CMC Assignments - Eizat Shahputra

Discourse Analysis of the Forum Thread

Introduction

Forum – Motor Trader Forum Malaysia

Retrieved from www.motortrader.com.my/asp/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7328

Thread Topic – “Pls try to use english as our discussion language” posted by forumer naza710 on 9/09/2005

Summary of the Forum

This forum is a place to mainly discuss about trading cars and the specs of a car. Forum member naza710 basically brought up the topic of encouraging the use of English language inside the forum discussions and threads. Most of other members agreed with his point about improving their English by posting their comments in that language. However one forum administrator, Chips does argue that the forum caters to 99.9% of Malaysians, so they should remain neutral to this matter and not discourage the use of the national language, Bahasa Malaysia.

Analysis

Firstly, quality of the English used in the thread is basically mediocre. There are some grammatical mistakes and spelling errors made in their posts. For example, “grammer fail”, “what BM is been wriiten”, “return opening”, “any joyfull mood” and some others. These mistakes were made by the ordinary members while the forum administrator uses near-perfect English.

There are a lot of jargons recognized by their members used in the posts. Mostly involve brands of the car and their names. For example “Ria vs Innova”, “Carnival/Sedona”, “Ria is the only heavy drinker MPV” and others.

There are also some code-mixing in the posts. It is one the most common code-mixing used among Malaysians, which is the inclusion of “la” and “lah” to show importance and stress on that particular point.

The level of politeness is basically high. All of the forum members and administrator used very polite languages and the discussions are done in a very mature way. There is little to none flaming or cursing in any of the posts with even the most polite word to describe flamers, “narrow-minded people” and “troublemakers”. However, the forum administrator locked the thread when the matter is settled to avoid any further discussion. He/she mentioned that there are some immature forum members who might turn the discussion into a fight.

The usage of short-forms and acronyms are also prevalent, which is common in any of the chat rooms, blogs, forums and message boards. These are the examples, “ppl” refers to people, “BM’ refers to Bahasa Malaysia and “ORI BM” refers to original Bahasa Malaysia.

In conclusion, the forum thread is a very basic one, with the maturity level of the posters being much matured and the topic being a very general one, which is the use of English in Malaysian discussion forums.
Advantages

Internet forums are convenient tools for discussion compared to chat rooms. Chat rooms features real-time communication in which the users need to discuss at the same time but internet forums allow the posters to comment on something earlier but still get responds afterwards. Readers can also refer to older posts and threads to obtain information.

Summary of Article

Introduction

Title - Blogs in English Language Teaching and Learning: Pedagogical Uses and Student Response

By Brad Blackstone of National University of Singapore, John Spiri of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and Naeko Naganuma of Akita International University

Retrieved January 17 2009 from www.nux.edu.sg/celc/publications/RETL62/01to20blackstone.pdf

Purpose of Study

The paper aims to gauge the necessity of implementing blogging activities into English for Academic Purposes in a university by the method of using surveys and temporal incorporation of the blogging activities itself into the classes.

Research Questions

1. Are the students interested in blogging and associated activities?

2. Is the implementation of blogging and related activities within a university EAP and composition program justified?

Methodology

The research implemented blogging and related activities within four different English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses over four different levels of studies during two full semesters of an academic year in an English medium university in Japan. At the end of both semesters, a survey was distributed to all the participants to obtain data for analysis. The surveys were conducted using an online survey program surveymonkey.com.

Population

The participants are made up of 145 students in eleven EAP and composition classes at a newly opened English language medium university in a rural area in Japan. Most of them are first and second year students, a few are third year students and six are international students. Half of them obtained average TOEFL score of 460-499 and others obtained 500 or more.

Duration of Study

The study expands over two full semesters of an academic year in a university. The surveys were conducted at the end of spring and fall semesters, 2006. The 11 EAP classes meet three times a week, 100 minutes per class, over 15 weeks each semesters while the composition courses meet twice a week over 90 minutes per class.

Method (Research Design)

The cycle included students setting up blogs, writing activities with blogging buddies or groups, making blog posts, reading classmates’ posts and commenting on it.

1. Blog posts – the students were given blog posts assignments which is incorporated into the courses’ activities. The students first were required to read or watch some related materials, and then use it as a basis to write their short comments and essays in the blogs.

2. Peer Reviews – involves paper based peer review activities involving commenting certain criteria and quality of a blog within a group of three or pairs.

3. Peer Comments on a Blog Post – require the students to respond and comment on a number of blog posts by their classmates. This utilizes the comment functions available in the template of a blog.

4. Blogging Groups – groups of four to eight students were created and each member were required to first respond to the posts made by their group mates before responding to their other classmates.

5. Blogging Buddy – the blogging buddy method is done by assigning partners to edit each other’s posts. It focuses on review and response.

6. The survey – to gather data on students’ view towards blogging. The four main topics of the survey are students’ attitudes towards writing, blogging as a classroom activity, doing peer reviews and being paired with blogging buddies. The answers range from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”.

Findings

Most of the students find blogging activities to be useful and interesting. 81.4% answered “strongly agree” and “agree” to the statement of if they liked blogging.93.1% agreed on the item “I like reading my classmates’ written posts”. 83% is in favor of the blogging buddy system and prefer to have a blog buddy to proof read their posts. (Refer to Appendix I for graphs)

Data Analysis

The responses and data gathered in the survey underlined the important element of writing in this study. It seems that students who like writing as an activity will preferably like blogging as well, while students who dislike writing will dislike blogging. From the survey, it seems that the students enjoyed reading the posts made by their classmates and they did not ignore the teachers’ roles as well. Finally, the students realized the importance of improving their writing skills and recognized the need to have a peer to review and edit their writings.

There are a number of benefits for implementing the blogging system into the syllabus namely by motivating the students to write more, by allowing the students to edit and carefully think about their writings before posting it, and also by allocating punctuality in writing blog posts.

Some of the potential problems of using blogging activities is its public nature in which everybody around the world with an internet connection can access and read the posts. This can also be considered as a privacy problem. Another potential problem is the political “correctness” of the ideas that one puts on the blog posts, mostly due to the public nature of the blog.

CMC Assignments- Mohd Shakif

Introduction
The research article entitled ‘Toward an Effective Integration of Technology: Message Boards for Strengthening Communication’ written by Arif Altun from Nigde University & Abant Izzet Baysal University focused on how the attitudes and beliefs of language learners about the use of asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools into language teaching gave momentum to the idea of exploring how they would approach these new tools. The findings of the study shows that students tended to develop positive attitudes toward using asynchronous communication tools in their language teaching program. The students also show positive reflections about the use of CMC tools and their integration into teaching.
Thomas and Hofmeister (2002) conducted a study on the efficiency of integrated message board systems into teaching. The researchers investigated whether the students’ responses by using the message boards (asynchronous) would be different according to prompt types. Students were given various types of prompts to comment and reflect upon. The researchers came up with a hypothesis that the more interactive the learning activity, the greater the increase in cognitive complexity. They concluded that the application of message boards into the teaching process would help students develop higher order thinking processes, if designed and handled efficiently.
Another research was done by Vonderwell (2003). She found that CMC was a negative aspect in collaboration among students. However, it is an opportunity for students to communicate and interact with the teacher in learning. Secondly, she found that students tend to favor interpersonal relationships with the instructor, rather than asking questions in class or public. Thirdly, students would expect consistent feedback from the teacher. Vonderwell (2003) then concluded that online instructors need to carefully make use of the web technologies for collaboration and interaction, not just simply providing discussion and group activities because it does not necessarily make the students participate in the community.

Research Questions
1. What are EFL students’ self-perceived attitudes toward communicating on computers?
2. Does access to computers and networks play a significant role with respect to EFL student’s attitudes toward new information technologies—the message boards?
3. Is there a significant difference between EFL students’ attitudes toward communicating on computers after using message boards in their teacher training courses?
4. What are EFL students’ reflections toward using asynchronous CMC tools?

Methodology

Participants
The participants in this research were 52 English teachers.11 male participants and 41 female participants. The students had no experience in using an asynchronous forum messaging system or other electronic conferencing system. In addition to their departmental courses, all participants had received a formal instruction on a basic computer course as well as word and math processing office programs.

Materials
Each participant would be given The Teacher Trainees’ attitudes toward communicating on computers questionnaire (ATC) during the first and the last weeks of the semester to monitor the participants’ attitudes and perceptions of communicating on computers in education in the beginning of their classes and by the end of their semester. The ATC included 10 items in a Likert type with six categories: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Barely Disagree, Barely Agree, Agree, and Strongly Agree coded from one to six respectively. Before the classes started, a web based forum system called CALL Forum was created and developed. Students were asked to register with their own username and passwords before they were allowed to participate in forum discussions.

Data Analysis
The data was analyzed using SPSS 11.05. The students’ attitudes toward communicating through computers before and after using the message boards in their courses were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U statistics. An analysis of the completed reflection papers was included as written data. Students’ reflections were collected. First, a report for students’ interaction was recorded through the database. Then, the data was converted into a word document. Finally, the data was used depending on the content of interaction.

Findings
The students find message boards as a convenient communication environment. And since they communicated with others through writing, they find this way of communicating as an advantage. However, some students find the message boards as pretty vague. Initial beliefs tend to indicate concerns and anxiety, but it required some experience to understand and benefit from this tool. Students find this activity as an extra burden and time consuming activity at first, but after some time, their concerns and anxieties faded away, and they started to enjoy using this tool.

Conclusion
In conclusion, the integration of a message board as an asynchronous CMC tool into teaching process was hard, exhausting, and challenging. However, positive attitudes and students’ cooperation helps instructors and teacher training departments to make use of new technologies in their programs. Future studies including a longer period of time and the use of asynchronous tools are needed to better understand the components of web based instruction. Such research studies will contribute to our understanding of online communication discourses and to help us develop an active online community.

Taboo words and actions in Malay culture

Almost every part of Malaysia, the elders often use the same taboos and practiced those words to discipline youngsters so that in the future, the children will be well behaved. Here, we will show you the examples of Malay taboos for those who might not be familiar with these words and practice. :

1) "Jangan duduk atas bantal, nnt punggung bisul" ( do not sit on the pillow or else you will get sores on your backside). The reason is, the pillows are used of the head, so it is not polite to sit on it.

2) "Jangan menyanyi di dapur, nanti dapat suami tua" (do not sing in the kitchen, or you(woman) will marry someone who is way older than you expect) The reason is, you might be careless while cooking in order to avoid accidents.

3) "Jangan keluar senja, nanti kena sorok dengan hantu payu-dara". ( do not go out and play at dusk, or you might be kidnapped by boogey-woman :p ) The reason is, most Malays are Muslims, so it is not good to go out at dusk because the devils and djinns usually wander at dusk.

4) Jangan kencing dekat busut, nanti bengkak kemaluan(Malay words for private part). ( do not urinate on termite bunk, or your(male) penis might be swollen. The reason is first, it is impolite to wee-wee out of nowhere. Secondly, a bunk might be a resting place for supernatural spirits and it might curse anyone who mess up their place.

These are only few examples that we show to you. We are looking forward to your kind co-operation to add comments on other taboos that you might want to share with us so that we can use it as a reference to our project in the future.

As you can see, all of those examples that we show you have one thing in common. They are used for an indirect moral lesson to children so that the children will be well behaved and discipline. In Malay taboos, fear is repeatedly used to educate children.

In our research,back in the past,words or content of conversations which is considered as Malay taboos only involves sexual and religious matters. For example, one cannot discuss about sex in public places and also at home. Sex is not meant to be discussed among the people because it is considered as immoral. The problem is, every grownups know about sex and share their "knowledge" among themselves but at the same time they do not want to expose their "knowledge" to the youngsters because they believe that it is no use to do so. The other thing is about religion, in the past, only the Ulama' or Ustaz can talk about religion. In Malay culture, religion seems to be a very sensitive issues back in the old days until today. For instance, the Malays believe that questions such as "do god exist?","who created the universe and why?","is Islam the true religion of all?". Don't get us wrong, but these question can get you into deep trouble if you mention it at school or religious classes.

We strongly believe that all of those mentioned above as taboos not because the subjects are immoral or corrupted,but the Malays are sometimes being restricted to certain knowledge by certain authorities for their own benefit, not because the words are impolite.

Now we want to show you the modern taboos of Malays. Nowadays, the young generation have their own taboos created among themselves which is not used as moral lesson, but to curse and to address people in an impolite manners. What interest us is not only because of why the new generation taboo exist, but also these words are not allowed to be used back in the old days( twenty-thirty years ago).

1) Bodoh sial, bangang nak mampus, palat, kepala bapak engkau, lancau, bengap, benyut, sengal, etc. All of these words are cursing words so we do not bother to translate it into English.

The main reason why we want to show you these examples is because those words all pretty well known to Malaysian youngsters. Actually, all of these words are taboos and cannot be used at home, school and public places. However, these words are widely used among the youngsters in their daily conversation. It really worry us as the youngster are the future generation, however, they are using such words to address other people. What if those words become a common thing in the future and be widely used by the society? For sure, Malays will become a rude race and negative impressions will be given to the Malays by other races in Malaysia. We want the Malay youngsters to be aware of what they are saying because our words usually shows our personality and backgrounds. Do you want to be labeled rude and uneducated by your parents because other people see the first impression of you by the way you talk to your friends??

In history, the Malays are well known for their polite manners. Nowadays Malaysian Government starts introducing new terms to make a word more polite in order for the public to converse using polite language. For example, the introduction of OKU(orang kurang upaya), warga emas, pendatang tanpa izin (rather than pendatang haram),and meninggal dunia. There are many euphemism being used all over the Malay language, but the people have the freedom whether to use it or not.

In conclusion, taboos exist within a community, our perception on certain subjects or words will determine whether some words or doings are considered as taboos. So, we must use euphemism in our everyday conversation so that we will not hurt other people's feelings. Remember, use polite words to address other people and choose the words carefully before we open our mouth. For example, instead of saying "orang cacat"(disabled) use "insan istimewa"(special). Please take note! do not use bad words and misuse taboos for bad things so that we can be nice to each other and be happy.

Islamic Perspective on Taboo Words and Euphemism

http://www.ezsoftech.com/stories/mis57.asp

Taboo words are considered taboos for a reason. They are dangerous to the society and culture too. Similarly, religion does not view these words too highly. Islam particularly, prohibits talking in vain and swearing for once. The link above provides extensive elaboration on this matter. This blog takes no credit whatsoever from their explanations.

For a reason, Islam prohibits it's followers to hurt other people's feelings because it can break the "ukhuwah" between the community. Not only among the Muslims but also to the people of different beliefs. In addition, as a Muslim, we must show good example to other people with other beliefs in order to show that Muslims are polite and it will probably reduce negative impression on Muslims given by Westerners since they label Arab Muslims as terrorist. Definitely, we cannot argue and defend ourselves(Muslims) by using harsh words because religion is always a sensitive issue to debate in order to defend Islam because other people from various beliefs have their own opinions. As we can see in the news such as BBC,CNN and Al-Jazeera, there are many video-clips of Islamic leaders in the Middle-East that use harsh words to their followers by saying words such as "Satans","kafir", and "damned in hell". Be rational here, do you enjoy being called by such words? of course not, definitely it will trigger our anger. So, to defend ourselves, we must use the precise and polite words to counter those who have negative impression on Muslims and Islam itself. So, one of the main reason we are doing a project on taboo and euphemism is to give our humble opinion on the use of taboo words and euphemism.

American Accent - For CALL Lesson Plan

American accent pronunciation..

British Accent - For CALL Lesson Plan

An example of English Accent..

CALL Lesson Plan

Original version

Time : 1 hour 30 minutes (double period)
No. of students : 15-30
Setting : Computer Lab
Level of proficiency : Primary school students (Standard 5-6)
Theme : Pronunciation
Topic : Learning how to pronounce British and American English
General objective : To enable students to pronounce English words correctly
with the aid of computer software.

Specific outcomes : By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
1. Pronounce correctly
2. Widen vocabulary
3. Expose the students to the British and American pronunciation.

Skills involved :
1. Listening
2. Speaking


Content : 1. Whole-class discussion
2. Pair-work

Teaching Aids : 1. Desktop Computer
2. Dictionary Software
3. Microsoft Power-Point (slide-show)
4. Projector

Reflection :
1. Students become less dependent on the teacher in learning English.
2. Teachers can save time for explaining every meaning of the words that students do not understand.

Stage/Time
Content Presentation/Rationale

Set Induction
30 minutes

Introduction to dictionary software and exercises. Software demonstration.
1. The teacher explains about the exercises they will be doing which is to create simple sentences and pronounce the sentences correctly by referring to the Bilingual dictionary for meanings and using the Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary for the correct pronunciations.
2. The teacher shows the techniques on how to use the dictionary software efficiently through the projector. The lesson starts when the students understand how to use the dictionary. Teacher checks on each student to make sure they know how to use the software.
3. The teacher calls names randomly to know about the level of English generally by asking them to construct a simple sentence about them. For example, a student stands up and tells the class about his hobby (“My hobby is collecting stamps”).


Development
Stage 1
30 minutes

Individual task.
1. The teacher provides students with some words and asks them to produce a sentence based on the words. For instance, the words ‘dog’, ‘yellow’ and ‘big’. Students construct a sentence which contains all the words given. i.e. “Mary has a big yellow dog”.
2. The teacher asks the students to use both softwares as reference for meanings and pronunciations to aid them in constructing their sentences.
3. The teacher asks the students to share their sentences to the whole class one by one.

Rationale
Students are informed of the
importance of the exact
pronunciation and to encourage them to refer to a dictionary every time they do not understand a word.

Stage 2
30 minutes

Pair-work
1. Teacher asks students to sit in pair for pair-work exercise where the students must create a short dialogue where the student copy the way of speaking British and American English as accurate as possible. The teacher gives a situation where an American and a British communicate with each other using their mother-tongue.
2. The words are given by the teacher to the students. Those specific words are such as ‘colour’, ‘neighbour’, ‘metre’. The students refer to the Cambridge dictionary to differentiate the spellings and pronunciations and at the same time, the Bilingual dictionary in order to look up for meanings that they do not understand. i.e. British guy:“excuse me sir, what is the colour of your house? American guy: “the color of my house is white”.
3. Students will be asked to present their dialogues in front of the class.

Rationale

The students can differentiate the spellings and pronunciations for British and American English and students learn to pronounce English better.

Closing
1. Teacher evaluates the performance of the students based on correct pronunciations and sentence structures by giving the comments on their over-all works.
2. Students disperse.

Reflection on the assignment

We started the assignment with little knowledge on the methods of devising a lesson plan. With some guidance, we managed to figure out the necessary elements for the lesson plan and started creating it.

We have very little problem in finding the suitable computer software to be used in the lesson plan. Knowing how to operate the software is another thing but we managed to overcome that in a few days.

We also faced some difficulty in devising a proper exercise that fully utilizes both speaking and listening aspect of the language at the same time. However, by putting the exercises in proper arrangement solves this problem.



Improved Lesson Plan

Time : 2 hours (double period)
No. of students : 40
Setting : Computer Lab
Level of proficiency : Primary school students (Standard 5-6)
Theme : Pronunciation
Topic : Learning how to pronounce British and American English
General objective : To enable students to pronounce English words correctly
with the aid of computer software.

Specific outcomes : By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:
1. Pronounce correctly
2. Widen vocabulary
3. Expose the students to the British and American pronunciation.

Skills involved :
1. Listening
2. Speaking

Content : 1. Whole-class discussion
2. Pair-work

Teaching Aids :
1. Desktop Computer
2. Dictionary Software
3. Microsoft Power-Point (slide-show)
4. Projector

Reflection :
1. Students become less dependent on the teacher in learning English.
2. Teachers can save time for explaining every meaning of the words that students do not understand.

Stage/Time
Content Presentation/Rationale

Set Induction
30 minutes

Introduction to dictionary software and exercises. Software demonstration.
1. The teacher explains about the exercises they will be doing which is to create simple sentences and pronounce the sentences correctly by referring to the Bilingual dictionary for meanings and using the Cambridge Advance Learner’s Dictionary for the correct pronunciations.
2. The teacher shows the techniques on how to use the dictionary software efficiently through the projector. The lesson starts when the students understand how to use the dictionary. Teacher checks on each student to make sure they know how to use the software.
3. The teacher shows the video clips on how the native speakers pronounce both of the accents. They will have clear understanding on how the native speakers pronounce their accent.
4. The teacher calls names randomly to know about the level of English generally by asking them to construct a simple sentence about them. For example, a student stands up and tells the class about his hobby (“My hobby is collecting stamps”).

Development
Stage 1
45 minutes

Individual task.
1. The teacher provides students with some words and asks them to produce a sentence based on the words. For instance, the words ‘dog’, ‘yellow’ and ‘big’. Students construct a sentence which contains all the words given. i.e. “Mary has a big yellow dog”.
2. The teacher asks the students to use both softwares as reference for meanings and pronunciations to aid them in constructing their sentences.
3. Some video aids will be provided. They can have reference regarding on how to pronounce the accents.
4. The teacher asks the students to share their sentences to the whole class one by one.

Rationale
Students are informed of the
importance of the exact
pronunciation and to encourage them to refer to a dictionary every time they do not understand a word.

Stage 2
45 minutes

Pair-work
1. Teacher asks students to sit in pair for pair-work exercise where the students must create a short dialogue where the student copy the way of speaking British and American English as accurate as possible. The teacher gives a situation where an American and a British communicate with each other using their mother-tongue.
2. The words are given by the teacher to the students. Those specific words are such as ‘colour’, ‘neighbour’, ‘metre’. The students refer to the Cambridge dictionary to differentiate the spellings and pronunciations and at the same time, the Bilingual dictionary in order to look up for meanings that they do not understand. i.e. British guy:“excuse me sir, what is the colour of your house? American guy: “the color of my house is white”.
3. Students then will have some video examples showing how to pronounce the exact pronunciation.
4. They will be asked to imitate the pronunciation from the video clips and present their dialogues in front of the class.
5. Finally, the students have to try to speak in either one accent and the teacher will be the navigator in the dialogue. The teacher will evaluate regarding the level of accomplishment by the students.

Rationale

The students can differentiate the spellings and pronunciations for British and American English and students learn to pronounce English better.



Closing
1. Teacher evaluates the performance of the students based on correct pronunciations and sentence structures by giving the comments on their over-all works.
2. Students disperse.


Reflection on the assignment

We started the assignment with little knowledge on the methods of devising a lesson plan. With some guidance, we managed to figure out the necessary elements for the lesson plan and started creating it.

We have very little problem in finding the suitable computer software to be used in the lesson plan. Knowing how to operate the software is another thing but we managed to overcome that in a few days.

We also faced some difficulty in devising a proper exercise that fully utilizes both speaking and listening aspect of the language at the same time. However, by putting the exercises in proper arrangement solves this problem.

Comments from Dr.Rozina regarding the original version:

1.) need video gather- British and American video (it was not congruent without the videos.)
2.) it is a hard lesson plan. (no difference in pronunciation because there is no samples from video or clips.)
3.) maybe can put video excerpts from movies.
4.) need to expose the students regarding how to pronounce.
5.) evaluation is not clear (missing)- what is the test to know that they have pronounced it correctly.
6.) number of students-should be 40 normally.
7.) it does not use technology based lesson. Use more in context.
8.) improvise the lesson plan and put in the blog.