edwin had assign our supervisor for the research paper and 6 people including me is assign under the supervision on Dr. Jayakaran Mukundan, our very own lecturer in the Educational Faculty. After we have been assigned under Dr. Jaya, we decided to quickly make an appointment with him so that we could know and expect from the research paper that we are going to do. So, on February 12, we had a meeting with our supervisor, Dr. Jaya at the Educational Faculty’s library. Due to the fact that this is our first meeting with our supervisor, I do not know what to expect from the meeting. That is why when Dr. Jaya asked us on the issue that we want to discuss in the research paper, most of us do not know what to say as we do not prepare the requirement that Dr. Jaya asked us to show. Thankfully that I had done some reading on what issue I’m going to do on and I quickly show it to Dr. Jaya to ask his approval. I wanted to discuss an issue of discrimination on women in Malaysian text and I’ve chosen two particular texts for the research which are “Mala”, a short story by K. S. Maniam and “Confinement”, a short story by Mulaika Hijjas. Dr. Jaya gives his approval on my issue and he wanted me to give some implication of the issue on education. Lastly before the meeting session ended, Dr. Jaya asked us to prepare our first draft for the research paper and pass it up on the 24th of February 2009.

Supporting details for my position paper

After developing my thesis statement for my position paper, the job of finding supporting details for it becomes a little bit easy as I know what I want to search for. As I’ve already mentioned in my previous post, my thesis statement for the position paper is on companionship in “Of Mice and Men”. That is why I try to find characters in the novel that are longing for companionship and I found out that there are quite a lot of characters that have that characteristic. Examples of the characters that have that characteristic are George Milton, Candy, Curley’s wife and also Crooks. Plus, through reading the novel, I can see that even the ranch hands in the story also wanted companion due to their loneliness of working and living alone. That is why; I come out with five supporting details that I think would support my thesis statement of the relation between companionship and purpose in life. My first supporting detail is on George Milton and his relationship with Lennie where their friendship helps George breaks the pattern of the loneliness of human being through the dream that they created together. My second supporting detail is on Candy where he joins George and Lennie’s dream in order for him to have reason of living though he is an old and handicapped man. My next supporting detail is about Curley’s wife and her sluttish way of seeking man’s attention due to her loneliness living in all men world without having anyone to talk to. Crooks also face some kind of loneliness in the story where he is being discriminate due to his race and I use this as my fourth supporting detail. Last but not least, I wanted to write about the ranch hands loneliness in the story and how they also wanting companionship to ease their stress of working and living alone.

My Position Paper

From the very start after knowing the fact that I need to do a position paper for EDU3234, I kept thinking about what text that I would choose for it. In my 6 years of learning in this course (including my 2 years of foundation course) I have learned more than 20 texts that I can use for my position paper. However, choosing the right text for it is a very tricky job. One main priority that I use to choose the text is that it needs to be a text that I understand and like. After thinking for about a week, I decided to choose “Of Mice and men” by John Steinbeck, a novel that I learned in my foundation course. “Of Mice and Men” is a dark tale of men’s journey through pitiful, brutal and inhumane world and in this story, John Steinbeck focused on two main characters which are George and Lennie. It is a very interesting and emotional story that I think I could relate to. As John Steinbeck always interested in loneliness and human, I also wanted to do a thesis statement on loneliness which is also a theme of the story. Due to that reason, I come out with a thesis statement that I think would be a good motion for me to discuss in the position paper. It is, “All human being are longing for companionship in order for them to have purpose in life”. I wanted to discuss the theme of loneliness in the story and also the need of companion in life. I wanted to show that companion is a major need in human life and how does companionship contribute to purpose in life. After I come out with the thesis statement, I quickly showed it to my tutor for approval and luckily my thesis statement is accepted. However, he asked to me to work on the thesis statement so that my point would be much stronger and I have more supporting details for that thesis statement.

Intertextuality

In the Dr. Edwin’s class for the third week, he discusses the intertextuality in literature and how teacher can use intertextuality to make students understand literature better. Intertextuality is a very useful and interesting way that teacher can use in literature classroom. This is because intertextuality is a various forms of literature such as texts, pictures, songs and etc. With various forms of literature, students are able to understand the theme or the message of a literature text better due to the fact that they would have other forms of literature besides text make interpretation. Moreover, some of the students would actually have difficulties in interpreting a reading text can have better understanding of the message that the writer wanted to convey by using a picture that describe about the text. This is because most of the students are visual learners and they can make good interpretation of a picture rather than a text. That is why having various forms of literature would help teacher in conveying the message better and make the lesson much more interesting. I personally like the idea of using intertextuality in literature classroom and I would definitely use this method in my near future.

Doing the thesis statement

Our first assignment for the course is considering the position paper. We are asked find a good and suitable thesis statement for the position paper. Obviously, we are not asked to come out with the thesis statement without even understand the meaning of thesis statement and why does it is important in the project. According to the tutor, thesis statement is a statement that will become an umbrella of our stand in the position paper. I think that it means that the thesis statement is a statement that explains my position in the writing project and I can elaborate my points and arguments using the thesis statement. Though I’ve learned how to create a thesis statement before, I never imagine that a thesis statement for position paper would be difficult. But I’m stand corrected. To create a thesis statement that can show my whole points and arguments considering the topic is difficult and it does take a lot of time and consideration in order to create a good thesis statement. That is why the practice that we did in the tutorial session helps me to understand thesis statement and how to create a good thesis statement that can be argued in the writing project.

My expectation on the course

First and foremost, the first thing that comes into my mind about the course is that it’s going a long and challenging journey. I know that my first impression in this course is a bit harsh and disappointing but I had a bad experience in doing writing projects. My previous writing project was a nightmare because I don’t know what to do and I can’t understand the lecturer’s expectation on the project. Plus, I was in my first year and everything is new to me. Still I’m not declaring a white flag on this course. I wanted to do the best that I can in this course due to the fact that I love to challenge myself and gives up is not in my dictionary. When Dr. Edwin explains the course outline for EDU3234, I started to think about the topics that I would like to discuss in both of my position and research paper. Due to the fact that both papers are about literature texts, I wanted to write on the texts that I prefer and familiar with and I’m glad that my previous lessons on various literary texts will help me a lot in this course. Last but not least, I will definitely learn a lot from this course and obviously I wanted to do better than I was before in writing project.