Welcome back guys!
Remember last semester we started of by looking at the differences between spoken and written language. We agreed that we will continue with it and make it a class innovation or an academic paper.
To start it off, lets take a step back and recollect:
Who our subjects were?
Write a short description about them.
Think as to how we went about selecting the subjects and collecting the data. Try to be as clear as possible in your description.
Don't kill yourself, relax and pen it down.
Selecting the subject
ReplyDeleteI had chosen Ervina Siong as my subject for this linguistics assignment. She is 11 years old and studying in SJK (c) Chung Hwa Kota Belud in standard 5. She is a prefect. She is Dusun. She studies 1 hour of English at home every other day. Her father works as a farmer and her mother is a housewife. She likes to read story books and enjoy her time in the library with her friends. She is a moderate student and achieves average marks in her examinations.
Data collection procedure
For the data collection procedures, first of all I had selected 4 students with the guidance of teachers from standard 5 as my subject. I told their class teacher and once their teacher agreed, I took them to the library to do the activity as it is quieter and no interruption in the library.
After that I explain the activity that I will conduct and what they have to do. After they had understood the procedure, I then carried out the activity. I gave them 1 story strip and they had to write a composition between 50-80 words. They had 30 minutes to write their composition.
After they finished their composition, they then had to tell the story orally using the same story strip and the notes given. I then recorded their oral narration.
Selecting the subject
ReplyDeleteThe name of the individual that i have chosen is Danny. He is a primary six student and that means that he is going to sit for his Ujian Peperiksaan Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) soon. He is the second child of three siblings and he is the smart one in the family. Danny is a Bidayuh born boy from the village area.
I picked Danny because the story strip that was used was suitable for him as a primary six student. First of all, Danny is not the brightest among the students in his class. He is just the average scores student but still having difficulty in mastering the English Language. And because he is from a rural school, it made it much more difficult for him to learn it.
Moreover, the main language that is used in that school is Bidayuh Language. So, whenever Leslie speaks to his family and friends, he will always use the language which is most comfortable for him, Bidayuh language. Because of that, he does not have the chance to apply the usage of English Language during his daily conversations.
Data Collection Procedure
Firstly, I prepared all the necessary materials that I need to use for collecting the data from the students. The story strip that was used was downloaded from the email sent from the lecturers. There were two different story strips and we had to choose one. My group decided to use the second story strip which was pictures about fire and firemen. Before I went into a primary six class, I made sure that I had enough printed story strips and also provided them with enough amounts of examination sheets.
After I was done with the preparation, I went into a class for primary six students. Since there were not many students in the class, I decided to ask six students to do the story strip. I had to indentify some of the students to do the task. I did not want to have the smart ones to do it. This is because I was afraid that there will be no mistakes that I can identify and corrected. In the end, I chose six students that had the lowest mark in their previous English Language test. I had asked the help from their teacher for their previous test marks. All are bad in that language and they are boys.
After I identified all the six boys, I gave them the story strips. I explained a little so that they understand what they will do. According to the strip, they should be given 35 minutes to finish writing. So, I gave them time to do it in an empty classroom with no distractions from their friends. There were a few of them that did not understand some of the words. Hence, I explained as little as possible and gave them ideas. After all, they are not really good in English.
During the process, I recorded the event with my phone. I took pictures of the students and also did some recording. Since they also need to do the oral presentation, I recorded them with the phone’s video camera. It is needed as proof and I have to use it for later reference.
After 35 minutes, I collected all the students’ written compositions. I thanked them for their cooperation and effort. When I came back from the School Based Experience (SBE), I discussed some of the errors that needed to be corrected. Other than that, I analyzed the students’ written composition and oral compositions.
My Subject Background:
ReplyDeleteDuring my School Based Experience (SBE), I asked a student from Standard 5 to become my subject for this assignment. My subject is a boy named Ian Low Ming Hans. He is a Chinese boy with good discipline. He was born on 24th December 2000 and he is currently 11 years old. He is the eldest son and he has a brother. Ian’s father is a doctor and his mother is a housewife. He does not go for English tuition because his mother said she can teach him English by herself. When I observed my mentor teaching in the class, I noticed that Ian can understand English well. When the teacher asked questions, he understood the questions and managed to answer the questions correctly.
Data Collection Procedure:
At first, I read the task and understood what I needed to do. After that, the week I went to school for my School Based Experience (SBE), I went to my mentor’s class and found my subject for this task. It was not easy to find a student for my task because not all students wanted to cooperate but luckily I had a good mentor. I asked help from my mentor to have a student from her class for my task.
I asked the student to meet me during recess time. I explained about the question that the student needed to do and asked him to start writing the story according to the story strip. He had only about 20 minutes to write the story which was about 50 to 80 words.
After he wrotes the story, I asked him to prepare his oral narration by looking at the story strip in two minutes. When he was presenting the story telling, I also recorded down his narration. At last, I asked about his background for my extra information and also took some his individual pictures.
Rachel Sia is an 11-year-old Chinese girl who stays in town area. She is from SJK(C) Chung Hua Krokop, a primary school located near her house.
ReplyDeleteThe subject is active in school. She joins different clubs such as Volleyball Club and Badminton Club. She even represents the school in some competitions. She does not like to learn English language. Every day, she spends half an hour to study her English language subject besides doing homework. Her results for her tests are moderate. However, sometimes, she fails in her tests.
Rachel comes from an ordinary family. She lives with her parents and two siblings. Her father is a pastor while her mother is a housewife. Her parents always guide her in learning English Language although they are not good in English Language. Hence, although she does not like English language, she would still learn the language.
There were two story strips provided by the lecturer and only one of the story strips was used. The story strips were adapted from the past year examinations paper. This was due to the validity and reliability of the stimulus. As there is a standard in the past year examinations, despite the ethnic origins, locations and schools, the students would be able to write compositions based on the story strips given.
In the process of collecting the data, the subject was given the second story strip. This was because the second story strip is more student-friendly. Despite of the English level of the subject, she is able to write out a composition as she may have the knowledge about the story strip.
Selecting the subject;
ReplyDeleteThe student that I had chosen to become my subject was Chris Bryan anak Nawot. He was a Bidayuh boy from Kuching, Sarawak. Chris Bryan was 11-year-old and the youngest son among the four of the siblings. He studied in Sekolah Kebangsaan Saint David, Kuching, Sarawak.
His father worked as a clerk while his mother worked as a secondary school teacher. Bryan spent 2 hours to study English in a day. The language he spoke in his home was his native language, Bahasa Bidayuh. Other than that, Brian spoke in Bahasa Melayu with his other relatives which were from different race. Although he was a shy boy, he spoke clearly and loudly. He was able to use English language correctly although he was from the rural area. Perhaps, his mother was a teacher so she could teach Brian.
Data Collection Procedure;
First, the teacher helped me to choose the students who were a boy and a girl from primary 5. Then, I asked for the permission from the teacher and took both of them to the library since it was the most suitable place to do a recording without any interruption from others. In the library, I explained to both of them what should they do. I gave them a piece of a blank paper and a story strip. After they understood the procedure that I had told them briefly, they read the points in the story strip carefully. They started to do an essay which was 50-80 words long. Surprisingly, they managed to write an essay that long about 10 minutes.
I proceed to the recording part which they had been given 10 minutes to read all the points in the story strip. Luckily, there was not much problem when it’s time to record. The girl made three recording because for the first and the second times, she pauses too long and forgot the words that she wanted to say while the boy made a recording for only twice.
Lastly, for their background information, I gave a form for them to fill. At home, I replayed again the oral narration that had been recorded for a several times between both of them. I re-read their composition too. Finally, I chose the best among the two after I had made a correction on their essay.
Selecting the subject
ReplyDeleteMy subject is a Muslim student, named Azlan Haziq bin Amirool. He is 12 years old in SJK (c) Methodist, Sibu. He has a twin elder sister and another elder sister. His both parents work as a custom officer. During free time, he does some reading and cycling. His result is moderate in the class. The co-curriculum he participates is computer club. He said his interest is in electronic. In the future, he wants to be an engineer.
Data collection procedure
Early in the morning, I went to the office and found my mentor. I asked her whether there are twins in our school or not. Then after that, I went to the subjects’ class and selected a pair of twin as my subjects. I explained to them about my research and they were willing to help me. I asked them to find me during recess at library.
Even though library was a bit noisy during recess but I managed to collect the data I needed. They came. First of all, I asked for their background and interest. Then i gave a short brief on the story strip. They were given about 10 minutes to complete a 50-80 words essay. Later on I recorded the oral narration using laptop.
Selecting the subject:
ReplyDeleteI had chosen my subject named, Parveen Kaur A/P Harbans Singh during my School Based Experience at Sekolah Kebangsaan Tunku Kurshiah. She is from Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan which is meant to be a rural area. She is studying in Year 5 Gemilang. She is the youngest among her siblings of five. She’s the most loved child among the rest of other siblings since she’s the youngest. She has two elder brothers and two elder sisters. Apart from that, she is from a Sikh family. She speaks in Punjabi at home. She’s is not a native speaker because English is not her mother tongue. Moreover, she also mentioned that she’s from a middle class family which means her socioeconomic background should be from a moderate family income.
This is because her father is a gardener in another school and her mother is a homemaker but she’s a part time tailor. Her mother is having some health problems and that would be the reason why she’s not working full time. Her parents need to educate five of them and it’s hard to allocate certain amount of money for five of them. When I asked her whether she had insufficient reference or story books for English subject, she said that her parents will always promise her to buy but they don’t. Furthermore, her parents stopped her from taking extra tuition classes after school hours. In this situation, she’s being neglected by her parents without fulfilling her basic needs to excel better in her second language. As a result, less initiatives taken by her parents to enhance the child’s learning environment and foster her interest towards the second language.
Data collection procedure:
On 23rd of March 2011 during my School Based Experience, I met the class teacher of Year 5 Gemilang. I had a brief collaboration with the class teacher regarding the short test that I’m going to carry out with a student. Then, I requested for a student from Year 5 Gemilang and the student can be either male or female. Next, I picked a student randomly by entering the class on that morning. I chose a student named, Parveen Kaur A/P Harbans Singh from Year 5 Gemilang. I quarantined the student in a sound proofed room which was a music room to avoid any disturbances. This is mainly to ensure clear recording and analysis of data. In addition, I interviewed the student about her family background in order to identify the exposure and initiatives towards the second language. Later, I commenced the short test for 35 minutes by providing a pencil, question paper and answering sheets. After that, I did the recording of the student's oral narration based on the stimulus or picture given. Finally, I examined the sentences in written composition and oral narration. Lastly, I recommended some follow up activities to improve on the student's second language.
In this task, the subject that was chosen was from Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampung Baru, Bintulu. His name is Mohammad Hafizzie and he is now studying in primary five. Hafizzie is from a Melanau family and they are originally from Kuching, Sarawak. To know more about the subject chosen, some questions were prepared to be answered. When he was questioned about his interest towards English subject, he loves the subject so much. In his primary years, the English teachers are the factors that influence Hafizzie to love English subject besides his own interest towards the subject. In addition to that, Hafizzie likes to read any English reading materials instead of writing, listening or oral in English language. Unfortunately, Hafizzie feels that English grammar is the toughest if compared to English comprehension and essay.
ReplyDeleteThe subject comes from a rich family, where his father works as a businessman and his mother owns a homecare in Bintulu. Since he is from a Melanau family, they tend to speak their own mother tongue language at home and seldom speak English at home with his other family members. In addition to that, in a week, Hafizzie will usually spend one to two hours of his studying time to study English subject at home. Every people have different techniques to enhance their English language and for Hafizzie, he prefers to read more English story books rather than watching English movies or speak more English. Other than that, it is hard for the subject to speak more English, since he will only speak English with his teachers at school.
From my own view, Hafizzie is an active boy and he is easy to cooperate with. Even though he makes mistake in his language, he still have the guts to speak confidently and this has made the research process better.
Data Collection Procedures
The first thing that was done was meeting the headmistress and asks for her permission on having the research on the pupils from her school. It is important so that the headmistress knows the in and out of the pupils. Second thing done was meeting the head of English teacher and was asked to meet one of the English teachers. Luckily, the teacher was also the English subject teacher for that particular class that has been selected. To make the task easier, the English class teacher did mentioned about three subjects that she chose randomly and the Science Lab was prepared for us the finish the activity. Then, the subjects were given some questions on their own background data. Soon after that, the subjects were given the story strip with pictures and some short notes with them. They will be given time to complete their task in time. After gathered the first task, by using the same story strip, the subjects have to narrate the story line orally. At the end of it, only one subject will be chosen.
The subject that is being studied comes from a national primary school. His name is Andrew Steven, a Melanau from Bintulu and is in standard five. A few questions are asked in order to know more about the subject’s background. His favorite subjects are science and English. He enjoys learning the English language but he does not show much interest in writing using the English language. The subject spends at least one hour a day to do revision on his English subject. He learns the subject on his own without going for tuition. The subject comes from a family whose first language is Melanau, hence he seldom speaks English. Besides that, the main reason for him liking English is because of the way his English teacher teaches him, which is exciting and does not make him lose interest in learning English. Besides that, his achievement in English is average and since he does not come from an English speaking family, it is considered good already. In school, he also seldom speaks English, which is also mainly why he finds it difficult to pronounce some English words. In terms of personality, he is a good and hardworking boy, making it easy to communicate with him. He is also cooperative in helping with the research.
ReplyDeleteData collection procedure
Firstly, getting the permission from the class teacher is important so that the teacher is aware of what is happening. The second step is to choose the pupil randomly regardless of his or her results. This is done so that at the end of the data collection, the result will be picked to be analysed. The subject is then given the story strip containing pictures with short notes. He is to write a short composition and will be timed so that he can finish in time. After gathering the written composition back, the subject is then asked to look at the same story strip and narrate the story orally. His narration is recorded with a video recorder.
In the project, I have chosen a Chinese pupil who is from standard 6 of Chinese Vernacular School, SJK (c) Thai Kwang, Sibu Sarawak as my subject. His name is Elton Wong. He is the only son in his family. He comes from Chinese background family where Chinese is his mother tongue. He speaks Mandarin and other Chinese dialects with his parents, relatives and friends. He only used English during his English classes or when needed to. Besides that, he is also one of the top pupils in his class. He always scores on a grade A or grade B in his monthly English tests. Furthermore, he is also a prefect in the school.
ReplyDeleteMy subject comes from an educational family. The education that his parents received is only until Form 3 and they do not have a good conduct in English. As their realisation on the importance of English nowadays, they give lots of effort and spend lots of time in encouraging my subject in improving his English by sending him to English tuition class.
For the length of time of my subject (the standard 6 pupils of SJK (c) Thai Kwang) studying English in the school, based on his class timetable, I found that subjects in English that taught in the school only cover six hours per week while the subjects that taught in other languages such as Chinese and Malay take up more than six hours per week.
The subject is given a strip story with series of pictures and short notes. Firstly, I would like to describe about the question. The question that we used is past year question. We used the past year question in our research as it is a standard that has been set by the ministry of education. It is also appropriate to the pupils’ proficiency. Besides that, it can also help to improve the reliability and validity of the research.
Not only this, series of pictures that has shown in the question is also a way to help the pupils to visualise the incident when they are constructing their composition. Furthermore, it is also a useful way in gaining the students’ interests by showing them the pictures.
The event that is shown in the pictures is also an incident that the pupils are familiar with such as fire incident. Wherever the pupils are from, either rural or urban, they can all describe about it.
Firstly, I get my subject through the introduction of one of the standard 6 English teacher. Then, the subject is explained briefly on what he will be required to do. In the project, there are three data need to be collected such as subject’s background, written composition and oral narration. Data of the subject’s background is collected. Before the subject starts to write, he is given three minutes to look at the strip story. Then, the subject is requested to write a composition between 50-80 words which is based on the strip story given within 20-30 minutes. Before proceeding to the next procedure that is recording narration, the subject’s written composition is collected. Next, the subject is requested to tell the story orally which is also based on the same strip story as before. The subject’s oral narration is recorded by using a recording device. Lastly, the best recorded narration is recorded.
This time around task was all about to explore the grammatical and syntactical errors inherent in student’s usage of oral and written language. Grammatical and syntactical errors are common errors that we could detect in students’ writing and oral. Thus, doing this assignment is easier for us to detect the slight mistake or even the major one.
ReplyDeleteThe student that I observed for this assignment is Wan Mohd Syahir. 11 year old boy. He is Malay boy who is the eldest out four siblings.
His education’s background is quite good as he is the son of one of the teachers in that school itself. His teacher told me that he is top ten scorers in his class. So, he is one of the best students in that classroom. He attends English tuition at night as to improve his proficiency. From some sources, I get to know that he is active in sport and is a perfect in his own School which is Sk Empila Kota Samarahan. Moreover, he participated in the coral speaking and other competitions are enough already to prove that he does active in his school.
Actually there are two story stripes that were given to us and we have to choose which one of the story strips that we want to choose. Both stimuli which are the story strips actually the UPSR past year question. For me personally, both of the stories stripes are suit the standard of students in Malaysia. Moreover, this story stripes is consider as simple because it is easy to understand. Plus, the story stripes are given pictures to enhance the understanding of a certain students in case they did not understand that story well.
Data collection procedures:
The second day of school based experience (SBE), I was assigned to replace the empty class. I was very excited as finally I got a chance enter the class for the first time. I still remember the first time I found out my subject who is Wan Mohd Syahir, and a few of his friends. Firstly, I ordered them to volunteer themselves as my subject for this task. Fortunately, some of them managed to give their cooperation to me. Then, after managed to persuade them to volunteer themselves to participate in this activity, I then gave the stimulus and explained a bit about the story stripes. Next, the selected students wrote the composition and then later I recorded the student’s oral narrations. I chose only one of the students’ works. Lastly, I chose Wan Mohd Syahir’s work.
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ReplyDeleteMy subject for this assignment named Mohd Qisti Khairi. He is a pupil from Sekolah Kebangsaan Kidurong, Bintulu, Sarawak. It is clearly shown that he is a Malay by the name. He came from 5 Anggerik. He was born on March 5 2000 at Hospital Besar Bintulu. He is the second son in a family among three siblings. 5 Anggerik can be considered as the best class among Primary 5. Hence, the pupil who entered the class has a good result in their examination every month. Basically, Mohd Qisti scored 70 and above in English. But, he was the one of the pupils who did not have the interest in sports. In order to get the deep information about my subject, I did the interview session with him.
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost, I try to get the permission from my mentor to interview my subject. I met my subject during his leisure time which was during their class became audiences for the story telling competition in their school. From my interview session with him, he loves Bahasa Melayu and Science subject. According to Mohd Qisti, he loves Bahasa Melayu because it is such an interesting subject and easy to understand. On the other hand he also loves English but there were some matters which always bothering his mind. During English class, he found out that the way the teacher taught them a little bit dull. Besides, he barely understood whenever his teacher taught in front of the class because he could not heard the teacher’s voice and the pronunciation was not clear. Other than that, he also loves writing.
data collection procedures:
First of all, before I did the activity with the pupil, I prepared the stimulus early and I made two copies because I needed two pupils to help me. Other than that, I also prepared papers and pencils for them. After that, the next thing I must do was asking for the permission from the headmistress and also my mentor.
After I got the permission, I tried to find a suitable time to interview them.The next step was two pupils from primary 5 were chose. They came from the same class but they are varies in races. They were chose randomly and a boy and a girl were chose to help me. They were Malay and Ibanese. After that, they were guided to a staffroom as we needed a room for us to conduct our activity.
The next step after we arrived at the staffroom was the introduction session. I introduced myself instead of they introduced themselves. Then, they were informed on why they chose to help me. They were briefed on what to do during the two tasks. The first task was they were asked to write a composition between 50-80 words. Another task was an oral presentation. They have to narrate what they saw from the pictures.
Before they started, they were given stimulus which contains strips of pictures. Next, they were asked to observe the pictures in the stimulus for three minutes. After they were ready, they started to write. The next thing they had to do after they had done with the composition was they were given another three minutes to observe the pictures again. This is the second task which was they must fulfill. They were instructed to narrate what they saw from the pictures based on the points inside the stimulus. The oral presentation was recorded.
My subject’s name is Flony Anak Dicky. She is a Bidayuh. She lives in Kampung Tangga Plaman, Serian, Sarawak. She was born on 23rd of April 1999 at Serian Hospital. She is one of the students in Sekolah Kebangsaan Saint Patrick Tangga, Serian, Sarawak. According to her class teacher, Madam Fauziah binti Abdullah, Flony is the top scorer in her class and she ranked the first every semester. She is also active in co-curricular activities such as netball, English Language Society and Red Crescent Society. Besides that, she likes to dance, writing short stories and drawing. Her education background was quite fine. According to the teachers who had taught her, it seems that she does not face difficulties in learning. In addition to that, they also said that Flony has the tendency to go further in her studies. This is due to her learning skills (curiosity, initiative to learn on her own and able to relate things) that she had. As for her family background, Flony came from a moderate income family. Both of her parents work as a clerk in the school nearby (Sekolah Kebangsaan Saint Patrick Tangga). Flony has four siblings; elder sister and two younger brothers. Her elder sister works as an accountant. Her brothers are still studying; Year 3 and Year 1. Although her parents are not working as teachers, but they still pay their attention on their children’s education. According to Flony, her parents will check her school works from time to time. She also added that they will guide and teach their children during their revisions at night.
ReplyDeletedata collection procedures:
I chose one of the Year 6 students as my subject. The reason why I chose Year 6 students because they have been exposed to this kind of stimulus or activity by their teacher. So, it will be a little bit easier for them to do the activity. For the second method, since I chose Year 6 student as my subject, Flony, so I used similar stimulus as what the teacher has given them. After choosing the stimulus, I met with my mentor to discuss about the activity that will be conducted. After clarifying all the things I need to do, at last I went to the class to meet my subject.
After explaining the whole idea to her, I started my activity. The next step is collection of data. This is where I collect back the stimulus that has been given to her and let her to do an oral narration. Last but not least, making the analysis based on the data collected. This is where I identified the errors made; in terms of grammatical and syntactical.