TIPS FOR IMPROVING LISTENING COMPETENCY

Nowadays, English  teachers should be more creative in teaching. New methods, approaches, curriculum and textbooks would  yield nothing if teachers are not willing to change their  teaching habits. They should be able to adjust to the advancing technology and time. Students are getting more and more informations from the web. Often teachers know less than their students in some aspects such as how to use technology in improving competency. Still, students need a teacher to guide and give advices to them , in fact, teachers are irreplaceable. It has become a great challenge for eEnglish teachers to improve not only the students, but also themselves as well.

Young learners usually are keen of playful things. They do not like heavy or serious lesson materials that can make their forehead frowning and sweating. I have been experiencing the situation for more than 15 years. Whatever grade and wherever they are, when it comes to hard  exercises or practices such as listening, they would shrink deep into their tables and try to be invinsible. So, it depends on the teachers  to make their classes more alive and active with minimum burden to the students.

For many students  who are studying English, listening can be a little difficult especially if they are lack of exercises in or out the classroom. Actually, there are several interesting ways to be better in this competency. Unfortunately only a handful of teachers pay proper attention to the problem. And I could be belonging to this kind of neglectful  teacher. Here, I will share some tips of improving listening that could be working for both teachers and students.

TIPS NUMBER 1

First, find a not too long song with slow rhythm and  soft music. Listen and  write as many words as you can from the song. Don’t try to look at the lyric if you have one. Listen for 3 - 4 times and then after that you can check with the  correct  lyric. You can get the lyric from internet. Do this activity 2 – 3 times a week. Each time with different song

Example of songs that you can use for practice : Big Big Girl, Love Yourself, A Thousand Years etc. Many songs from 90’s are nice enough to be used for practicing.

TIPS NUMBER 2

Watch English news in your television or videos and take notes of important points that you can grasp from the news, such as names of places, people, date and time also  the main points. Do not make any conclusion by just watching the video or pictures being broadcasted. Or you can listen to radio broadcasting like VOA, BBC or ABC. Since you can only hear the news reader’s voice , it can be more effective.

TIPS NUMBER 3

If you watch English speaking movies, try not to look at the subtitle. It is even more recommended if the movie you watch does not have subtitle at all. I suggest some cartoons for the early exercises because they are usually easier to understand since mostly are using daily expressions. You may choose any of your favourite cartoons, from Ben 10, Dora the Explorer or Sofia the First. Do not be ashamed if other people catch you watch cartoons because you are not only watching but also in effort to improve your listening  competency.

TIPS NUMBER 4

            In this tips, using dictations is also recommended. For teachers, you can do some dictations in your class once in a while. After giving new vocabularies or discussing new topics, you can give dictation to your students. This is to remind them about the words they have got and not only to exercise their listening but also their writing competency.

If you are a student, you may have dictation with your friends. Ask a friend to dictate several words and then you can do the same thing to your friend. After that, check the result together and the one who gets the most correct words can be the winner. Or you can have dictation exercise in group. It can also be used for games in class.

Those are 4 tips for improving listening competency that I know so far. If you have others, then you are very welcomed to share here or with wider audiences. I believe many people will thank you for your tips and there is nothing painful in spreading goodness, right?

Wuxia Movie

WATCHING  CROUCHING TIGER AND HIDDEN DRAGON 2

This film is a sequel the  2000 blockbuster and takes place about 15 years from the previous events. Michelle Yeoh and Donnie Yen still become the lead actress and actor. There are also Harry Shum, Jr as Wei Fang, Natasha Liu as Snow Vase and Jason Scott Lee as Hades Dai, the villain.
But I think without Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun Fat) there is something missing T.T.
If you like wuxia movies, this sequel can be one of your choice to spend your lonely times XD.
Okay, let's check the link guys,and the sub is in Indonesian.



LINK UNTUK NONTON FILMNYA DISINI YA 

Role play

Enjoy your meal !!!  

SPEAKING PRACTICE : IN A RESTAURANT

I love speaking practice and I often have fun in listening to my students way of speaking or pronouncing words. Most of them look so deadly serious when they are practicing with their partners or groups. Sometimes  they bicker with each other because their lack of memorizing sentences or on how they pronounce the difficult words. And one more thing, they all love food and drink. So I combine the seriousness of memorizing sentences and eating activities :) .

 When our lessons came to speaking activity at a restaurant, I divide them into groups of three. One student would play as a waiter and the others as customers. They composed the conversation and the menu they would present later. 

Welcoming customers 7 Room 6

Serving the customers 7 Room 4

Serving the customers 7 Room 6

DANCE FROM 3 COUNTRIES

FOREIGN TOUCH IN MY CLASS

Actually this article is not about how I teach English to my students. But, I will talk about how to introduce other countries' cultures to broaden their point of views and make them familiar with foreign traditions so they willnot be enclosed in a kind of shell that creates narrow minded people.

I love cultures and their traditional aspects, especially those from Asian countries. There are such a lot of beautiful and unique cultures found in almost every race and tribes all around the continent. From the vast desert of Saudi Arabia, intriguing temples of Hindu gods and the grandeurs of the Maharajas in India, nomadic Mongols with their tough horses and  round moving tents up to the delicate dances of the natives of Indonesia. Each culture and tradition has its own  attractiveness and beauty. 

Nowadays, there are several countries have exported their cultures, traditions and way of life that have influenced so many people in the world. I can mention, Korea, China and Japan. Korean has bombed almost every tiny part of Asia, Europe, America and even the continent down under with its fabulously gorgeous boybands, girlbands and dramas. They have spread the Kpop Wave in  the last decade that brought very large income for the tourism. 

Meanwhile, China is one of the oldest culture in the earth. Since thousand of years ago, Chines people had been roaming the continents and oceans imprinting influences on many other cultures. Philosophers, inventors, artists even martial arts had developed largely in China and then to Asia and contributed much to the world development.

Then Japan, with its islands and the Bushido spirit of the Samurai has been making deep impression to the romanticists. Their lack of natural resources only made them crave for more and this lead to the development of one of the most powerful military forces tens of years ago. the Japanese soldiers had ransacked any place they had landed and also left bitter memories to the natives the had slayed.

After  they lost the World War 2, Japan became very advanced in technology and once again rules the world, not by their weapons but  with their high tech inventions.

These three cultures inspired me to create a performance by my students for the 2015 graduation party. I chose fan dance from Korea, word dance from China and samurai dance from Japan. I also asked some assistance from on of the school dancers, Wais Al Karni, because he is very good in training newbies

We were training for several months before graduation party and the result was impressive. I could not say that I was satisfied with my students' performance. I believed they could be better, but Alhamdulillah, everything was running well. What more can I ask?

Mika

Sarah

The boys : Adi and Bayu

Shofie

MEMORIZING PARTS OF THE BODY BY USING RAP SONG AND  DANCE

I love having fun when I am teaching English in class. It is because I usually get bored easily and lose my patience in facing those rebellious yet cute looking teenagers. How should I feel when I have to be in a not so large class with almost 40 noisy pupilsin the hot noon with only 2 old fans hanging on the ceiling trying to wipe the sweat in vain? So I usually make some easy games or tasks to make my students quite active and keep them busy with their books , discussions or nerves. Why nerves? Because they have to pay attention seriously  in order to be able to answer my quizzes and get some small gifts or prizes. A one thousand rupiah snack or even a piece of star card is already make them happy and often they have to push one another to be the first in accomplishing the task and get a bar of snack. J

Then we came to a topic about parts of the body. After some explanations, quizzes and exercises,, I thought  about how to make them easier in memorizing parts of the body. When I was browsing  Youtube, I happened to find a simple rap song about this body parts topic. So, I played the song in the classes (I believe many teachers are actually annoyed by this), showed some example of simple dance steps videos and then I divided them into groups with 6-7 members each. Each group must present a dance based on the song and have to perform suitable  gestures with the body parts mentioned in the song lyric. I gave a week for them to practise and not only promised some prize for the best one but also assignments for  group with lowest score. I hoped they would make their best efforts because many students like songs and dances.

When it was the time for performances, I became so glad and I admitted that I was having so much fun. Watching them dancing and sometimes singing too had made me laugh a lot. My students were energetic and quite creative in making  dance moves. So I decided to make  dance battles betwen the groups to choose 5 best dancers. The results were awesome!!! A handful of boys could dance well like those B-Boys and real dancers. They turned around and around and  also made plucky acrobatic task. And the most important, all of the groups were adjusting their dances to the body parts song. I really appreciated their performances and seriousness. I wish that they would remember the lesson about parts of the body and had fun too.

7 ROOM 1

INUYASHA FANFICTION

I JUST WANT TO MAKE SOME DRABBLES J

Rendezvous

INUYASHA POV

It seemed like my heart stop beating and the world stopped turning when I felt  warm soft fingers catch mine. There she was, out of the darkness of the well with her midnight strands blown by the gentle breeze. I knew she was always beautiful but after three years I thought that she was lovelier than the picture etched on  my memory.

Her smell, her sweet flowery fragrance wafted filling the air with joy tinted by salty tears. How I missed her. Her face, her smell, her tears, her gentle voice, her recklessness, her anger, even her subduing mantras and horrifying curry.

I know, I still remembered them all. So I said, ”Welcome home, Kagome. Don’t you ever dare to leave me again.”

KAGOME POV

My heart was floating as I fell to the well. I thought I would burst from happiness when I saw the glimpse of the blue sky at the other side. I freed my thought from any burdens I had been carrying all these three years. I got my mother’s blessings and I jumped to reach my desires and faced any hard reality at the old world.

Goodbye Mama, I would be born again in the future as your fussy daughter

Goodbye Grandpa, I would meet you and bother you again with all my antics and you still had to make up lies for me.

Bye Sota, you would always be my cute little brother and I would care for you more than five hundred years from now.

As  I felt a firm and calloused hand caught my fingers and a glint of sunrays touched silvery hair blinding my eyes, I said, “I am home, Inuyasha,  I am so glad to see you again”.

Kagome and Inuyasha


DISCLAIMER : I don't own the characters 

MTSN SAMPIT TEACHERS AND KOREAN TRADITIONAL CLOTHES

In the last several years, Korean Wave has swept Indonesia like floods and still spreads its influence on Indonesia people especially teens and young woman. They are mostly crazy about those dazzling handsome boybands and fascinating  breathtakingly beautiful singers of girlbands. People become interested and curious about Korea, its language and culture. Even in Sampit, our very small city in Central Borneo. Many teenagers and youths love KPOP and some make it as a part of  their life style. We can see them wearing modern Korean style clothes and have their hair cut as their KPOP idols. Some turns to the traditional aspect of Korean culture. They like the graceful Korean traditional costume, Hanbok.

In our school, Madrasah Tsanawiyah Negeri Sampit, this Korean fever started about 2 years ago when we were preparing a show for graduation party . We thought about  making interesting show that would attract students attentions and we came to an idea of making a drama with ancient Korean background. After that we began to make  script, creating the costumes, arrange the music , choreographing the fan dance and fighting scene. Those were completed in about six months. The result was satisfying , we were happy about that.

Me and Ms. Sri Windarti

Gang of three ^^