letters in teaching english

Writing letters challenges students to write friendly and it is a fun way too. It strengthens their technology skills, exercises their creativity, put them into practice research skills, acquaints them with proper letter writing techniques, and gives students opportunity to visit resource sites to discover information about authors and their town as they learn about writing letters. Finally students will demonstrate their new knowledge by typing and sharing a chosen letter. They will be a better writer and a better communicator. Letter writing provides a pleasant and conducive environment that helps learning process in a classroom. Teachers can use letters as authentic material to teach writing which will arouse interest among the students.
At the same time, this activity promotes inference- making, critical thinking which leads to independent thinking. As we know, writing is a life-long interactive process that is used to communicate with a variety of audiences and for a variety of purposes, adapting language conventions appropriately according to context. Writing is an act of discovery, a means of personal growth, and a tool for clarifying knowledge. To accomplish writing tasks more effectively, students need exposure to a variety of strategies, in order to approach writing systematically. And we as teacher probably put ourselves in charge to create this situation in the class. There are many types of letters that we use daily in our life. For those in school level they are more familiar with the formal letters and personal letters. At earlier stage students love to read letters - personal letters rather than the formal one. Basicallly the personal letters always carries things like feelings and emotional and sometimes its so secretive. These letters are meant for someone who can share the same feelings with those who wrote the letter. Letters also carries thoughts that the writer felt safe to deliver in another way to express their feelings. But unfortunately this adventurous process has been forgotten, as we have new ways of delivering messages, feelings, thoughts and ideas.

Aesop's Fable - The Tiger King

Aesop's Fable - The Tiger King

Fables are about animals that can talk and act like people, or plants or forces of nature like thunder or wind. The plants may be able to move and also talk and the natural forces cause things to happen in the story because of their strength.The most famous fables were written by a man called Aesop. We know them as Aesop’s Fables, and he wrote more than 600 of them. Here, I would like to share a video on The Tiger King, which is so funny. A tiger has played humurous role in the story and makes fool of himself.It sure will arouse the students' attention and make sure that they able to learn something from it. The students can act out the story in the class as it is so easy to do so.
At the same time, the stories in the fable able to extand students understandings . They able to analyse the moral values and talk about the structure of the fables itself. They even can create a new ending for the fable that they read which will make them to think creatively and citically.Besides, they even may write a fable own their own after having reading a collection of fables.Isn't that wonderful! I think, that's what the aim of every educator. I have included some interesting websites address for you to share the activities that can be carried out by using fables or folktales.

www.storyarts.org/lessonplans/lessonideas/index.html - Cached

folktales

Wow- isn't that wonderful to read tales which are illustrated with colourful pictures and tell us about legends,princess and many more.I think not only me but the whole world know the story of Cinderalla.It tells us the story of someone(normally the hero or heroine) who we fall in love with them.A Actually a folktale is a type of traditional story that tries to explain or understand the world. Such stories were orally passed down through the generations and feature morals or lessons. The stories usually take place long ago in a faraway place and are woven around talking animals, royalty, peasants, or mythical creatures.

Furthermore in a folktale, goodness is always rewarded. Heroes and heroines live happily ever after while villains are suitably punished. Throughout the generations, the story may change but its core remains the same. Folktales usually have no identified author, but they mirror the values and culture of the society from which they originated.For EDU 3234, I read the 'Son Of The Turtle Spirit'.I admired the son who was so brave enough to dive into the sea and successfully did what the mother said. Don't look down at him as he was just a kid at that time but able to do waht the adults were afraid of.
We can use folktales to teach students as it carry out good values. Rather than reading it out we may ask the students to act out or role play the story. Sure they will love it.Use props will make the lesson more lively.The lesson will be remembered not only the students but also the teacher.

Drama- an interesting source of literature

Hi! For today I would like to talk about drama as one of the literary item in literature.

Drama develops self-esteem and encourages creativity- (comes first) and imagination. Drama encourages us to excel our own thoughts mainly from personal experiences. As well, by allowing to experience things as a different personality and by letting the imagination grow free, we are able to build up confidence and validate our own ideas and feelings. We now become more perceptive to the needs and feelings of others, having portrayed many different types of people.

I feel that drama is so unique because it allows us to perform through our body movement and non-verbal communication. You believe it or not, we do say so much about ourselves through body language. If we can learn to control each part of our bodies and the movements it may make, we can be more in control of our lives. How we use our bodies is what we are most judged on by others. If we are aware of what messages our bodies are sending we can manipulate these messages. We can sense the most extra ordinary aspect that our body can make- so fantastic! I am so fortunate to explore drama as one of course for my program.

Writing a Position Paper

I have gone through all the semesters well and I am surprised of this semester as I still did not receive the modul yet.It's already so many weeks and whenever I call the PPL centre thier answer is the same- we have not receive it yet.
So, I was thinking of finishing up the other assignment as the due date is approaching soon. I started with my position paper. The experience was really amazing.
At first I was stucked and surprised feeling like many people do as they get started—worried about the amount of work ahead and a bit confusion. I even feel a little excitement, anticipating the project! Or maybe not.Why should I care about how I'm feeling during this whole process? There's an old saying, "Misery loves company." If you know how other students feel as they go through the research and writing process and you feel about the same way, you'll know your project is right on track!I just followed the steps that were guided by my lecturer. I read over the instructions for the assignment to make sure I fully understand what the instructor has in mind.I am so glad that this assignment is not limited or directed to any particular readings . I am free to choose the items and write on it.
As I have gone through a lot of literary items this whole course, I was excited to talk or do research on one of it. And I choose 'A Rose for Emily ' by William Faulkner.I was interested on the character Emily and the reasons of her strange behavouirs.This task gave a chance to measure the success of how well I can conduct the research, analyze and organize the information and communicate it clearly in written form.
The paper focuses on analysis of the issue and its solutions, possibly from both historical and current perspectives. I realized that the success of the paper is often based on how completely and clearly I able to identify the key aspects of the issue and their significance to the field to which they relate. Wow! I begun to think critically. I manage to express myself truely about the character which I kept in my mind for so long. At the same time, the paper which I attended gave me a room to anticipate and deflect arguments against the position, while presenting supporting evidence in favor of the position. I believe that success will depend on how persuasively the paper makes its case and defends against possible opposition.

Language and literature

When you say literature it is not the simple. straight forward phenomenon but it covers a wide range of activities.However, when it becomes a subject of study, it may be seen as an activity involving and using language. The claim "the study of literature is fundamentally a study of language in operation" (Widdowson: 1971) is based on the realisation that literature is an example of language in use, and is a context for language use. Thus, studying the language of literary texts as language in operation is seen as enhancing the learner's appreciation of aspects of the different systems of language organisation. The difficulty to learn linguistic through literature has been a difficult task.Traditionally, literature has been used to teach language use but rarely has it been used to develop language use.
Literature has the benefits of presents language in discourse. According to R. Carter (1986), language and literature teaching are more closely integrated and harmonized than is commonly used at present time so that literature would not be isolated.Another argument against literature also relates to literariness.Is the literary language providing the conventional and appropriate kinds of language required to convey, practical, everyday messages as request by communicative approach?
If we see the poems, plays and novels use of the same basic language system but have different functions from non-literary discourses in the communicative function. The result is that poets, novelists and playwrights produce linguistic messages, which by their very nature, stand out prominently against the reader's background awareness of what is both communicatively conventional and linguistically appropriate to the social purpose that the message is to fulfill, though grammatically intelligible in terms of syntax and vocabulary.
I am not saying that teaching literature is not encouraged but the key to success in using literature in the ESL classroom depends on the works selected. A text which is extremely difficult in linguistic or cultural levels will reap few benefits. Several solutions have been suggested in regard to the problems of linguistic or other difficulties such as simplification, extracts or simple texts. Simplification can be done by shortened in characters, situations and events, the vocabulary is restricted and the structures are controlled. We can also use extracts which are advantageous because they remove the burden of intensive lengthy reading. However, they are artificially isolated for teaching purposes and do not necessarily cultivate interest in reading in the ESL/EFL learner.
By the way we can use simple text to overcome the problem and to feed the need of our students. we should accept that using literature in the language classroom is a concept that has its focal point in language development. Thus, any syllabus based on this concept should also maintain language as the central concern. For this, it is imperative that curriculum developers depart from the traditional view attached to literature. It is also equally important that the syllabus has suggestions for teaching strategies and forms of assessment. The objectives may outline the importance of literature towards language development, but they become redundant if the teaching and assessment techniques do not apply those objectives practically.
Literature generates creativity in language and imagination and should feature in any education system that regards discovery and enjoyment as essential components of the learning process.

learning literature

As the days passed, I am quite worried as I have not received my moduls yet to do further reading on this paper. So, guess what I did! I went through the literary work that I had read all along this program. First of all, I would like to share the privilages that I obtain from learning this wonderful marvelloues literature. Literature has provided me with a lot of experiental learning which is a necessary for each and every individu. It opens my mind and help me to explore the literary work on my own point of view.
Actually, as I read in Kirszner & Mandell, Literature reading reacting writing, literature is an interactive process as many critics says. What I meant here is, every readers has thier own interpretation from reading any literary work. Its gives us chances to imagine and create our own opinion.Wow! Isn't that wonderful!
And at the same time, we learn the facts of the literary work such as plot, setting, characters and so on. These facts are essential for us as educators.
Besides these, we can visualize the writers attitudes on thier creations. And as readers, our understanding of these attitudes will contribute to his or her interpretation of the work.The writers throw out thier view and sometimes it may be more challengeable to them.
After all the purpose that we have discussed, the most exciting part is we as learners have our own perception on our reading. That's really amazing isn't it!It lead to our own experiences, beliefs, ideas about the work. And we can't deny that each literary work has different meanings to different people.So, I would like to be strong reader to express my feelings with reasonable facts.