Writing a short story

Title of activity: Writing a short story
Subject: Prose
Time of lessons: 2 periods (Approximately 60-80 minutes)




Objectives: To analyze student interests, aspirations and concerns
To see how well the students are able to produce their own short story
To estimate between the time and the length they can produced such a good
work

Learners: Intermediate students.

Room setup: In a classroom.

Material: Pictures (mainly taken from the newspapers), Blank papers with pen.

Activity: First, distribute the pictures. Ask the students to look at the picture and give them a few minutes to think of what they want to write.

Before that, a teacher must attract them with gifts if they could produce such a nice short story. They can include anything that they want as long as the story will be fascinating to be read and only be based from the pictures.

After giving such time for them to think for a while of what topics they want to write and after the teacher is offering the gifts, a teacher should at least give an hour and a half for them to write. While the students were making a story, a teacher should walk around them and see whether they really produce their own story. Perhaps some student might not understand the instruction given and as a teacher, explain to them in detail.. Remind the student that good students will have a really pleasant story line. If the students ask the teacher of what ever word that they could not find, try to help them.

The time passed. Collect all the work and prepare to read!


Assessment: The assessment will be based on the creativity and how well the students are able to produce sentences with a correct cohesion and coherent.

Teacher reflection: Most of the students were able to produce such a nice work even though there were not really good in producing a correct sentence. Perhaps, other teacher which mastered on grammar should be more alert of teaching and stressed on the vocabulary and grammar they used. Give another activity for them to master in grammar. I’m sure this will work!

Let's look at it!

I surf on the net to find out certain website that can be used for teachers in order to improve their student’s skill (listening, reading, writing and reading.). Not only for teachers, but it also focuses for those student who have the intention to learn by themselves. As I look at it, I found out that there’s lot of websites which learners can look just by clicking the mouse from the computer!.

There are two websites that I really want to share with all of you. These websites are really good as learners can learn without anyone’s help. (Trust me). One of them is from www.readingcomprehensionconnection.com/cgi/-bin/dcts1.pl . The website is very useful for those who want to improve their reading skill. It provides a story which you can read and above the story appeared a bar which shows how long you have progress in reading the story. You need to complete the story by reading it. With this you will have a better understanding.

Another website that is good in order to improve your skill (listening) is by looking at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/index.shtml . This website encompasses a range of listening-based language-learning activities designed for intermediate-level learners. Most of the content is derived from BBC news and educational programs.

Other areas of interest covered including sports, music and current affairs. The site provides users with access to BBC radio news reports online, and transcripts of the audio are provided onscreen. This website also hosts an online mailing list that acts as forum for discussion regarding English as a second language. In addition, the site contains a section designed as a resource for language teachers

I love Drama!

I’m not a good actress but I love to learn drama subject offered by the university. This subject requires me to do lots of reading and understanding. Perhaps we also need to imagine so that we could feel the story inside it.

I was first being introduced to drama subject during my first year study at the matriculation. The most exciting part was when the whole class has to act according to the story they selected. I was so nervous when I got into the stage. Even tough I acted just a small part but I still remember that my hands were shaking!

Remembering back when I studied drama at the matriculation centre, I was quite shocked knowing that the university offered subject like this and I still remember the lecturer that I missed so much, Miss Adlina (now Madam). She’s really a good lecturer and there was one time my group presents a story about a triangle love as we have to bring all the “hantaran” and bunga manggar as and the main actor and actress wore a very beautiful wedding dress if we were really having a wedding ceremony.

That was the story when I was in matriculation. Here at the main campus, techniques of teaching were the same except for the story. I’ve learned Hamlet, Agamemnon, Madam Butterfly, ermm..can’t really remember of other story but it’s fun. For Hamlet, I still remember when that time I did not register the subject yet. I went out for window shopping with my friends and suddenly I get into one shop that sells on the VCD / CD kind of thing. I looked at the VCD of Hamlet and was thinking to buy it. Thank God that my decision was right as I have to learn the story for the next semester. For me, there is no use of reading Shakespeare’s story without understands it. So the best way to understand was by watching at the VCD then you will understand.

What about the presentation?..hurmm…ha ha ha..it’s also kind of funny. Everyone who knows me will notice that I will shake a lot when doing the acting. Thank God that I was able to memorize all the line!!

Favourite Quotation:

"If you would be loved, love and be lovable." Benjamin Franklin

"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself." Galileo Galilei

“Love is a spirit of all compact of fire.” William Shakespeare

“A friend is a second self” -Aristotle

"The foundation of every state is the education of its youth." Diogenes Laertius

"Only educated are free." Epictetus

"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." Ali ibn Abi Talib

"All people want is someone to listen." Hugh Elliot


“Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.” Thomas Moore

"It's the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter."Marlene Dietrich

"Hate the sin, love the sinner."Mahatma Ghandi

"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."Mahatma Ghandi

Let’s chat!!

Choose it: yahoo messenger, msn, mirc, paltalk etc…

I’m sure that most of you have the experienced of chatting. It’s either to have fun, to find a new friend or anything. Just like me. I’m also love to chat especially when I get home. I can online for hours and believe me, it’s fun when you got such a nice online friend to chat.

While chatting on the cyber chat, some of us were cautious in producing his/ her phrase. It is because we do not want our friends to misinterpret or misunderstand the meaning at all. There were also some chatter that used “bombastic” word that are commonly understood by chatters which are often chatting in a cyber chat such as “lil” for “little”. This will lead difficulty for a first time chatter that was using a cyber chat. It occurs just because we felt that “bombastic” words are easy to be typed and it is a waste of time if they kept on using a proper pronunciation. Thus, they tend to cut some of the word to make it easier.

There were chatters which somewhat read what their friends were typing on the screen rather than to type even a word. They might produce errors that the result will cause an ashamed to them.

If we look at the advantages, we could see that, from the conference, chatters were capable to point out anything rather than to voice out in the real situation. Besides that, chatters were freely to produce their own idea spontaneously by typing the word they have in mind. By doing this, some of the ideas might be relevant to the topic or irrelevant depending on the phrase.

In conclusion, all chatters have to be aware of any word that they produced in order to avoid from any misunderstand. From this, we can say that chatting can give advantages and disadvantages to all depending on how they use it.

Fieza on the blog…

I used to write a diary before this but when I think back that the diary will be the evidence if I die. I was start thinking that it is not a good idea as people will read and with this they will know everything about me..owh no!

It’s different when you write a blog. It’s just like an open diary where everybody can look and see your activities. For me, I don’t really like to write on the blog but when it comes to such a favorite situation when I think that I need to remember it all the time, here’s go the blog. Even perhaps we can share it with those who read it.

For what ever situation, I know that writing a blog also requires creativity and imagination. With this you can write your experienced with full of ingenious and bombastic word! Not only that, if you were to write in English, possibly you need someone to check on your grammar or even to see whether you have right according to a manner. Just like me. I prefer someone to look at it to make sure that I’ve done it on the right way.