Reflection (14/5/12-18/5/12)

  We kicked off this week of English lessons by watching the research presentations made by the working groups in our classes. It was evident that most of the presentations were put in a lot of effort in order to help one another. I've learnt a lot while working on my presentation last week but this week, it's all about learning how to research quality academic materials for our research essays.

 As I'm researching on Malcolm X, this week have been an eye-opening week to proper researching method and materials which simply pulverises my dependency on wiki pages. Not that Wikipedia and Google aren't useful but I've learnt that there are websites such as Sirs(http://ars.sirs.com), Gale (http://www.gale.cengage.com/) and many more reliable and factual academic e-resources that are shared with us are indeed very helpful for this coursework. I've honestly never seen such websites until recently and find them as banks of useful resources for whatever learning subject I'm in.

 These useful e-resourses also becomes a habit for me now whenever I need quality information as it provides me a far more accurate database of research materials whenever I need them. I feel that this is a step in improving my academic performance as our essays now can no longer be simple pieces of writing that drive teachers up the wall and should instead be sophisticated, critically-analyzed pieces of writing with added research to support the essay.

 I also realise that our literature circles need to be spiced up in order to engage in a productive discussion. I enjoyed Pei Qin's method in her role as a vocabulary enricher of using online flashcards to record the the vocabulary words found in the chapters of Animal Farm and believe that we should go out of the box and gain ideas like Pei Qin to engage our group members during our literature circle sessions.

reflection (6/5/12-11/5/12)

  This week, we were given topics for research presentations. I was given the topic of 'Primary Sources v.s. Secondary Sources' to work on individually. This week was certainly a busy week with tests and all but I managed to sort everything really well including my research for the presentation because of time management. Oddly enough, this assignment was a key part of my practise in time management as I knew I wouldn't be able to finish everything in one day. And I KNOW for a fact that if I go back to procrastinating as I've always did, the presentation would not have been completed in time.

 So, I planned out my schedule meticulously the whole week and I had enough time for my studies and the research for my presentation. I realise by teaching, I actually gain more knowledge as a learner myself. I kept the idea of making explanations as basic and simplified as possible to make my presentation as comprehensible as enough. And to do so, you need to research a lot to have a clear idea that can be used to be simplified. The logic is, if I don't know enough, how am I going to convey the message as clearly and as enough for others to understand? Hence to explain, I must know. And there goes a total of 9 websites, filled to the brim with information on primary and secondary sources to be absorbed.

 It may not be a coherent matter to others but my proudest achievement this week was completing this research presentation based on good time management. I remember a class session where Ms Abena have once taught me on effective presentation and I tried my best to put the skills to good use such as avoiding being boring. I feel that the class session on effective presentation was really educational as it applies to so much more than class work. I am also curious about the proper usage of italics and fonts. I feel that these small details in writing really do make a difference in the quality of writing.

reflection (30/4/12-4/5/12)

  This week, I've learnt about morphemes which are units of meaning. Some could make sense on their own such as "cat" but some such as "-ness" do not bring any meaning unless combined with words. I also realise that my grammar is weak as I've unconsciously misused semi-colons and the single and double inverted commas in my writing. I've been developing a habit of putting my vocabulary skills to use ( putting in new words I've learned recently such as "catalyse") whenever I write to make my essays more sophisticated. I hope I can learn about the proper usage of semi-colons the inverted commas in class next time as the examples on the internet still confuses me.

 I also enjoyed doing the starter activity on morphemes simply it's honestly really interesting! I've always wondered about the root of words and I would love more exercises on grammar in the future. I'm still not confident about my writing as I've never been challenged to write in such an intermediate level back in my previous high school but I'm glad I have the chance to do so now. It's just baffling that it feels almost like I'm starting to learn English for the first time WHICH MEANS there's definitely things to learn about English. I intend to improve my writing by reading more to increase my vocabulary and definitely learn about punctuations as a semi-colon would most probably be worlds apart from the usage of a single-colon?? 

 Most of the times, my teenage angst gets the better of me by contemplating on the reason for education and all. Beyond these exams (IGCSE, A-levels, etc), how much are we really LEARNING? Some subjects completely fazes me as I have no idea how in the world is it ever applicable in life besides paying at the grocery counter (Maths good lord) and some subjects ( History and English) fazes me as I don't have a reason why I like them. I just do. Beyond Nexus, I see these subjects as platforms for me to explore who I really am and what I'm meant for.

 We as learners are always so stressed about exams but we seldom see school as the platform to learn from our mistakes. Or maybe society's influence on the obsession with grades now simply prevailed us from doing so. Hence, this is the challenge. To realise that this is the time for us to explore and not be afraid to take risks. The obsession with good grades gets to me as mistakes make me feel like a complete failure. I'm only starting to learn how to accept my mistakes and LEARN from them by putting my inferiority complexes aside. And I'm learning better through this simple step I've found recently. And I hope that I could help others to accept their flaws and help them understand this too.

Sorry for the long rant Ms. Abena! 

morphology

 Morphemes are units of meaning which originated from Greek and Latin. When combined with words, they form more complex words. For example, the word review has the morpheme of "re" added to the word "view", telling us that we're viewing it again. Understanding morphology increases our vocabulary skills hence, by mastering morphology we can improve our reading and writing skills.