Wednesday 25 January 2012

The latest task that we needed to complete was a tongue twister task. We were asked to find two tongue twisters for each group and present it in class as best and as perfectly as we are able to. The two tongue twisters that my group chose are as follows:
1.    I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.
Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.
2.    How many boards could the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored?
In my opinion, the first tongue twister was the harder one as we had to switch between the SH sound and the S sound. In phonetics, S is a voiceless "s" sound while SH is a voiced "ʃ" sound. The switch between these two sounds require concentration and good articulation. My group members and I practiced the tongue twisters quite a number of times and we managed to say them by putting in a melody or rhythm to them. Also, we used a method called "chunking", which is breaking up the sentences to manageable chunks so that it will be easier to pronounce the words properly. All in all, we did a good job saying the tongue twisters and teaching it to our friends and we enjoyed ourselves.

Miming

Our next task was to create a short clip about the use of expressions or non-verbal communication. We were asked to create a short clip without any dialogue and try to convey our message by our body language, and of course, various sound effects. Ahmad Muslim came up with the idea of bullying and friendship. Thus, he wrote the storyboard and we all had a look at it and gave our ideas as well. After some editing and quarreling (kidding!!) we set off to the playground nearby to start our shooting.

The short clip that we shot was about two girls who loves to bully other kids. Their characters were played by Khairunnisa and Hishafinaz. I played the character of an innocent boy. Our characters were at the playground playing the swings. The girls played in a rough way and started to get bored while the boy was minding his own business on a swing not far away. Soon, the girls decided to beat the boy up because they had nothing else to do. They slowly walked over and beat the boy from head to toe. The boy fell and one girl hit him on the head with a big stick. She hurt him badly and they realised that they had been very bad indeed. Another boy came, played by Muslim and he reprimanded the girls. He helped the injured boy up and brought him back to his house together with the remorseful girls. They tended to him and all of them ended up being friends. The moral of the story is that bullying is never an option.

We showed the short clip on the appointed day and I believe that my classmates really enjoyed in. Our lecturer also enjoyed our short clip and told us that we were one of the best. She gave our group an incentive to work harder. We were all very happy and proud to have done a great job.

Role play and Dialogue

Holla...

it's been awhile since I've updated my blog. It's not something I'm used to doing as I do not really appreciate writing my thoughts online for people to read. Anyway, I will now report about our next task which is Role Playing. Our group, which consists of Ahmad Muslim, Dayang Khairunnisa, Hishafinaz and I thought of a situation where all of us can be involved. I suggested to write about a phone call and an invitation to a housewarming party. We started with writing the dialogue and then we send it to our lecturer for editing. She returned the dialogue a day after and we immediately practiced the scenes involved.

The day came when we were to act our the dialogue in a role play. I almost forgot to mention that the purpose of this task is to identify the forms and functions used in everyday language. I will post the Dialogue below for everyone to see and thus understand our task. We were the 4th group to perform and I believe we did quite well, although we had a laugh because some of us forgot our lines. We enjoyed ourselves and hoped that everyone enjoyed the role play. The dialogue is posted below:


Dialogue
Housewarming Party
Scene 1:        Invitation on the phone
Scene 2:        Arrival at the house
Scene 3:        Meal Time

Scene 1:        Invitation on the phone
Inaz:
Hello Hubert, it’s Inaz speaking.
Hubert:
Oh, Hi Inaz!
Inaz:
Yeah, it’s been awhile. How’ve you been? (to enquire)
Hubert:
Not too bad, thanks. And you?
Inaz:
I’m fine thanks. I’m calling because I wanted to tell you that I have moved to a new house just last month and I’m planning a housewarming party this Saturday evening. (to inform)
Hubert:
Oh that’s great! Where is your house? (to enquire)
Inaz:
Well, my house is in the Ocean Park residential area. I will text you the address and the information about the party. (to inform)
Hubert:
I see. I would love to come and celebrate you moving into your new house. Thanks for the invite! (to express gratitude)
Inaz:
It’s no big deal. Also, can you invite Muslim and Nisa also as I don’t have their phone numbers. I would like them to come seeing that we were quite a fun group during our time in the IPG. (to reminisce)
Hubert:
Sure thing. Those were good times indeed. I’ll let them know as soon as you’ve texted me your address.
Inaz:
Thanks Hubert. Anyways[u1] , I’ve got to go. It was nice talking to you. See you at the party then! Bye.
Hubert:
No problem. I’ll see you at the party! Bye.

Scene 2:        Arrival at the house.
Muslim:
Assalamualaikum.
Inaz:
Walaikumusalam.   (please edit) [u2] Hi Muslim, please come in.
Hubert:
Hello Inaz! (To greet)
Inaz:
Oh hello! You’re here with Mus I see. Is Nisa with you?
Nisa:
Hello Inaz. Yes I came with them as I didn’t know the way here. Thank goodness they wanted to pick me up.
Muslim:
It’s not a problem Nisa, what are friends for right? (to reflect)
Hubert:
Yeah. Wow, it smells really good in here, and your house looks superb! (to give praise/ admire)
Inaz:
Thanks Hubert. I did some renovations and tinkered with the interior design. I had my fiancé help me with the furniture choice. (to inform)
Nisa:
Talking about fiancé, where is the lucky guy? (to inquire)
Inaz:
Erm, he’s with his sister in the kitchen helping out with the cooking.
Hubert:
That’s interesting. You’ve got a man that cooks.
Inaz:
It’s all in God’s hands. I am blessed to have him. Here he comes now. (to show gratitude)
Fiancé:
Well hello there.
Hubert, Muslim and Nisa:
What?! (to express wonder)

Scene 3:        Meal Time
Nisa:
I can’t believe that _________ is engaged to you. We have never expected that!
Inaz
I never expected it too. I suppose that’s what jodoh is all about.
Muslim
I’m happy for you Inaz. I also agree with Hubert that your house looks splendid.
Nisa:
Yeah, I admire you Inaz. You’ve done well. (to compliment)
Hubert
I agree. And the food your fiancé cooked tastes really good! (to compliment)
All
(Laughs) You never change, Hubert.

Monday 9 January 2012

Welcome The My Reflections Page

Hello world,
This is a blog that I have set up for me to do my reflections that will be mostly on the ELE3103 module and maybe some about personal views. I hope that by writing often in this blog I will benefit in many ways, especially in the pursuit of excellence in the language. Thank you for visiting my page.