MINI TEST 2

a) You are Tourism graduate and currently working with the Tourism Department of Sabah. A tourist from Australia called from Kinabalu Daya Hotel. He lost his map and he needs to go to Australian Place and soon to Wisma Merdeka. Create a telephone conversation between you and the tourist. You may start you conversation as below. 

Me: Good evening. This is the Tourism Department of Sabah. May I help you? 

Tourist: ……

b) Prime Minister of Malaysia just visited Kota Kinabalu last Sunday and he attended a conference in one of the hotels. As a newspaper reporter, write a summary of the places visited by the Prime Minister to be submitted to your Head Officer. By including at least 3 prepositions, your summary should not be more than 100 words. 

Places visited was listed respectively :- 

1. Signal Hill Observatory 

2. Australian Place 

3. Wisma Merdeka 

4. Hyatt Regency Kinabalu Hotel

Technology Evolution. What say you?

Integrating Technology in ESL Writing.

The new age of technology has brought a new meaning in writing. In teaching especially, technologies have been very useful as effective teaching tools. The use of technology has caught many students’ attention with the colorful graphics and animation.

Technology has always been beneficial to teachers as they consume less time. For instance, instead of drawing pictures to give examples, teachers can just find the pictures in the internet and print them to present their lesson using the Power Point, which provide installed software to include pictures, animations, music and even videos. This certainly made learning fun.

Besides teaching aids, teachers can keep track on his/her students’ work too. The creation of blog sites and online forum has made life even better. Students’ work can be kept even more secure when it is stored as cloud computing, meaning that to be stored in the computer memory when uploaded.

Furthermore, many sites are providing tools to prepare teachers with their lessons both online and offline tools. For example, Prezi. This is another presentation tools that provide more animations and graphics that can actually impress students. For online tools, technology has made things easier by providing templates for teachers in preparing his/her students’ handout.

Despite the fact that technology may not be easy for some teachers, there are many other ways to improve such as attending courses and keep teachers updates with the latest teaching aids in schools. This at the same time improves the standards of our teachers in their teaching.

Therefore, the integration of technology has many advantages. It has made bot teachers and students’ life easier. Aside from its commonly use as a tool for communication, it also can modify our teaching methods better.

MINI TEST 2

a)      Prime Minister of Malaysia just visited Kota Kinabalu last Sunday and he attended a conference in one of the hotels. As a newspaper reporter, write a summary of the places visited by the Prime Minister to be submitted to your Head Officer. By including at least 3 prepositions, your summary should not be more than 100 words.

Places visited was listed respectively :-

1.       Signal Hill Observatory

2.       Australian Place

3.       Wisma Merdeka

4.       Hyatt Regency Kinabalu Hotel

 b) You are Tourism graduate and currently working with the Tourism Department of Sabah. A tourist from Australia called from Kinabalu Daya Hotel. He lost his map and he needs to go to Australian Place and soon to Wisma Merdeka. Create a telephone conversation between you and the tourist. You may start you conversation as below.

Me: Good evening. This is the Tourism Department of Sabah. May I help you?

Tourist: ……

Mark it 10!

New task!! Remember previously, we were asked to respond to the students’ essay? Well this time, we were asked to assess their essays. This was done in a small group actually, and we decided to give this essay 10 mark out of 20, at it falls on the 9-12 mark range in the marking scheme. The writer actually has the development of ideas and was able to explain his/her understanding towards the topic even though it contains mechanical errors. Well done writer, you PASSED!

Haiti Earthquake

Previously, I thought Haiti's Earthquake terrifying tragedy was not that bad. I was one of the minorities of people out there who does not really concern about things happening around the world. It was an honest mistake, as there are factors contributing to the ignorance *wink*. But, the very first few minutes of playing this game, I started to realize how bad it was. I choose to be a survivor (because I felt bad for being such an ignorant...). The footage shown was such an eye opener. And personally, I felt like I am actually experiencing the aftermath. It is more like a lesson than a game for me. I remembered seeing my neighbor in that game, Magalie, was crying surrounded by destroyed buildings, houses and also belongings. 

Enough for the rough idea about the game, and now time to get to real business. How this game can actually help students in their writing lesson?

Well actually, this kind of game can really help the students to guide them in their writing including those with intermediate English proficiency. This is because, in this game, they were given choices to choose what step to be taken next. By actually thinking and asking themselves what step they wanted to choose, by that time, they are applying their critical thinking which later helps in their writing. Examples of writing activities that can be done are like, writing a newspaper report, journal and even writing an informal letter to a pen-pal who stays in Haiti. Thus, in short, I find this type of game can contribute to the students writing besides being the eye opener to the students about recent issues the world are facing today and in the future.

  

The reason why it's HOTS!

Well, after getting familiar with Bloom's, I have come up with an activity on Analyzing. J

Redang Beach Resort, Terengganu, Malaysia	Pimalai Resort & Spa Krabi,  Thailand
·        4 days 3 nights ·        RM 2530 .00 (inclusive of tax and transportation) ·        Adults : 2   Children : 2 ·        Breakfast included ·        Snorkeling, Marine Park, Diving, Camping, Cycling, Rafting, etc.	·        3 days 2 nights ·        RM 3250 .00 (inclusive of tax and transportation) ·        Adults : 2   Children : 1 ·        Breakfast not included ·        Island hoping, Snorkeling, Spa, Sunset Horse Riding, etc.

 School holiday has arrived! You and your family are planning to go for a vacation to either one of these place below. Write an essay on about place that you chose to convince your parents to choose that as your holiday destination. Your essay must be written in less than 200 words.