Reflection 6: Islamization of Knowledge

Have you ever think about the intention of acquiring knowledge? What will benefit us if we do well in studies? To do so, we need to integrate the teaching of Islam. It is important for us to realize that not all knowledge is beneficial to us. Some of them need to islamicize.

We have many experience on Islamization of Knowledge (IOK) throughout our studies at IIUM. I bet you might want to know about this business of Islamization thingy. One of the subject that teach us about IOK is 20th centuries and contemporaries. For instance, many Western poets glorify love so much that sometimes they are too exaggerating.  They put their love ones at the utmost level and forget Allah as the Most Powerful.Therefore, as Muslims, whatever that we learnt, we need IOK to balance it. IOK in this sense is practiced in the course whereby out lecture, Dr. Mahmudul Hasan had included the teaching contained in Al-Qur'an and Hadith. In short, we can explore on Orientalist poets and writers but at the same time we need IOK to balance it. 

Another subject that we learn in IIUM which practice IOK is Literary Criticism. We learn many theories brought up by the Westerners and some of their beliefs are opposite to Islamic teachings. The practice of IOK in this subject helps students to think critically about what they learn. The inclusion of IOK in this course causes us to think which is right and which is wrong according to Islam. We are exposed to the teaching that we should not just "parroting the ideas of the Westerners".

Reflection 5: Basic Criteria for a Good Language Learning Site

Yesterday, we had been exposed to basic criteria for a good language learning site. After listening to the lecture delivered by Dr. Rozina on criteria of website on specific language skills, we feel ...

 It is such a detailed guideline and we realized that we actually need to check the website thoroughly before using it… phew !

Before learning this topic, we have the opinion that Websta.me is the most suitable website to be used in our teaching session. Later, we learned that our chosen website is interesting but not really effective.

This is because a good learning site for writing skill must provide a guided composition activity. The site must provide its users steps on how to use it. Sadly, Websta.me does not fulfill this criteria. This is because no guideline on using it is provided on the website.

We also found out that, a good learning site should offer examples of various literary genres. Biography and poetry are some of them. Once again, our website is in a sorry state.

We learned it should also offer other resources related to the writing topic. There should be examples of vocabulary and sentence structures. In this case, Websta.me provides stimulus in assisting the students. We thought that providing stimulus is sufficient for the students, but showing examples of sentences is actually more appropriate.

There is at least one good news for us. Dr. Rozina told us that a good learning site should have a feature where it encourages learners to communicate in English on the discussion board. We think that, our chosen website can encourage students to communicate in English. They will feel excited upon seeing the interesting pictures on Websta.me and thus, they tend to express their ideas with their friends. 

After all, we are so so grateful that our group manage to find an interesting website. Even though it is not really a good learning site. I guess if we would know the guidelines on choosing a good learning site at first hand, we would go hair wired. Luckily, its not happen that way ! 

Reflection 4: Original Lesson Plan

Topic:                         Dream Vacation

Language skill:          Essay writing: Descriptive writing

-          Language focus: Adjectives, simple present tense, simple future tense, modal verbs, hypothetical sentences, conditional clauses and if-clauses

Level of students:      Form 5 secondary school students with intermediate language level

Time:                          2 periods. (40 minutes + 40 minutes)

General objective:     To expose students to descriptive essay writing.

Learning outcomes:  At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

1)      Brainstorm ideas on writing about their dream vacation.

2)      Use adjectives in describing their dream vacation.

3)      Write short sentences using simple present tense, simple future tense, and modal verbs about dream vacation.

4)      Write complex sentences using hypothetical statements, conditional clauses and if-clauses.

5)      Write a 150 words paragraph.  

6)      Write a 350 words descriptive essay.

Teaching aids:           Power point slides

Social networking sites – YouTube and Websta.me

Assessments:              1.Writing five short sentences.

                                    2. Writing five complex sentences.

                                    3. Writing short paragraph.

                                    4. Writing descriptive essay.

Reflection:          

Procedure
Tasks		Time	Teacher	Learner
Pre-teaching	1.      Greetings	1 minute	-          Give salam to the students -          Ask students to recite doa before starting the lesson -          Ask “How was your weekend?”	In their respective seats
	2.      Briefing	2 minutes	-          Briefly inform the students how the lesson is going to be conducted.
Teaching	1.      Introduction: -          Watch video	7 minutes	Introduce the topic for the lesson -          “My Dream Vacation” Show a downloaded video from YouTube to the students. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJTivba0YJ4 ) -          Instruct students to focus on the name of the places in the video.	Watch the video.
	2.      Group work -          Write 5 short   sentences using simple present tense, simple future tense and modal verbs. -          Write 5 complex sentences using hypothetical sentences, conditional clauses and if-clauses.	20 minutes	Divide the students into groups of 4. -          Give two examples of sentences that use each tenses and modal verbs. -          Give two examples of sentences that use each type of complex sentences. -          Instruct students to write 5 sentences using simple present tense, simple future tense and modal verbs. -          Instruct students to write 5 complex sentences using hypothetical sentences, conditional clauses and if-clauses. -          Show slides on questions that students can use for ideas regarding the topic. -          Ask suggestions on other questions that might help.	-          Sit in a group of four and discuss. -          Write 5 sentences using simple present tense, simple future tense and modal verbs. -          Write 5 complex sentences using hypothetical statements and conditional clauses.
	3.      Sharing	10 minutes	-          Choose 3 groups to read their sentences out loud and correct their mistakes. -          Praise students when they write a good sentence.	-          Read out their sentences
	4.      Browse pictures and videos on websta.me.	12 minutes	-          Instruct students to start browsing pictures and videos on websta.me individually. -          Facilitate students while they watch their selected pictures and videos. -          Instruct students to construct mind maps of ideas for their dream vacation.	-          Explore videos and pictures in the website individually to generate ideas for their assessment. -          Construct mind maps of ideas for their dream vacation.
	5.      Write 150 words paragraph individually	25 minutes	-          Instruct the students to start writing. -          Remind the students the duration given to write. -          Facilitate the students while they are writing. -          Collect students’ works. -          Inform homework of 250words descriptive essay on “Me in 10 Years”.	-          Write a 150 words paragraph on the topic.
Post-teaching	6.      Recap	3 minutes	-          Mention again briefly the main points of the lesson. -          Use previous slides if needed.	-          Sit at their respective seats.

Appendix
Sample of sentences:
1) If I have enough savings, I would like to travel to Japan because Japan is the country of my favourite animation, Anime.
2) I would love to go to Korea in the time of winter as I never experienced winter in my life.
3) It is interesting to know that there are varieties of foods with different tastes in Australia.
4) Not all people got a chance to go for a vacation. But if I were given a chance, I will definitely go with my family and spent most of my money on food as most of my family members love to eat.
Sample of sentences:
1) Where do you want to go?
2) Why did you choose to go there?
3) What are the interesting and unique places/ foods/ culture that they have?
4) Who do you want to go visit with?
5) When are you going to go there?
6) How do you plan to go there?

Reflection 3 : CALL in Writing Skill

Assalamualaikum. This reflection is on our first graded task for this course :)

Our first graded course required us to plan a teaching lesson which incorporates the use of computer. We had to make a lesson plan and choose any website or software to be  used in teaching the language skill that we had been assigned. Our group was the lucky one as we had been assigned the language skill of writing. Yeaayy!!

There are many things that we have learned from this task. The  most important thing that we learn is on how to create a lesson plan. Creating a lesson is a new experience for all of our group members and even for majority of our classmates. At first, we had no idea on how to create a lesson plan. However, we managed to overcome the problem by having consultations with our beloved lecturer, Dr. Rozina :)

We drafted our first lesson plan and showed it to Dr. Rozina. We also asked Dr. Rozina's opinion on the relevance between the activities that we planned and level of students we decided to focus on. There were many things that we needed to be revised in the lesson plan. We learned that these three elements are among the crucial things to be considered in creating a lesson plan:

•Level of students

•Time

•Language focus

Our had our final decision on the level of students in which we decided to choose Form 5 students as our target group. Our language focus are: Adjectives, simple present tense, simple future tense, modal verbs, hypothetical sentences, conditional clauses and if-clauses.

 The website that we used for our teaching session is websta.me. It is a website version of Instagram which is an application that hosts social networking through short videos and photos. We decided to use this website because of its intriguing characteristic. As our topic is “My Dream Vacation”, the website provides suitable, easy access data and first hand experience point of view for the students to write about their dream vacation.

 Other than creating the lesson plan, we also had to present and demonstrate on how to use the website in our classroom. Surprisingly, a lot of questions were being thrown to us. Mostly, our classmates asked about the concern of large photo and video database that might contain inappropriate content for our intended students. However, since we explained that we will filter the hashtags and search keywords for the website, our classmates understood the precaution that we will take. We got positive responses from our lecturer and classmates as our the website that wanted to use is up-to-date and new.

How CALL Relate to Our Previous Courses

Even though behaviourist is the earliest in CALL, some of the experience that we gained throughout our studies as BENL students is much related to it. For example, in day-to-day lecture, our tutors would apply positive and negative reinforcement. They would compliment us for good performance and reprimand us for any wrongdoings.

There are many assignment in BENL courses that we have taken which require us to use computer. For example, we use computer to complete our assignment in Critical Discourse Analysis. One of the assignments is on coercive language in advertisements. We need the computer to provide us with various advertisements so that we could extract the coercive language. The use of computer in this assignment helps us to have thorough research to find the advertisements. We can search for both old and the current advertisements by using computers. 

The next subject that needs us to use the computer is Shakespeare in Modern Age and Context. We needed to adapt some of the Shakespeare’s plays. Without the assistance of computer, it is impossible for us to find the adaptation that has been done before. We used the help of websites such as youtube.com and dailymotion.com to find adaptations that other students or organizations had done in order to generate our own idea on a fresh adaptation of the play we were assigned to which was Hamlet.

Firstly, the website provide the behaviorist theory way through providing stimulus for us to gain ideas in making our own adaptation of Hamlet.

Next, after having information of the available type of adaptations out there, we manage to find a new way to adapt the play that is making it into a contemporary time within a company background story with the help of the people that we commented with in the website. This can be link with the communicative theory where the computer act as pupil.

Lastly, after we had decided and written down our adaptation, we used the website to seek information on how to express Hamlet’s father’s ghost in contemporary way which later we decided to make him in a digital form which is a video. Then we use the software Sony Vegas Pro to edit the video that we have recorded.

Reflection 1 : History of CALL

The class was very lively. Our lecturer was teaching at her best rate.In this lesson we have learnt that there are three stages in CALL. They are:1. Behaviorist2. Communicative3. Integrative

Behaviourist

We learnt that the stage of Behaviorist CALL is closely related to behaviorism. This means the proponents believe that learners will only give their response if there is stimulus in the classroom. Basically behaviourist thinks students know nothing. (Haha... Most probably true :P) They believe the  learners are regarded as passive.  Therefore, they perceived computers as tutors to the learners. The computers will be the one assisting in giving information. Typically what most students would do right? We think that this is partially true in the Malaysian context. The attitude of the Malaysian students are bound to sociocultural practice that they are shy to express their own ideas and thoughts. Awh... Come on... We're not thaaatt shy right? (I hope) Anyway... we're human not mice. So we would probably break free from the clutches of behaviourist soon. LOL

Communicative

Well this one is a little bit different. It is communicative theory. The proponent of this stage believe that the learners have a lot of knowledge in their mind. (Means we are awesomely smart yo!) So, they focus on learners-centered approach. They do this by letting learners learn how to solve problems. In a way, computers complement learners in learning language. however, we think this approach is not applicable to all students since each of them have their own learning style and strategies. Some of them may not favour group activities and discussion. Nevertheless, participating in this type of activity is very useful regardless what type of learner they are. Well it did good to us did it? :)

Integrative

The third stage of CALL is integrative that highlights two ways interaction between teachers and learners. The main idea of this approach is to expose the learners to the use of authentic language. In advent of technology, the sky is the limit. ( or maybe yourself is the only limit) We are highly agreed to this approach as in current situation many English learners are unable to articulate well even in daily basis conversation. So, this kind of approach would be very helpful in polishing the learners’ proficiency.