REFLECTION ON DIALOGUE

Reflection on a dialogue (verbal communication) with at least five language functions for role plays (6 February 2012).

CHARACTER	DIALOGUE
NAJA	Hi, girls! Good morning! Chinese New Year is coming. Do you girls go back for holiday? (To ask)
LIZA	Yes! I will go back for sure because it is my family celebration (To reply). How about you girls?(To ask)
INN	I’m not sure yet because my parents are not at home for the time being (To reply).
JUE	Same goes for me as we have not received our allowances yet (To explain).
LIZA	So pity for both of you. Why don’t both of you come with me? Let’s celebrate the Chinese New Year with me and my family. (To invite)
INN	Hmm…I don’t think I can join you because I already have my own plans for this coming holiday (To decline).
JUE	Cool! It’s a good idea! But, I have to ask permission from my parents first (To half agree)
NAJA	Anyway, are you serious Liza? Since I always dream of celebrating Chinese New Year, don’t you mind if I go along with you? May I? May I? (To request)
LIZA	Yes, why not? It’s my honor to have you as my special guest (To agree).
NAJA	Wow! That sounds lovely. Thanks, Liza (To thank). By the way, what is so special about Chinese New Year celebration? Come on, tell us! (To ask).
JUE	Oh, I know. I know! One of them is Lion Dance. I really enjoy the Lion Dance show. It’s what I’m waiting for every year (To express).
INN	But, I know the most special one! (To express)
JUE	What is it? What is it? (To ask)
INN	Angpau! Since I’m not coming with you, so don’t forget my angpau, okay! (To remind)
LIZA	Yes, both of you are correct. But, I’m so sorry, my dear. (To apologize). I’m not married yet so I can’t give you angpau. (To explain)
INN	Why can’t? (To confirm)
LIZA	It’s a tradition. I can’t change it. (To explain)
NAJA	Oh, I see. Actually I’m so excited to play fireworks. (To express)
LIZA	Yes, me too. It is the most exciting part in Chinese New Year celebration for me. (To respond)
JUE	Really? That sounds great! (To respond)
LIZA	So, what are you waiting for? (To convince)
JUE	Alright, I’ll try my best to convince my parents. (To agree)
INN	If that so, I have to think twice about this. (To confirm)
LIZA	Good! That’s my friend (To praise)
NAJA	Awesome! Let’s shopping for a new cheongsam, girls! (To invite)
LIZA, JUE & INN	Let’s go!!! (To agree)

When we talk about Language Functions, we are talking about the reason we use a language. At its most basic, the function of language is communication; we use language to give and receive messages between ourselves. We can break this down into Language Functions. When we communicate with language we can:

§  compare and contrast

§  make a complaint

§  express love or anger

§  persuade someone

§  give advice

§  ask for something

§  ask for something politely

§  hide the truth (lie)

§  warn

§  give information

§  explain a process

§  apportion blame

§  avoid saying anything

According to our dialogue, we used 14 language functions which are to reply, to request, to explain, to agree, to respond, to invite, to praise, to confirm and so on. By doing this dialogue, I get to know better what is the function of certain words. We have to use correct functional language when communicate with the peoples. Plus, the intonation of our pronunciation must be correct.

 In my opinion, functional language helps us to speak purposely. The listeners become easy to understand if we use functional language in the good way. Without our consciousness, we use functional language in our daily life. We can see how important it is.

Besides, I realized that even the word that we use in our conversation looks simple, but when we used it wrongly, people tend to misunderstand of what we are talking about. So, I tell to myself, I must be cleared in functional language so that my students in the future will not be wronged when talking to people. 

REFLECTION ON PRESENTATION

Malaysia is one of the country that using English language widely. In almost daily life business, we are using English as communication medium. That is how importance English language in Malaysia. But, how many of us know about the history and the development of English language in our country.

By doing this activity, I being proud to learn English and become a future English teacher. It is because, English is a language that everyone used around the world. When we know other language, we feel that we are one of them. The unity spirit indirectly spread in my life when I can talk in their language.

Besides, the presentation that is require us to find how English come to Malaysia had teaches me that English history come from colonial of British. I also get to know how English develop in our country. In my opinion, education system is the most influences medium in spreading out this language. As Malay said, “melentur biarlah dari rebungnya”. Therefore, British take this opportunity to wide the uses of English in Malaysia by introduce English school. So, on that time, the child got the expose since they were young.

The development of English in rural area is not the same as the urban area. One of the reasons is the accommodation and the distance. This fact helps me to prepare myself to teach them when I become a teacher one day. I keep dreaming to bring a renewal of English in rural area. I want them to get know about English as urban’s child do so. I don’t want them to be left behind in education because education in Malaysia states that everyone should get the same chance in education.  

In the other sides, from this activity, my self-confident getting better. I got the confidence to speak in front of the class and also speaking English language.  I realized that when I am posting as an English teacher in the future, by hook or by crook I have to speak English too. So, I take this opportunity to improve my own skill in speaking.

Furthermore, by doing the presentation, I think that my vocabulary has become increase. I always ask my friends what the meaning of the word either in English or Malay. I keep remind myself to speak English frequently so that my English language become more excellence. As what we always said, “practice make prefect”.

As the conclusion, by getting know the development and the history of English language in Malaysia, I become more appreciate to this language. I wants to master in English so that my student will be an excellence in English. 

REFLECTION ON LANGUAGE GAME

As a future teacher, one of the criteria that I have to possess is creativity. A primary school pupils most attracted to learn when the learning process being taught in a game.

Using games is one of the most important ways to teach efficiently in a language class. Games mean the world to children. Nothing is more fun than playing games for them because they feel happy and free while playing. Remember when you were a child; you will remember the games you played and the happiest moments of your life.

It does not matter indoor or outdoor; we cannot deny the importance of games. If students learn with games, have fun, feel happy and free, it means that you have reached your goals. Games strengthen language skills, besides; learners develop social skills and good relationships while they interact with each others.

Do not only get learners to play indoors games. It is useful to try outdoor games whenever the weather is nice. For example even we know board games as indoor games; you can use them in the open air. If there are garden seats outside in the playground, you can use them as desks. Even the idea of going out will make the students excited.

Whatever our goal is (speaking, grammar points, vocabulary) we must believe that every game you have students play, is much more useful than tons of exercises and worksheets and you get more positive results than anything else. Games are highly motivating because the pupils are amusing and interesting. They can be used to give practice in all language skills and be used to practice many types of communication.

But, the contents of the learning and teaching should be appropriated so that the objective of the teaching and learning process being meaningful. It is so scary if the teacher master in handling a game but he ignores the contents. By looking on our own group, we highlighted the class of the words in our game. Pupils we were given a task to find a picture with the word classes is noun, verb and so on.  

In conclusion, using games is an efficient way to teach English in the classroom. This way you get the best results in the classroom. It arises students’ motivation. Games prepare young learners for life and they acquire positive social attitudes. Games teach sharing, helping each other and working as a team. A child learns by doing,living,trying and imitating. So this kind of learning is lasting. During games some feelings such as the pleasure of winning and the ambition of losing may arise. This gives to the teacher an idea about student’s character. So games are must-have activities for hardworking teachers.

REFLECTION ON TONGUE TWISTER

When most people think of tongue twister a childhood image comes to my mind: Attempting to recite a tricky rhyme or phrase as fast as possible without tripping over the verbal challenges and hurdles lurking within these tongue-tying sentences. A tongue-twister is a phrase that is designed to be difficult to articulate properly, and can be used as a type of spoken (or sung) word game. Some tongue-twisters produce results which are humorous (or humorously vulgar) when they are mispronounced, while others simply rely on the confusion and mistakes of the speaker for their amusement value. 

This is one of the interesting topics in this subject. It challenges our tongues subtlety to mention the words which mostly have the same sounds. For this activity, our group got a tongue twister that mostly builds up by letter “w”. The second one is shorter than the first one. Below are our tongue twisters.

             While we were walking, we were watching window washers wash Washington's windows           with warm washing water.

Excited executioner exercising his excising powers excessively.

Luke Luck likes lakes.
Luke's duck likes lakes.
Luke Luck licks lakes.
Luck's duck licks lakes.
Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes.
Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.

From this activity, I realized that good phonologies were depend on how we pronouns the words. Our pronunciation is the first and most important thing native speakers notice during a conversation. Knowing grammar and vocabulary are important but useless if we are unable to pronoun those structures or words correctly. Therefore, tongue twister is one of creative exercise to train us pronouns correctly.

The conclusion is, to teach pupils about the correct pronunciation, we have to master it first. Tongue twister helps the child to get better at articulating words quickly and clearly. Tongue twisters should be done repeatedly and as quickly as possible without mistakes. fun and help improve a child’s language awareness and pronunciation skills.

REFLECTION ON WORKSHEETS

Analysis is the process of identifying subjects, predicates, direct and indirect objects and the various types of clauses and phrases. To complete this task, I have to create my own sentences. While creating the sentences, I discussed with my friends about the structure of the sentences. I get to know that the structure of the sentence is so important. Every word in the sentence has its own name. For example; the word can be as an auxiliary, a noun, a determinant and so on.

For me, there are many different ways of organizing words into sentences. (Or we might say, Words can be organized into sentences in many different ways.) For this reason, describing how to put a sentence together isn't as easy as explaining how to bake a cake or assemble a model plane. There are no easy recipes, no step-by-step instructions. But that doesn't mean that crafting an effective sentence depends on magic or good luck.

My own experience understands that the basic parts of a sentence can be combined and arranged in countless ways. So as we work to improve our writing, it's important to understand what these basic structures are and how to use them effectively.

Not only to improve our own skill, the importance of knowing the structure will be affected our teaching later. As we all know, English is an international language and being used in our daily life. Furthermore, it’s become a compulsory subject in education.

We can see the importance of it in listening, writing, reading and speaking. For example; in reading, the correct place of the noun phrase and the verb phrase helping the readers to understand the meaning of the sentence.

REFLECTION ON MIMING VIDEO

Miming is an interesting activity that a teacher should give to student at school. Mime is, for the most part, a medium of performing that uses no props or scenery. The performer creates by his or her actions and postures the allusion of any location, object, weather condition and mood. The freedom is there to climb Mount Everest or take a stroll down a country lane, to run from a mouse or take a ride on a camel. Think of mime as not the restriction of not being able to speak but the freedom to be able to go anywhere your imagination takes you.

Our group chose to mime a health’s video. This idea was come due to phenomenon of today's society that looks like ignoring health life style. We feel that it is our responsibility to expose our society the negative effects of unhealthy diet. In the same time, we also get the information on how to get the good healthy.

In the other hand, this activity gave us a chance to show our talents in acting. Some of my classmates were so talented in acting like Kelvin Andreas and Jessica. As we all know, we have to record the video and publish it in our blog. Other than that, we need to edit the video by adding the script and music. Through the editing, I got new skill which is adding the word into the video and publish it into web browser.

One thing that quiet challenge along the way of publishing the video is the format of video. We cannot publish our video unless the video is in FLV format. For that, I have to download a converter to convert our video. Indeed, the patience is so needed.

Imagine what happen if everyone cannot speak. All are mute. Can we understand what each other talking about? This reflection actually tells me how importance language it is. As a human being, we have our own weaknesses. We fail to translate some of the body or sign language.

Lastly, best regards to my group for your cooperation. I hope that we will collaborate again in future. 


our video entitle by TO BE OR NOT TO BE. you can see our video by at this web.
http://e-sites2012.blogspot.com/2012/02/to-be-or-not-to-be.html

REFLECTION ON DIALOGUE

Reflection on a dialogue (verbal communication) with at least five language functions for role plays (6 February 2012).

CHARACTER	DIALOGUE
NAJA	Hi, girls! Good morning! Chinese New Year is coming. Do you girls go back for holiday? (To ask)
LIZA	Yes! I will go back for sure because it is my family celebration (To reply). How about you girls?(To ask)
INN	I’m not sure yet because my parents are not at home for the time being (To reply).
JUE	Same goes for me as we have not received our allowances yet (To explain).
LIZA	So pity for both of you. Why don’t both of you come with me? Let’s celebrate the Chinese New Year with me and my family. (To invite)
INN	Hmm…I don’t think I can join you because I already have my own plans for this coming holiday (To decline).
JUE	Cool! It’s a good idea! But, I have to ask permission from my parents first (To half agree)
NAJA	Anyway, are you serious Liza? Since I always dream of celebrating Chinese New Year, don’t you mind if I go along with you? May I? May I? (To request)
LIZA	Yes, why not? It’s my honor to have you as my special guest (To agree).
NAJA	Wow! That sounds lovely. Thanks, Liza (To thank). By the way, what is so special about Chinese New Year celebration? Come on, tell us! (To ask).
JUE	Oh, I know. I know! One of them is Lion Dance. I really enjoy the Lion Dance show. It’s what I’m waiting for every year (To express).
INN	But, I know the most special one! (To express)
JUE	What is it? What is it? (To ask)
INN	Angpau! Since I’m not coming with you, so don’t forget my angpau, okay! (To remind)
LIZA	Yes, both of you are correct. But, I’m so sorry, my dear. (To apologize). I’m not married yet so I can’t give you angpau. (To explain)
INN	Why can’t? (To confirm)
LIZA	It’s a tradition. I can’t change it. (To explain)
NAJA	Oh, I see. Actually I’m so excited to play fireworks. (To express)
LIZA	Yes, me too. It is the most exciting part in Chinese New Year celebration for me. (To respond)
JUE	Really? That sounds great! (To respond)
LIZA	So, what are you waiting for? (To convince)
JUE	Alright, I’ll try my best to convince my parents. (To agree)
INN	If that so, I have to think twice about this. (To confirm)
LIZA	Good! That’s my friend (To praise)
NAJA	Awesome! Let’s shopping for a new cheongsam, girls! (To invite)
LIZA, JUE & INN	Let’s go!!! (To agree)

When we talk about Language Functions, we are talking about the reason we use a language. At its most basic, the function of language is communication; we use language to give and receive messages between ourselves. We can break this down into Language Functions. When we communicate with language we can:

§  compare and contrast

§  make a complaint

§  express love or anger

§  persuade someone

§  give advice

§  ask for something

§  ask for something politely

§  hide the truth (lie)

§  warn

§  give information

§  explain a process

§  apportion blame

§  avoid saying anything

According to our dialogue, we used 14 language functions which are to reply, to request, to explain, to agree, to respond, to invite, to praise, to confirm and so on. By doing this dialogue, I get to know better what is the function of certain words. We have to use correct functional language when communicate with the peoples. Plus, the intonation of our pronunciation must be correct.

 In my opinion, functional language helps us to speak purposely. The listeners become easy to understand if we use functional language in the good way. Without our consciousness, we use functional language in our daily life. We can see how important it is.

Besides, I realized that even the word that we use in our conversation looks simple, but when we used it wrongly, people tend to misunderstand of what we are talking about. So, I tell to myself, I must be cleared in functional language so that my students in the future will not be wronged when talking to people.