Thursday, April 7, 2011

Song Selection

I do love songs, but it will take quite some times for me to analyze them and pick one as my favourite song. For the class with Dr. Jaya, we were shown many songs and most of them are already my favourite songs, for example my heart will go on by Celine Dion, candle in the wind by Elton john, what about now by Chris Daughtry and many more.

For this class, we received a new assignment. Our task is to choose our favourite song and analyze it. After that present it to the class. Of course there must be some traits about the song that we can choose. For this reason, we chose the song ‘written in the star’ by Tinnie Tempah and Eric Turner. This song has deep meanings that can only be fully understand by watching the video clip. I suggest that everyone should listen to this song at least once in their entire life. Enjoy the music! =)

The Two Great Speakers


One of the elements that required in a leadership is the ability to give speech. A good speaker does not make a good leader, but a good leader should be a good speaker. The ability to speak in front of thousands is not easy, moreover to influence them and persuade them to follow us, to believe what we say and to do what we want. Every leader and speaker should have the power of words, which is the persuasive skill. Hitler and Beaches has this ability. Hitler speech at the Berlin Sports Palace (1941) and Beaches speech on 1940 show how these two leaders of German and Britain respectively, giving speech about the war. The speeches were held during the cold war, just before the Second World War happened.

In their speeches, we can see how confident they were in delivering their opinion, orders and persuading their people to sacrifice for their nations. The use of “I” in most of the speeches show the superiority they hold upon their people. It also means dictatorship; they ruling the country and nobody supposed to say no to whatever they say. The way Hitler shows his hand is to tell everyone that “You are under my command”. This shows that he has complete power over his subjects. The use of the word “we”, means they are with their people to defend the country, and to conquer other nations. It also used to gain attention. When the word ‘we’ is being used, everyone is united. This is what the term 1Malaysia is all about, to unite all the people. The leader and civilians become as one, and the civilians and army will be motivated and much more enthusiastic than normal. These two power words also mean a power to identify mistakes done by others.

Both leaders also not just speak the empty talk, but they also providing facts in speeches. There were also no question tags like right? Don’t you think so? This is because it will give doubt to the audience and listener whether the speaker is confident or not in what they were talking. There were also no room for question. It shows how sure the speaker was, and their speech should be correct in facts, acceptable by all of the audiences, and understandable by everybody. No room for questions means that everyone must follow everything that they said. This is the only way to gain complete control and complete trust. In short, it is also a way to tell the citizens that you must follow me.

Animal Farm


The first time I heard the name animal farm, I thought it is the type of story at the husbandry of their sorts. I thought that the story is about a farm that is being conducted by a successful farmer. Ironically, the story is actually the very opposite of my thought. The story is about animals that got rid of their owner and take control of the farm by themselves.

It all started when a boar gave advices to the other animals on his deathbed. This boar gave them hope, will and determination to them so that they will be able to liberate their farm from the stupid owner. After that, the farm is being controlled by the pigs. This happens until the end of the story, only after all the animals have realized the the pigs are terrorizing their farms and do things for their advantages only.

In entertainment value, I think that the story is quite interesting and easily understood. The story has cute characters, and the drawings are also very cute and funny. Even though the message can only be understood by people who are matured and old, yet the entertainment value can easily be understood by children.

For me, I think that this story will be of great use once I enter the world called as ‘school’ and be its inhabitant. This story has a high probability of making the students understand its content because we also have background knowledge in the stories that almost have the same value, such as ‘sang kancil’ and many more.

In short, I think that this story is very suitable to be used for all sorts of students, especially in their secondary level or higher. This story could also teach them the basic knowledge in politic, since there will definitely be some people who eventually will become a leader among the students that we thought. Who knows, maybe they will become the future prime ministers.

Mona Lisa Smile


Everyone can smile, even though the reason is illogical, yet everyone can still smile. This story is not about Leonardo da Vinci and his drawing, Mona Lisa, but it is about a new teacher who came to school with new environment, one that is very exceptional and out of the box.

The protagonist is Katherine Watson, she teaches history of art at Wellesley College. On her very first day, she was astonished with her students’ knowledge. Everything that she taught during that day, every single question that she gave, all the students could easily answer them. This clearly shows that all her students are very smart and fast in learning. On that day, she lost to her students in term of class management. Still, that incident did not make her give up. She changed her teaching methods and overpowers her students in her own ways. Finally, her students have learned to respect her. They even gave her treatments that she should receive as a teacher. Some of them are willing to share their greatest secret with her. As the teacher, she did not just managed to tackle her students in the classroom, but she also managed to become the one that the students gave their complete trust.

This story tells me how to handle super intelligent students. While other stories taught how to handle problematic students, this story also tells about problematic students, but in a way that is not so problematic. Hence, this story is a good one, especially for those who might be teaching at elite school such as MJSC or boarding school. In conclusion, this story has given me a new strategy in teaching, but I still do not know whether I want to use it or not.

Lean On Me


At the very beginning of the story, I knew it that it would be quite interesting and irony. The teacher who is ‘freak’ from the normal culture will definitely be the star hero, which is what people usually do to make their story interesting.

I personally think this movie has a bit of entertainment value, not to mention that it also has a big impact on the education system. It is a serious movie, but some of the actions of Joe Clark can make us laugh out loud, again, this is because he is quite freak. He was crazy with his works, super serious but somehow has funny element in it.

A teacher is the leader when he enters the class. A teacher also should be creative enough to make the students feel comfortable to study. I think creativity is the best approach dealing with students who are lazy and not interested with the syllabus. The music teacher for example, who modified the school song, has made everybody respect the school song and sing it enthusiastically. As a future English teacher, I’m aware that there will be a lot of challenges from students, pressures from admin and principle who want the best.


It’s very sad because I never had a teacher like this one. This means that I must be the first person to be like this, I mean in my dictionary called ‘Teacher’s Dictionary’. I know that weird and abnormal stuffs will make students very interested. Maybe this is the way that all teachers should taught to get their students’ attention.

It is not easy to teach a student who doesn’t ha any interest in study. However, by using a good approach, we might see a bit of improvement in the classroom teaching and learning. Discipline is very important. As teachers, we are dealing with humans who have feeling. Therefore, being tolerable is vital in facing the hitch that gets in the way.