Malays always face problems to speak English fluently and correctly especially in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation. They also take this matter very lightly and do not really see the importance to improve their quality of English language.
Why should Malays speak better English?
01. To easily be understood in communication. 02. An advantage once they enter the job market. 03. To build their confidence level in conversation.
These are just several reasons why Malays should pay more attention in pronouncing correct English.
Less proficiency in English among Malay graduates.
People assume that Malay graduates have less proficiency in English because they are shy and not very confident in learning and comprehending a new language. These reasons are true yet the real factor that contributes to this problem is relevance - how can we make Malay students see the relevance of English language in their lives?
True, you will neither starve nor lost in Malaysia if you are unable to speak English. Let's face it - Malays are most likely to use their first language as a medium of communication, and of course it is a natural thing as it can give an ethnic identification to them.
Research suggests that most students find it hard to master English because they have no real use of it. Mainly, those who are proficient are avid readers, love to watch English cartoons on television or are trained to speak English since infant. In other words, students learn English when there is an important reason to do so.
In addition, there are students in school who do not have any friend to practise speaking English. These students who really want to master the language get mocked and are labeled as snobbish and arrogant. This type of prejudice which is mostly shown by other Malay students will lower the students' spirit to learn English as they fear of being an outcast among their friends.
Furthermore, students agree that it is more interesting to practise English when they have a purpose or goal to fulfill. For example, students in IIUM use English because they are required to since it is the medium of communication. However, such students might only comprehend English during their studies, but ignore the use of it once they enter the working world.
Moreover, when students go out to a workplace, there are 70% possibility that they might not get a chance to use English. Sometimes, speaking in English is actually frowned upon, depending on the institution one is working for. For instance, English is not used in the government sector as all ministries and departments should promote Bahasa Melayu as the medium of communication. But strangely enough, even in some private companies, the use of English is ignored, especially when Malays themselves own the companies.
In order to become a really good speaker of English, you must have BOTH fluency and accuracy in this language as having only one without the other is not good enough.
Let us begin with fluency. First of all, you must remember that fluency in English is actually accuracy plus having good pronunciation. People seem to think that someone who is fluent can speak very fast, this is NOT true.
To help you memorize new English words and to use them fluently, you must practise these words as many times as possible. This is easy, you can start by setting yourself a target, for example five words per day for you to practise.
Then just practise using the words in real situations, for instance by talking to your classmates or other people. The more you can use these new words when talking to others, the more likely that you will be able to speak fluently in future.
What about your accuracy? Many people will tell you that it is a real challenge for a Good English Language Learner to develop her or his spoken accuracy. This is because English has so many different vocabulary items and different rules of grammar that make it hard for a learner to speak using accurate English.
To help you start, when you learn new vocabulary items or new ways to form sentences, choose the ones that you are most comfortable with. It is good to learn many ways of speaking or saying something, but do it slowly by choosing to use your favourite words first and by using simple short sentences.
Another thing that you must remember is that, you must always choose the most universal and most easily understandable form of English when you are speaking to someone else.
It is great if you can learn to use idioms, phrasal verbs or slang words – but be careful, if you do not really understand what meanings they carry you might end up saying something wrong or even offending the person or persons you are talking to!
One final point that goes without saying is that, try to avoid grammatical errors when you speak in English. For example, many beginning students of English cannot use the present perfect tense correctly as the present perfect is not easily found in other world languages.
What you need to do is to change your sentence construction from the present perfect to the simple past plus a time reference. For example, instead of saying “I have just finished my chores”, you can say something simpler like “I finished my chores just now”.
This goes to show you that English is such a rich and versatile language that we can actually CHOOSE so many ways to speak and to send our messages to the listener. What this actually means is that, you must never give an excuse like “I can’t speak in English because it’s so difficult!”
How can you say speaking in English is difficult when there are so many ways to say just one thing? Plus, students who cannot speak fluently and accurately in English – are those who just choose to keep QUIET all the time and they do not want to try to improve their speaking.
Sad isn’t it? But, it’s true. Now, starting from this point onwards, choose to use English and to practise your speaking as many times as possible in a day, and speak in English whenever you have the opportunity. No more excuses, okay?
The Importance of Pronunciation from The Islamic Perspectives
Mar 26, 2009
According to Islamic teachings, it is vital for us to know how to recite the Qur'an. This is because reciting the Qur'an is among one of the other supererogatory rituals in Islam. Other supererogatory rituals are dzikir and charity. In reciting the Qur'an there are particular guidelines and rules that we need to follow. In order for us to learn on how are we going to recite the Qur'an, first we need to know the so called 'alphabet' of the Qur'an or named as 'huruf hija'iyah'. Next, we have to know how to pronounce the 'huruf'. Here, the matter of phonetics and phonology comes into the picture. As Phonetics and Phonology is a study of sound pattern, clearly it shows that, it is important for us to know how to differentiate from one sound with another sound.
Furthermore, different sound refers to different meaning. This is another reason in which we need to learn on how must we articulate and pronounce 'huruf' or words correctly. For instance, the differences between 'huruf' qaf and kaf. If we utter 'qalbun', it means heart and if we utter 'kaf' it means a puppy. There is a very distinguish sound between 'qaf' and 'kaf' where by 'qaf' is much stronger sound compared to 'kaf'. This is also referring to the English language. We need to pronounce every word that we utter correctly so as not to be misunderstood by others. If we articulate the right letters it will produce the right sound and eventually produce the right word. Hence, miscommunication can be avoided.
Moreover,the importance of pronunciation can be looked in the aspect of choosing a leader. A person who can convey his or her ideas fluently and eloquently is a person who usually will be nominated as a good leader. From a very smooth speech, people will determine whether this person or that person qualified to be their leader. Speech can easily influenced the people as speech is either make or break a person. The source for a person to have such a fluent speech is to have a good pronunciation. From a good pronunciation comes a good speeches and later on will determine whether a person can be elected as leader or not. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is the best leader in Islamic history. He has the skill of speech that can influence people to change from a bad to a better person.
In addition, good pronunciation is important in Islam because Muslims need an Imam to lead them in the congregational prayer five times a day. As an Imam also, he needs to give some piece of advises after the prayer as a reminder to the Muslims. And the Imam also needs to give a sermon during the Friday prayer which is one of the pillars for Friday prayer. In order for the 'jemaah' to understand completely the sermon of the Imam, first, the Imam himself needs to be a person who has a clear utterance and a good oratory skill.
Another matter in Islam that needs good pronunciation is the characteristic of a muezzin or the caller to the prayer. The muezzin needs to be able to pronoun and articulate each line of the adzan perfectly as to differentiate the first and the next line. Though we use microphone and speaker to volume up the adzan from the muezzin as to make the people of a particular hear the adzan, still we need a very articulate muezzin. This is because if the muezzin does not articulate the adzan correctly, the microphone and the speaker does not really necessary in the first place.
We were very excited to learn this course because the title itself is very attractive due to the reason that previously we did not really make use of computer as a medium of learning. However, during the first few classes we could not see the connection of computer use to language learning. As time passed by, we managed to get the purpose of the course even though the journey itself was quite challenging.
Our first assignment was to construct a lesson plan which was a very interesting task. But then we faced minor problems such as miscommunication and lack of cooperation among group members. However, with the help from our instructor, we managed to solve every single problem that we had especially after she was willing to spend some of her busy time listening and advising us. We have learned that communication among group members is very important and assumption is a very dangerous thing indeed.
The next assignment was CMC. For us, finding the articles was quite easy but to get the correct one was not that easy. For the commenting part, which was the second question, all of us loved it because we were given a chance to relate the findings to our own experience as students of language learning in Malaysia. Then, the third question in this assignment required us to do discourse analysis which was somewhat demanding. We had a love-hate relationship with this question because it was amusing to read all the comments but analysing them was quite tough because we have already forgotten the things that we have learned in Discourse Analysis class. Designing a website was the major assignment in this course. The first task that we had to do was to find a theme for the blog. At that particular moment, every single member has come out with different focuses. Among them were American Literature, Malaysian and Singaporean Literature, Poetry, as well as Phonetics and Phonology. At first, all of us thought that we need to have software for the website but then it was actually for the lesson plan only. That was the reason why we chose Phonetics and Phonology as the theme.
Afifah was the one who searched for the blog template. She claimed it was very easy to get many nice templates but not all of them can be applied as an academic blog. Finally, we agreed with one template but unfortunately it was a classic template and we have to manually change the HTML ourselves. Alia was responsible to look for the materials to be posted onto the blog. Rika has come up with Islamic Perspectives and proof-read the materials that Alia has found. Nasuha also helped finding suitable articles and summarizing them.
For us, the website is a very fascinating task to do because it gives us new experience and we are very proud to tell people that we are IT knowledgeable.
In conclusion, we managed to overcome all the obstacles that emerged along the journey in taking this course. We get to know each other intimately and be more cooperative and become mentally mature. And of course, without the help from our beloved instructor, Dr. Rozina, we would not achieve this level of understanding.
There are two main purposes of this research paper, namely to compare the length of communication, complexity and patterns of interaction of students from four universities in Asia through two asynchronous communication media; bulletin boards and e-mail discussion lists.
The second objective of this paper is to examine the causes of problems that occurred throughout the project and also to provide some solutions.
B) RESEARCH QUESTION
Which medium has lengthier contributions, the bulletin boards or the e-mail discussion lists?
Is there any similarity or difference of the two media in terms of syntactic complexity?
What are the patterns of interaction produced by the students?
C) SAMPLE
The sample for this research is 76 students from four different countries; Thailand, Japan, China and Australia. These students come from five classes of different universities.
D) PROCEDURE
1. The researcher put a message on a discussion list for English teachers in Asia after he decided to gather the international students that he taught with students from other countries in order to make them communicate.
2. He got four responses from interested teachers who are teaching in Thailand, Japan, China and Australia.
3. The project involved 76 students from five classes including 23 students from the researcher’s class at King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi (KMUTT).
4. All the five teachers agreed to divide the project into two parts; part 1 requires students to communicate via bulletin boards while they will be asked to take part in interacting through e-mail discussion lists in part 2.
5. In November and December 2001, a class site was created on Nicenet (www.nicenet.org) which needed students to use bulletin boards as a means of communication with each other. The initial topics for this task were about the way of learning English.
6. In January and February 2002, students were required to take part in e-mail discussion lists using Yahoo groups (groups.yahoo.com). The topics for this task were left open primarily and appropriate subjects or issues educed from students at suitable time.
E) DURATION
The researcher took four months to observe the students’ communication via bulletin boards and e-mail discussion lists.
F) METHODOLOGY
The research methodology of this research chosen by the researcher is qualitative. He gathered the data through students’ contributions and participations in these two tasks. After that, he analysed the data received in terms of the length of contributions, syntactic complexity of contributions as well as various aspects of discourse and interaction.
Furthermore, the researcher restricted the data to only 10 actively participated students who have most contributions in the two computer-mediated communication (CMC) media.
G) FINDINGS
There are three major concerns of this paper and all of them showed the comparison between bulletin boards and e-mail discussion lists. Firstly, the researcher compared these two media in terms of length of contributions while the second aim is syntactic complexity and the last criterion is to compare those two through the students’ discourse and interaction.
The first concern was measured in three ways; counting the average number of words in the messages, the average number of syntactic constituents and the average number of T-unit per message. The findings showed that the e-mail discussion lists are roughly three times more than the bulletin boards in terms of the length of contributions for all three criteria.
Secondly, the same three means of measurement were used to see syntactic complexity of both asynchronous CMC media. The findings proved that there is a great similarity between bulletin boards and e-mail discussion lists and no significant difference shown by a T-test.
The final criterion compared discourse and interaction produced by students throughout this project. In order to see the way the messages were linked, the researcher examined the insertion of prompts from starter messages in students’ replies. He also investigated the extent to which the students replied to other messages and which other messages they replied to in order to get the messages’ purposes. In addition, to observe the overall patterns of communication within each media, the researcher completed the analysis by recognising several functions typical of CMC communication like greetings, introductions of self or signatures and farewells.
The findings gained from the third comparison showed a depressing image of interaction in these two media as large majority of messages were replies to the starter messages created by the teachers. This situation ended the expectation of the researcher to enhance student-to-student communication because this project proved that students only communicated with their teachers.
H) REACTION
The reactions produced by the researcher are to stimulate student-to-student interaction in CMC and the timing to set up international CMC projects should coincide.
Comment on the findings in relation to language learning in Malaysia
The findings show that students produced lengthier contributions in e-mail discussion lists than bulletin boards while syntactic complexity for these two media does not differ much. In addition, students preferred to link to the initial teacher messages very strongly in their contributions to the bulletin boards and less strongly to the discussion list in regards to messages’ cohesion. Moreover, one-to-many interaction pattern has typified both media and students chose to reply directly to the initial teacher messages which in a way promoted less student-to-student interaction.
In relation to language learning in Malaysia, computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a new type of media interaction since Malaysia has not yet been a technology-based country. Importantly, neither the Malaysian government nor the educational system tries to introduce CMC seriously to all higher learning institutions in this country. Based on my experience as a student, there was no use of computer in language learning, be it Malay or English in primary and secondary school. Teachers were fonder towards face-to-face kind of teaching language, perhaps through this way, students would acquire language better.
However, when I studied at IIUM Matriculation Centre, an English-medium institution, I was asked to submit several assignments via e-mails. Besides, e-mails were also used as a means of communication with some lecturers if I faced any difficulty or problem in my study. Apparently, this kind of student-to-lecturer interaction can be classified as asynchronous CMC and it showed that there are some institutions in Malaysia which do promote the use of computer in language learning.
Furthermore, I have also learned language in a CMC environment in IIUM as some lecturers preferred to teach language after class time. For example, lecturers of American Literature 1 and Shakespeare in His Age and in Modern Context created a class site at Google groups and required all students to sign up as members to enable them to respond to the messages posted by the lecturers. Likewise, in Computer Applications in Language Studies course, the lecturer also created a class site and every student should reply every message proposed by her. Obviously, these three courses consider CMC in language learning environment.
Asynchronous CMC refers to a kind of delayed communication that gives some time to users before responding to it. Some examples of asynchronous CMC are forums, e-mails, blogs, discussion lists and bulletin boards. I have chosen a gadgets forum, specifically about the good and bad things of a mobile phone, Nokia 5800. The discourse pattern of interaction in this forum will be analysed in terms of register.
Register is a linguistic term which refers to “a set of features of speech or writing characteristic of a particular type of linguistic activity or a particular group when engaging in it”. Usually, words can be classified as a register when they are used by a group of people and other people who do not belong to this group will never know what some or all of the words mean. Register can be used formally or informally, as long as the message gets acrossed.
Throughout the forum discussion, almost all the users produced certain similar words that are unfamiliar to those who do not know or have less knowledge about technology, multimedia and gadgets. Therefore, register here can be defined as the language of a group of people who share similar or common interests. It also refers to language used in situations related to such group, particularly those people who involved in this forum.
Some examples of register that can be found from the users’ writing are 3d accelerator, grafix card, firmware, chipset, freescale, Geo tagging, touch interface, BETA, S60, IPHONE, IMAP servers, voice navigation, gen firmware, activation key, Garmin, TomTom, McGuider, Route66, GPRS, WIFI and many more. Obviously, not all of these words can be easily understood by people who are new to technology. It is very important for people to know register of a particular group if they want to be associated and part of that group. In addition, by knowing a group’s register, people can find it quite easy to understand the language used and they will be accepted as members. Nonetheless, if there is any person who wants to know about Nokia 5800 and he or she accidentally comes acrossed this forum, he or she will not easily understand every single word of the group members if he or she is not willing to learn that language.
Based on the use of register in this forum, it can be predicted that even though some registers are shorten, they can still be understood by all members of this forum because there is no member asking the meaning of such shorten words written by other members. Obviously, the choice of register for this forum is very appropriate as it does not lead people to confusion or misunderstanding.
Now I will discuss the meaning of some unfamiliar registers appeared throughout this discussion. Firstly is 3d accelerator which definitely does not refer to the pedal in a vehicle that controls its speed, but is a three-dimensional computer hardware that enhances the speed of any operating program. Secondly is GPS, an abbreviation for global positioning system which functions to fix the radio receiver location on the earth’s surface by using satellite signals.
There are some examples of GPS occurred in this forum; Garmin, TomTom, McGuider and Route66. One member does mention that Route66 is not a GPS navigation device and he suggests the other three devices. From his suggestion, it can be assumed that this member has a wide knowledge about technology and anything related to it, or he probably has tried using all the four navigators. Apparently, by suggesting and commenting about GPS devices, people may assume that this particular member knows a lot and be influenced by him.
Moreover, some members shorten certain words because they know other members can understand the things that they talk about. For instance, instead of writing ‘version’, they just write ‘v’ and ‘vs’, ‘megapixel’ becomes ‘mp’ as well as ‘navi’ for ‘navigation’. They perhaps want to be friendlier towards one another and to create a closer relationship by using informal words. In addition, members might shorten several words because they type their message very fast or in a hurry.
One important thing to be noted from this discussion is no member tends to correct other members even though they have made some language errors like spelling and capitalization. This shows that the forum users are not very serious about being perfect in language because as long as they can interpret the message clearly, they care less on such errors. Sometimes, people know that they commit language errors but since no one corrects them, they will continue to make the same errors and this situation is a bad way to learn a language.
Furthermore, there are several familiar registers appeared in this forum such as email, sim card, upgrade and YouTube. Such known words may help new members of this forum to understand some of the shared knowledge. Hence, these new members will not easily be lost once they joined the forum as they can also guess some new words that they encounter, and this won’t be a problem because people will easily learn and understand things that they are interested in.
In conclusion, this forum discussion contains informality in words as its members are only discussing and sharing their interest, and apparently, their chosen topic is a leisure one which does not require them to be very formal that sometimes can lead them to be someone that they are not as they have to explain every single thing in details. Register is a good example of solidarity between people of the same or common interests.
• There are five purposes for this research. The first purpose is to investigate the reflectiveness and interactivity of peer exchanges in the asynchronous discussion forums. • Students’ perceived effectiveness in learning content and language through asynchronous discussion. • Their attitudes toward asynchronous discussion. • The influence of peer interaction in students’ participation in this activity. • The influence of the instructor’s participation in the discussion forums and the students’ need for that.
B) SAMPLE
• The sample for this research is 76 students who took English majors from National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology as part of the introductory course to Second Language Acquisition. The first batch were those who enrolled for fall 2003 class with 41 students while the second batch were those who enrolled for fall 2004 class with 36 students.
C) PROCEDURE
1. The researcher set up a forum via (http://www.nicenet.org). The forums were private and only students who enrolled for the course can access to it.
2. Through the forum, students were expected to answer questions that were designed in accordance to the topics and issues covered in the course.
3. Students were randomly assigned to four groups which saw 8 to 11 students per group. The students were asked to discuss about their language learning experiences or thoughts in response to the teacher’s questions in their assigned groups and then they had to give feedback, either comments or questions, to their fellow members’ postings in their own group.
4. The students were required to discuss new topic almost every week. They also had to write one respond to the teacher’s questions and give at least two feedbacks to at least two of their group members.
5. The students were given two weeks to discuss each topic. The most active groups for both classes were interviewed and all of the students must filled in the questionnaire based on their experience using the forum discussion.
D) DURATION
• The researcher took two years (from fall 2003 to fall 2004) to observe and gather the students’ communication via forum.
E) METHODOLOGY
• The research methodologies of this research chosen by the researcher are both qualitative and quantitative research. She gathered the data from the forums and later she would interview students who actively participate in the activity.
F) FINDINGS
• There are differences in the students’ participation in the asynchronous discussions in classes and also in discussion groups. The 2004 class performed better than did the 2003 class in terms of response rate (97% vs. 92%) and length (323 words vs. 253 words per response).
• The 2004 class also gave more replies to their group members’ postings per topic (2.93 replies per student) and wrote longer (95 words per reply) replies than did the students of the 2003 class (1.45 replies per student and 88 words per reply). That is, the interactivity level of the 2004 class was higher than that of the 2003 class.
• The differences in the participation level between the two classes can be accounted for by a more flexible requirement set for the 2004 class: they were allowed to discuss a topic for two weeks, whereas the 2003 class had to do the two tasks in one week.
• This reveals that students need to be given sufficient time to do online discussions; otherwise, a high level of interaction among students can hardly occur. The students said that using asynchronous discussion enhanced their learning of content of the course by 91% for the 2004 class and by 81% for the 2003 class. Learning of language was not as high as learning of the content. Only 70% of the students strongly agrees and agrees that asynchronous discussion helped their language learning. The students’ attitude toward the asynchronous activity was only 50% like the activity and another 50% dislike the activity for both classes.
Comment on the findings in relation to language learning in Malaysia
Based on the findings of the research entitled “Experience-Based Language Learning through Asynchronous Discussion” conducted by Chi-Fen Emily Chen; it can be said that it is somewhat possible to do this kind of activity in the context of language learning/teaching in Malaysia. However, there are matters that should be considered first such as the level of students, where the students come from and whether the students have basic knowledge in English language or not. Personally, I would recommend university students to learn English through this kind of activity; sharing their personal experience learning English with their peers. This is because, somehow, if the activity is to be conducted in secondary school it is somewhat possible because not all school have enough computers for every student. Furthermore, not all students are proficient in using the computer and the internet for example students from the rural area. Yes, they can learn all these things but then again, teachers in secondary school are a bit reluctant to give the students to use the school property because they fear that the students might break the computer. Also, the level of their thinking might not be matured enough to be discussing about their experience in learning English language. Not all students love to learn English and not all students can acquire English as a teenager. Therefore, it might be hard for them to express their feelings and putting it into words might not going to help because of the lack of the vocabulary. Therefore, students in university level are the best candidates in doing the asynchronous discussion because they already are proficient in using English. Moreover, they will not have problems when it comes to express them selves because they have enough vocabulary to deliver what they are trying to say. In conclusion, it can be said that the asynchronous discussion is suitable for the students in university level or above because their level of thinking have matured overtime and they also can use the computer and internet with ease and they do not have problems in vocalizing and sharing their opinions with other people.
Asynchronous CMC : Forum
Web URL : http://learnenglishonline.yuku.com/topic/6690/t/What-do-you-do-when-you-re-feeling-stressed.html
Topic : What do you do when you’re Feeling Stressed?
Discourse Analysis : FORMAL and INFORMAL LANGUAGE USED in Forum.
The languages used in the forum are very informal and all of the users seem to do not really care about punctuation and capitalization and the structure of their sentences. What important is that their message can be delivered across and people can understand it even though he or she did not use the formal way of writing English language. Example from the forum; “Wish you always happy, smiles always on you face.
That is things that I do when I feel stress. What about you? Please, share us”
The above example shows clearly how informal the sentences are. Instead of saying “I wish you”, the author just opts to say “wish you”. Moreover, the phrase “please, share us” is wrong but then the message the author wants the readers to get is perfectly clear, “please share with us what makes you happy”.
Another user hlu89 wrote this sentence without caring about punctuation and capital letter; “yes eatting bananas also make me feel good”. It is the same for knight as he or she too did not really care about the use of punctuation; “I take a shower, then reading small book, or call one of my best friend (one of the funny friend), to help me getting well”. Both users know that this is not a formal discussion among academician. It is just a forum where people talk about their daily life. Therefore, formal English is not necessary. Notice that hlu89 also make a mistake when typing eating; he or she typed “eatting” instead.
Another example is from luxx2050 where he or she did not capitalise the I as in pronoun; “when i feel stress, i always drawing something which is weird.” Virginie also tends to make the same errors as his or her fellow forum-friends by misspelling “wacth” instead of “watch”. He or she also typed finding wrongly; “all the problems we have because even if we think about a lot for findind a solution”. The structure of his or her sentence is also quite confusing and some reader especially the non-native English speakers might find it hard to understand what the author is trying to say.
Darkoftime used slang in his writing. It is clearly Americanised slang in “It's a lotta faster”. For some people who did not understand American way of speaking, he or she might get confuse with this kind of slang because it is not normally used widely in the whole world. Besides, American slang is too informal some say they are a disgrace to the English world.
The user, tveve, makes a lot of errors in her sentences. For example; “when Im feeling stress I usually looking for somebody to consult with him and to share with his opinion for getting advice Or Im going to sleep until my stress is cure and usually it's working” .
Notice how tveve did not capitalise her first letter and she did not put the apostrophe in “Im” and she also did not punctuate her sentences. She supposed to put a stop after the word advice to indicate that she is talking about a new idea there.
This again shows that almost all of the users did not really care about how they use the language. Sure, native speakers might perhaps understand what the author is trying to say but then again they have to remember that not all people who joins this forum is a native speaker. They should be more considered when writing their sentences.
The only person who seems to use the correct form of English language is the user that goes by the name Lynne Hand. The reason that she used formal English language and in correct forms to is perhaps she is the moderator for the forum. She not only uses formal and correct form of English language, she also corrected other users’ English.
Examples of her usage of English; “When I'm stressed and I can't do anything to prevent it, I clear my mind and imagine that I'm walking along a country lane, there's a small brook bubbling next to the lane, the sun is shining and dust motes are dancing in the air. I'm running my fingers through the long grass ...”
The differences between her usages of English language are obvious when compared to other forum users. She uses the correct form of English language, stressing on the capitalization, punctuation and correct spelling of the words.
This is what the other users should do, because the forum that they joined is about learning to use the correct forms of English language and if they continue to make the same errors then their effort of joining the forum to enhance their language skill is useless.
1. Do student’s emails to professors promote more direct or indirect request strategies? Does directness level vary with increasing imposition of request? And are there evidence politeness features that mitigate students’ email request?
2. Do request strategies and politeness features of NSs and NNSs’ emails differ?
3. Is there a preferred linguistic realization by NSs and NNSs speakers for different request types?
B) SAMPLE
About 533 students from NSs and NNSs (Asian) of English who were enrolled in graduate level TESOL course at a major American university.
C) PROCEDURE/METHODOLOGY
The email messages were taken from female Professor with ESL teaching experience. Thus, the imposition of students’ email request on he professor, and NS/NNS status is the variables been study.
D) DURATION
The research was conducted for six semesters.
E) FINDINGS
• The directness level can be divided into three which are direct, conventional indirect and hint. The NSs chose direct strategies for lower imposition requests (i.e. appointment and feedback), indirect strategies for lowest imposition request (appointment) and direct strategies for higher imposition request (feedback). Whereas, the NNSs used more direct strategies for lower imposition requests but fewer direct requests for requesting feedback than assignment.
• The politeness features can be divided into syntactic modifiers, lexical modifiers and request perspective. The NSs and NNSs used frequently adding syntactic politeness devices especially in request for appointment and extension. Whereas, NSs and NNSs used minimally lexical modifier as both mostly relied on syntactic to soften requestive force and enhance politeness.
• Finally, NSs and NNSs preferred linguistic realization differs in their appointment, feedback and extension request according to what they prefer best used like NNS would used contracted form I’d NS do not and used speaker perspective could I.
Comment on the findings in relation to language learning in Malaysia
The research above can also be done in Malaysia especially to the Malaysian’s university since students have been exposed technology and email has become common to them. In addition, email to lecturer or to the faculty rarely been emphasize it appropriateness and students might assume the style of writing which might not suitable for formal occasion. Furthermore, lecturer began to make things easier for the students by permitting students to submit assignments, do problem-solving (academic) and early notice through email. Thus, to know whether students used this medium appropriately and apply politeness went sending out message through emails such research is needed. Moreover, this will help the academician to include syllabi or advice the students of the appropriate way to communicate through email. Finally, since Asian people including Malaysian has been emphasize to be polite with people that have higher position or elders whether in family, education and society, it might easier for us to apply it email. However, in Malaysia it will depend on what language the email is written too. We might take Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin or Tamil to be polite to the Malaysian than English since it is not our native language it would not perceive it as the native. Thus, researcher might want to conduct research in both language to see the different politeness devices and strategies use in emails toward the faculties and lecturers.
Asynchronous CMC : Blog Web URL : http://www.noktahhitam.com/whats-bugging-you.html Topic : What’s Bugging You Discourse Analysis : SPEECH LIKE WRITTEN TEXT in Blog.
The analysis will be based on one of a topic open by the blog moderator and been discuss by its members. The moderator post topic on “What’s Bugging you” which discuss on how to overcome stress. Therefore, this analysis will focus on the used of speech like expression in written text.
First, some words were made capital letters to stress the writer feeling. The used of expression through written text is mostly likely represent speech. In speech, people tend to used tone to indicate that they are angry, happy or disappointed. However, in order to express their feeling, interlocutors capitalized certain words. For instance, the author of the topic describe himself as “I’M PURE AWESOME”. Through the phrase the author mention, we will sense the feeling of proud and confident over him self that if he could he will say out loud. Another example is “I DON’T” which the author used to deny something and want the others to really get meaning and the feeling that is attach to the words; I will not… In addition, there is also abbreviation of phrase that usually express in speech. For example, in the second comment, the phrase “Oh My God!” has been abbreviated into OMG. Thus, contribute to more speaking like text than written like.
Next, the used of verbal gesture to express something will also contribute to speech like conversation in written text. Interlocutors, choose varieties of verbal gesture to express surprise, rejection and agreeing. For example, the first comment used the verba gesture “haiya…” follow by explanation of the expression made which to show he is surprise to know that the moderator reject an job offer. Another example is when the moderator used “Er…” follow by his explanation of his expression which denies the topic was about himself alone. The topic is a general topic and opens for others to contribute. Finally, some even express verbal gesture of laughter and process of thinking through text when commenting. For instance in comment number 3, 6, 7 and 14, they had been expressed “haha…”, “hmmmm.”, “…haha” and “hohoho”.
Finally, speech like text can also be seen through words that had been exaggerated it spelling or been written according to it sound. For example, in the fifth comment, the writer used “plisss” and “soooo” to express his feel. The word “plisss” refer to the original spelling of “please”. Since it is an informal environment, the writer tends to use simple and exaggerated word to ask something from the moderator. Likewise, the word “soooo’ is refer to “so” but been exaggerated to suit the mood of the writer. The writer wants to express how disappointed he feels through the phrase “soooo down” that he/she exaggerated the spelling. Thus, the written text was made to sound like they were in the middle of face-to face conversation rather than following written text form.
In conclusion, speech like conversation usually involve in written text such as blog. The writers tend to express their feeling through capitalizing words, verbal gesture and exaggerated spelling. Thus, the written text may not look like formal form of text but more into informal and speech likes text.
The objective of this study is to supply a space where the students can contribute in the text discussion while encouraging critical thoughts in communicating with English plus gaining authentic scene for relevant writing experience.
B) RESEARCH QUESTION
These are the research questions that guided this research 1. Are reflection and interaction appropriate and suitable to evaluate student participation? 2. How do students react towards the forums? 3. Does contributing to the forums change the student’s writing style in terms of language complexity after one semester?
C) SAMPLE
The correspondents for this study were 156 students from four advanced-level courses which are English for Mathematics and Science Computer, English for Engineering, plus two sections of English for Biology scheduled as 4 hours per week in a semester.
D) PROCEDURE AND METHODOLOGY
In order to conduct this study, initially four tutorials were formed as guidelines to elaborate the aspect of reflection and interaction as well as to teach necessary language markers for those functions. The tutorials elaborate on how to agree and disagree, voicing out or supporting certain opinion and also interact with each other. They were taught and put online at the beginning of the semester.
156 students were involved in this study which came from four advanced-level courses namely English for Mathematics and Computer Science, English for Engineering and two sections of English for Biology scheduled as 4 hours per week in a semester.
The courses are in mixed mode type which conducted either in the usual classroom or in the computer learning centre. Every class will be distributed with a number of homework assignments which requires them to use a site designed especially for each courses for the Internet-based tasks. One part of the course curriculum is instruction and practice of digital literacy such as skimming a digital article. Another part is the integrally graded forums which took place the text-based homework questions. Each student will be emailed their grade and teacher responses on the contribution after the forums are closed.
The students need to write in four forums open for two weeks which categorized into two categories. One category is the practice forum in which they do their practice early on before receiving any messages to write in the forum. Another category is the real forums which consist of three forums. These two forums are designed as to observe the comparison between the two. The forums discussion participated by everyone in the class and each of the forums have their own guideline according to the necessity of that particular course. Basically, the students need to response to the forums based on their ideas as well as to others statement academically; formal language. The evaluation of the students is calculated through the quality of the messages evidently in the reflection of specific and general points including their reaction towards others. The objective for the evaluation is to study whether the students understand the text thoroughly, voiced out their opinion and agree to them.
E) DURATION
One Semester
F) FINDINGS
The findings for this study is 76 percent claimed that the tutorial on the forum were very helpful. A large percentage agrees if the forum were to be included in the courses. In addition, 70 percent of the students regard grading the forum as a motivation for them to post message regularly. The same percentage felt that they have improved their writing skills along the way. Less than half of the percentage commented that the forum is aiding them in understanding the text.
The discussion is divided into two categories which is one the quantitative and another one is qualitative. The qualitative findings deal with several characteristics which one of them is academic registers. Students are required to use formal language in writing up the forum which means no abbreviations are allowed in the forum. Simultaneously the students need to give feedback to their peers hence resulted in the mixture of formal and informal language accompanied by emoticon as well as exclamation points. They have grasp a widely area of academic vocabulary including adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions in which they are intentionally incorporated with their messages writing in the forum. Secondly, the forum is interacted explicitly and constructively whereby most of the times students start with positive feedback before criticizing a statement. Thirdly, the forum is formed with various questions and need the students to answer them. Fourthly, audience awareness is clearly depicted in the forum based on the messages posted. Fifthly, other information from extra reading and peer participation are included in the messages.
On the contrary, the quantitative findings deal with length of contribution which calculated by words that are written in a message. Next, extent of interaction looks into the thread-opening messages whether is being answered or the average number of replies to it. It is concluded that the responses that submitted by the students are according to the interesting level of a topic.
Comment on the findings in relation to language learning in Malaysia
Based on the findings of the research, it can be said that a huge percentage of the students would want the forum to be one part of their courses curriculum. This is because they can express their thoughts and feeling in depth as regard to the posted topic without restrictions and limitations. Moreover, by grading the students for participating in the forums is one way of constructing motivation for them to gain more knowledge and acquire more skill that they cannot get within a fortnight. A large percentage of the students agree that by participating in the forums they are actually improving their English and writing skills.
Hence, this forum culture that is being experimented in Tel Aviv University should also be implemented here in Malaysia. This is because the findings are showing good responses from the students that this forum participation helps them a lot. Malaysia is a developing country in which one of the developing field is in the Multimedia Super Corridor(MSC). This MSC is built in order to make Malaysia as the best port for information and technology in this region. Therefore it is such a shame if we were not using the facilities that lay before our eyes. It is a rare or almost no where to be found university students discussing serious matter i.e their curriculum on the internet in a specific place. Most of them are using internet as a means of communication with their college mates, old friends and not to forget getting new acquaintance. In addition, internet is used to search for articles, information and ideas for them to finish their homework and assignments. Well, by making forum participation compulsory on them, will burden them even more with the already prepared work load. But, an achievement is attained through numerous obstacles and hurdles. If we want to be the best, we need to work our heart out. Consequently, forum as a new add-on to the courses curriculum is a brilliant idea in order to help the students to obtain more knowledge and skill that they will probably need for the future.
The sample data of CMC is taken from a blog by a well-known Political Historian in this region; Dr. Farish Noor. The blog entry entitled, “Elizabeth Wong and Our Hope for a New Politics in Malaysia.” Basically, the blog entry is a disappointment of Dr. Farish Noor regarding Miss Elizabeth Wong’s case that being a publicly renowned here in Malaysia in mid February. He claimed that Miss Wong could be one of the politicians that can bring new ideology to the neo-feudal communitarian style of Malaysia politics. There are 14 correspondents towards this entry which are mostly supporting and share their disappointment with Dr. Farish Noor on the resignation of Miss Wong and violation on her.
The blog entry is responded by equally representation of male and female correspondent. This is assumed as it to be due to the reason some of the correspondents use a general pseudonym in which identifying their gender is quite confusing. Hence, the analysis on this blog will be evaluated by the language used by each of the correspondents based on discourses analysis; language politeness.
Language politeness means the ways in which speakers adapt (or decide not to adapt) to the fact that their interlocutors, actual or imagined, have human needs, like their own. Due to this politeness reason, people tend to use a very diplomatic way to express their feelings and thought publicly whether it is in the form of face-to-face communication or online communication. They prefer to convey their messages indirectly by implying the messages conventionally. Robin Lakoff is the one who came out with this language politeness lined out three important elements that are formality which means keep a distance between speaker and audience. Next, hesitancy in which allowing the audience to have their own way in giving back responses. Finally, the third element is equality by promoting the idea of solidarity among the speaker and the audience as well as making the audience feels comfortable.
Consequently, the comments are going to be analyzed based on three elements of language politeness. Firstly, the analysis will be looked at the formality degree used by the correspondents in commenting the blog entry. Most of the correspondents were using informal language in which they did use inappropriate words like, ‘bastard’ and ‘rotten politic’. This is to show that they are ignoring the fact that they are publicly observed by the people who visit that kind of entry. They just believe that they should express their feeling explicitly though through the use of inappropriate words like been mentioned before. Meanwhile, there are correspondents that used euphemism as a replacement of the inappropriate which make it more pleasant to be read by the mass audience. For instance, “Our verdict: Elizabeth Wong should take the challenge and come back a wiser leader. Malaysia needs true leaders” One of the benefits using informal language in this context, it shows that the correspondent is sincerely with their statement and believe that it is the best way to show their disagreement towards the atrocities that implicated on Miss Wong.
Secondly, the analysis will be looked into the degree of hesitance used by the correspondents in commenting the blog entry. Apparently, the issue has succeeded in bringing out the best in them; the commentators. They are not afraid of being judged by other people for they have expressed their thoughts in their own way. The interlocutor does not give out any guideline for the correspondents to respond to the issue. The degree of hesitancy here is totally high as the correspondents are freely given options in responding to the issue. Plus, they are also responses by the correspondent towards the other correspondent which make it a kind of an argumentative discussion. They interpret and re-interpret the comments given in their own way that shows they read all the comments first before contributing to the forum. It is to say they have given enough thought before writing on the blog entry. For example, “My fellow Citixien, your inconsistent arguments offends my sense of logic. On one hand you decided to contribute silently, on the other, you are commenting on a blog” and “Citexen, nobody would call you an idiot if you keep your stupid ideas to yourself. By the way what sort of silent worker are you?”
Thirdly, the analysis will be looked at the degree of equality that existed in the comments from the correspondents. Obviously, there is no such thing of inequality among them. They are free to voice out their say and feelings. They do not mention anything about status or title. They are just there to comment on that particular issue which make the comments are reliable. Furthermore, the blogger does not intervene or scrutinizing on the comments like the comment does not have a strong ground or the comment is not relevant with the issue. This makes the correspondents feel that they are invited to express their say. They have given the freedom of speech so that they will not feel intimidated or unqualified to have a say. This is one of the platform for a layman to convey their thoughts and feeling without fearing that their identity will be exposed for they can use any pseudonym that they like in commenting in the blog. Equality does make people to feel more secure and guaranteed. In conclusion, language politeness does not necessarily needed in communication if by using the informal language can help the people to express their thoughts and feeling even better.
We want to thank Mr.Airil Haimi Adnan for giving us permission to use his articles about the problems why Malays find it hard to learn English and also for the solutions. Without the articles we could not go through with our theme.
We do not intend to sell his works and claim it as our own. We altered information that need to be altered. This blog is for educational purposes. To find out more about the problems that Malays face in learning English, you can log on to his weblog that we already place under links.
