Topic 1 : Language and Comunication

"Your minor might be English or Bahasa Malaysia," said Mr Khoo during the PISMP briefing. I have to teach English? I could not speak English fluently but I wished to speak correctly and improved grammar before I go to practicum this March. Thank you to God, I learned English for language teacher this year.

For the first topic of this subject, I learned about Language and Comunication. When I read the notes given, I thought that this topic might be boring but my thought was totally wrong. It was such an interesting and fun topic. We used language in our daily life to communicate with others and without language, it is hard to communicate with others. In communication, both sides should understand each language. In Malaysia, there are many languages with different calligraphies and also structures.

During tutorial, I was given a task which asked me to write a sentence and read it in Tamil. What a funny and difficult task. Credit given to Madavan for taught me patiently. I had to practice on writing and pronounce the sentence. I practiced it many times until I can write it. beside Tamil, we also looked at Iban, Chinese, Arab and Jawi language. There are many different in structures and symbols.

During tutorial also, we also discuss how the Malaysian culture affects English in group. There are many factors that affect it. For example is urban and rural setting. We could saw the different between rural and town student. Mostly the town student can speak and write fluently rather than rural area student. The town students are exposed to the technology that could help them in their language. Then, we also wrote a poem and we could choose any language. Through this activity, I could see that language use is creative and not limited.

I also had to call back what I already learned during my second year degree which is about language function. My group did a simple role play. I was attracted on Stefi’s group role play. I could see the language function clearly. They had chosen a role play that relaed to our daily life.

Sometimes, we could not used verbal communication and we have to use non verbal communication. Some of the non verbal communication was easy to understand. I could understand more about non verbal when we were asked to create a mime situation. I was attracted to Mamora’s group activity. They did it clearly and interesting to understand.

Perhaps that all the activity that I did during this topic I can used in my teaching and also in my daily life.