Age: 21 years old Tutorial Group: Group 4 LECTURER: Dr. Zaini binti Amir
1. Do you enjoy blogging? Yes, i enjoy blogging. Because, i could share my opinion and ides with my friends. Furthermore, i get to know my friends or other reader's opinion and ideas or comments by blogging. Blogging is a most enjoyable hobby for me.
2.Based on your experience what is the benefit of blogging? Based on my experience,.
blogging is a real time discussion or forum. We can discuss or argue about any information on the spot. As a reader or writer, i can share a lots of information, ideas and opinion with my friends.
3.Do you need more assistance to set up your blog ? Yes. i do need some assistance to set up my blog. Here the assistance that i mean is my friends and my lecturers. They showed a guideline for me to set up my blog. I learned so much of skills by creating this blog.
4.Do you have any memorable/favorite topic in your blog? Yes. My favorite topic is on third posting. It is about the search engines. Actually, honestly speaking, i do not know about the types of search engines. The only things that i did know is Google and Yahoo searcher. But, by doing the third posting, i got to know some other search engines. Moreover, now i start to use the other search engines also to gain some of information.
5.List 5 advantages of blogging for you.
ability to express our own personal feelings
can share the knowledge with other
can improve the English language by writing on blog
can learned so much of skills such as creative skills, writing skills and so on.
can have a more loyal readership
6.List 5 disadvantages of blogging In my point of view, there is no disadvantages by blogging. But there is some disadvantages of blogging like
many blogs are not updated
our blog easily can copyrighted by others
if there is personal blog means, everyone will get to know ours thoughts or feelings. It's no more personal
7.Will you continue blogging after the course? Yes. I will continue my blogging after the course. Because i really enjoy my blogging. I could share my ideas or opinion with other readers.
8.Do you think that blogging improve your writing? Yes. Blogging is a diary for a person to express the feelings or ideas. So, we need to write down everything on our blog. So, blogging is a best way to improve my writing skill. I will be aware on my mistakes when writing on the blog.
9.Do you think that we should continue with blogging activity for the next batch of students? Yes. It is really very helpful to the next batch of students. They also can get more advantages by blogging.
10.Will you recommend your friend to blog. Of course yes. I did recommended the usage of blogs to my friends. Some of my friends also are start to blogging. They also do enjoy the blogging. And, i will recommend to others also. Because there are a lots of advantages by blogging.
11.Can you teach a friend to set up his or her blog. Yes. I can teach my friends to set up their blog. I will teach all the skills that i learned from blogging to my friends.
An alphabetical index of all the words in a text or corpus of texts, showing every contextual occurrence of a word.
Articles about Concordance and its Applications in Language Learning
FIRST ARTICLE
This article describes a Web-based English-Chinese concordance system, Total- Recall, developed to promote translation reuse and encourage authentic and idiomatic use in second language writing. We exploited and structured existing highquality translations from the bilingual Sinorama Magazine to build the concordance of authentic text and translation. Novel approaches were taken to provide high-precision bilingual alignment on the sentence, phrase and word levels. A browser-based user interface (UI) is also developed for ease of access over the Internet. Users can search for word, phrase or expression in English or Chinese. The Web-based user interface facilitates the recording of the user actions to provide data for further research.
This article is about how to identify a specific learning effect that can be unambiguously attributed to the use of concordance software by language learners. A base-level hypothesis for learning from concordances is proposed, that a computer concordance might simulate and potentially rationalize off-line vocabulary acquisition by presenting new words in several contexts. To test this idea, an experimental lexical tutor was developed to introduce new words to subjects, either through concordances or through other sources of lexical information. In a series of tests involving transfer of word knowledge to novel contexts, a small but consistent gain was found for words introduced through concordances.
This article discuss the results of the evaluation of an Intelligent ComputerAssistedLanguageLearning (ICALL) system that operates over the Web. There are three dimensions:
a) the effect of the intelligent features of the system on the learning outcome of students. b) the system's ability to provide individualized support to students that leads to more effective use of the system. c) the general usability and friendliness of the ICALL. To achieve this, they conducted an empirical study, where they compared the intelligent system with a non-intelligent version of it. The results of the study revealed that the students of the Web-based ICALL had gained more knowledge of the domain and had been able to interact with the system more effectively as compared to the students that had used the non-intelligent version of the system. However, the students of the intelligent version of the system found it more difficult and they needed more time to get acquainted with the system in comparison to the students of the non-intelligent system.
Different to most current practice and to the explicit comments of some practitioners, natural language processing (NLP) can now play a valuable role in computer-assistedlanguagelearning (CALL). This article discusses the position of NLP within CALL using GLOSSER as an example. GLOSSER is an intelligent assistant for Dutch students learning to read in French. It has been fully implemented and tested, and it offers information on approximately 30,000 different words (or rather: lexemes), which may be taken from any text (no special preparation is required). The assistance takes the form of:
•information on the grammatical meaning of morphology.
•entries in a bilingual dictionary.
•examples of word use taken from over one million words of text (including some bilingual text).
The application has received a warm welcome in user-studies, and has been found a useful tool by students. It relies essentially on lemmatization, part-of-speech (POS) disambiguation, lexeme indexing, and bilingual text alignment–all elements of NLP technology.
These are the examples of articles that i did read from EBSCOHost online database.
This week I would like to discuss about the web search engines. There are a lots of web search engines such as Google Scholar, Mamma.Com, Eric Digest, Yahoo.Com, Dogpile Search, AltaVista, Web Crawler, AlltheWeb.Com and so on. Furthermore, I would like to discuss the differences and similarities between the popular web search engines.
Web Search Engine?
So, first of all I would like to define the web search engine. What is web search engine? What for it use by people? According to Wikipedia a “Web search engine is a tool considered searching for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other types of files. Some search engines also mine data available in news books, databases, or open directories. Unlike Web directories, which are maintained by human editors, search engines operate algorithmically or are a mixture of algorithmic and human input”. Web search engines work by storing information about many web pages, which they retrieve from the WWW itself.
The Examples of Web Search Engines
Mama.Com Mamma.Com is a site owned and operated by Copernic Inc. Mamma.com is a "smart" metasearch engine — every time you type in a query Mamma simultaneouslysearches a variety of engines, directories, and deep content sites, properly formats the words and syntax for each, compiles their results in a virtual database, eliminates duplicates, and displays them in a uniform manner according to relevance. It's like using multiple search engines, all at the same time. It created in 1996 as a master's thesis, Mamma.
Google Scholar Google scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you identify the most relevant research across the world of scholarly research. At the end of 2004, Google launched the beta version of a new service, Google Scholar.
Eric Digest Eric Digest provides one way to access the ERIC Digests (education articles) produced by the former ERIC Clearinghouse system. It contains short reports (1,000 - 1,500 words) on topics of prime current interest in education. There are a large variety of topics covered including teaching, learning, libraries, charter schools, special education, higher education, home schooling, and many more.
Yahoo.Com Yahoo.Com is an Internet portal that incorporates a search engine and a directory of World Wide Web sites organized in a hierarchy of topic categories. It provides both new and seasoned Web users the reassurance of a structured view of hundreds of thousands of Web sites and millions of Web pages. It also provides one of the best ways to search the Web for a given topic. Yahoo was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 1, 1995.
The similarities of the web search engines
The above search engines function as a tool for searching information. They provide a lots of information about the things that searcher need to know. Furthermore, all the web search engines are in electronic text form. People easily can find any information in anytime.
The differences of the web search engines
The Google Scholar and Eric Digest are more based on academic researches and sources. Both web pages really very helpful for the students. Students can obtain so much of information by using this kind of search engines. On the other hand, Mamma.Com and Yahoo.Com link for searching entertainment and other information. They are classified web pages in categories such as images, video, audio, news and so on. But the most important thing in Yahoo.com is advertisement. Moreover, all of the search engines have different interface. The Yahoo.Com is very colorful when compare with other web search engines. It's look more interest and easily attract the web users. So, these are the differences that i found in all the web search engines.
How blogging can assist language learnersto improve and enhance their writing skill
In my point of view, blog is a new way to attract students to communicate through their reading and writing. According to Richardson (2004) language teachers can subscribe to their students linguistic abilities especially in writing and reading by using the web log.
The huge majority of students preferred English writing the weblog to the more traditional ways. Most of them believed that weblog can improve specialized English and a few of them said that they would definitely continue using weblog. The findings seem to confirm that despite generally having no prior experience of web design, most of the students enjoyed the assignment, believed that it was helping the improvement of their specialized English and that it assisted them in producing good work.
Weblog not only provides teachers with an exciting new way to approach communicative language learning, it also, despite facing challenges, gives the students a new reason to enjoy reading and writing.
The “blog” is a contraction of “weblog” suggests that a blog
(a) Must be on the web and
(b) Must in some sense “log” something.
Blogs are often aimed at a broader readership than the blogger’s own friends and family because they communicate with the diverse blogging community as a whole (Barret 1999).
The comments feature, for instance, that allows the reader to write onto the weblog either directly or following approval from the author
The weblog is usually motivated solely by the need for self-expression, and often communicates something about the personality, or adopted persona, behind the blog, through the style of writing and the choice of topics. Indeed, continually updating a weblog, like regularly writing in a journal, may help writing students to appreciate that writing is an ongoing process.
Another advantage that the weblog provides is the ability to communicate without the inhibitions and preconceptions that accompany most face-to-face interactions. Writing weblog is less formal and less threatening, thus students can write without self-consciousness or inhibition ( Roed 2003).She investigates this factor in her article, and explains how, people behave differently when communicating online compared to a face-to-face situation. Research has shown that when communicating online, people show fewer inhibitions, display less social anxiety, and reduce their public self-awareness”.
Writing blogs helps the students to read blogs and vice versa because through writing, the writer becomes more aware of the notion of readers; and through reading, they become more familiar with the corresponding idea of purpose. The new Internet technology Weblogs is redefining the way students and teachers use the Internet, turning them from mere readers into writers to the Web as well, and making it easier to filter and track the ever-growing number of resources coming online each day. These are skills which can then be used outside of the blogosphere and in the world of study.
This is the articles that i found related to how blogging can assist language learners to improve and enhance their writing skill.
Yellow Lane - A personal blog that is beautifully designed, outlines the daily activities of Joshwa, who posts updates of anything from his vacation photos to his newly bought second-hand car.
Politics 1 - A political blog, it offers a fascinating examination into the insights of a pro-conservative blogger. This blog is filled with daily updates and commentaries of the political right in American politics. According to the WebTrends traffic report (for the period ending June 25, 2005), Politics1 is recording over 288,000 unique user sessions, 520,000 page views, and 6.6 million hits per month. The power of blogging certainly reaches into the corners of politics.
The House of Blog - A literary blog, the author of the site warns that booklovers should not buy a book until they have completed their pre-purchase intelligence gathering. Web del Sol's blog is designed with the smart reader in mind, filled with not only interesting analysis into the latest book reviews, but also useful links to other litblogs and literary webpages.
Interactive Media Seminar (CTIN 511) - This educational blog is but one of the many courses Justin Hall teaches at the University of South California. Known to some as one of the people who started blogging in January 1994 while he was a student at Swarthmore College, Hall helped revolutionalize the way online users communicated on the web. Now a professor of Interactive Media at USC, Hall continues to use technology to reshape the way education is operated, using blogs as a way to post syllabuses, communicate with students, as well as posting the most up-to-date information concerning the course as well as his field of research.
Big White Guy - What does gwai lo [gw-eye low] mean, anyway? As Big White Guy reveals, this Cantonese expression refers to Caucasian foreigners. A travel blog, the information on this blog is filled with intriguing knowledge and experiences of an expatriate living in Hong Kong. It is but one of countless floating in the blogosphere which offers fascinating experiences of a person living abroad and the cultural nuances of staying in a foreign land. (Not to mention what and how an eggtart tastes like).
Descriptive and Procedural Information Information often comes in the form of the description of places or people, or a sequence of events, or procedures as in directions for assembling machinery or achieving a particular goal. Often an article or a book will use more than one of these organizing techniques, so a reader will shift strategies as the need arises. Read the two short selections from children's books and determine whether the author is writing a description or a procedure.
How to Complain About a Product You've done your research, made your choice, and bought a product. You take it home and the product doesn't work! What should you do? Here are some steps that you can take to complain to the store where you bought it or to the company that made it. You can follow these steps in person, by telephone, in writing or by e-mail.
Step 1: Find Out to Whom You Need to Talk
Step 2: Plan What You Will Say
Find the phone number for the company. The number is often printed on the package or label. You can also find it on the Internet or by dialing Information. Contact the company and tell them you have a complaint. Ask politely whom you should talk to.
Plan what you want to say. You may find it helpful to write down all the information before making the complaint call. Make your call. First, state who you are. Tell what you bought and when and where you bought it. Next, explain clearly what the problem is.
Finally, state what you think the solution should be. Write down the name of the person to whom you spoke and what he or she said. Keep all the information in a folder.
Remember to be polite. Don't lose your cool and start an argument.
Suppose you were standing on a cliff overlooking a mighty river that bends beneath you. To your right the river flows towards you from the northeast. You can see the forests and the farmland that the river has divided as it surges from the northeast.
To your left you see the river bounce off the high ground on which you stand and wrap around the cliff as it turns almost directly south. As the river widens downstream, a sizeable city rises on the opposite bank, the western side of the river.
Being adventuresome, you climb down the side of the cliff to get a closer look at the river from water level. Soon you are standing on an outcropping directly below where you stood on the cliff top. Water is splashing close to your feet as it pounds against the cliff. To your right you can see the river flowing towards you and your view is curtailed about a half mile upstream where the river takes a slight curve. All you see at that curve is forestland. No farmland.
To your left all you see is rumbling water and the spray that comes from the river splashing into the cliff. The city that you saw up top is nowhere in sight; only the rolling water.
Perspective! Descriptions present images from a certain perspective. The reader, then, needs to adopt a perspective in order to see the described scene as vividly as possible. From the cliff, you had a grand view to your right and a grand view to your left. At the water's level, you had very little that you could see to your left. Your perspective had changed significantly.
Procedural Texts and Visualization
The classic example of reading procedural articles is the directions for putting together toys, especially the night before the toy must be ready for a present. But there are many kinds of written procedures, everything from applying for a driver's license to learning how to run machinery or a computer, for example.
In our bureaucratic world, reading about procedures to qualify for a job, a grant, a social service, or the filing of income taxes is part of everyone's existence. So how do we read and know what to do?
Visualization is a technique that we use in our daily life to help us understand and process information. It is also a technique that can be used to enhance our memory. There are many visualization techniques that we use frequently. As a teacher, you may encourage your students to:
Make mental pictures of each step as they listen
Draw illustrations on a piece of paper
See vividly the action taking shape as you read them
Make use of graphic organizers, such as the KWL Chart
In my point of view, this page really very helpful for the learners. It contains lots of important information such as:
·How to teach the reading of descriptions, sequences, and procedures
·How readers adjust to achieve their purposes
·How to establish perspectives for descriptions
·How to visualize step-by-step procedures
READING FICTION AND NON-FICTION
What Is Fiction? Everyone knows about fiction. They have been reading it from their first storybook. They know that it is a fabrication and that they can usually identify with the characters in the story because they can see themselves trying to solve the problem of the story. In its simplest form, then, fiction may be defined as characters trying to resolve an issue across time to some conclusion. And the pattern of a story is much like real-life events and problems that people see daily; easy to follow; easy to believe.
What Is Non-Fiction? Non-fiction, on the other hand, does not lend itself to a simple definition. In a non-fiction piece, the reader searches for information or tries to remember information; or the reader wants to learn the opinion of someone else. Both the writer and the reader of non-fiction concern themselves primarily with information and opinion.
Samples of Fiction and Non-Fiction
Take a look at the following texts for young children. Ask yourself: "How would I think in order to comprehend each of these texts?"
Considerations and Strategies for Reading Fiction and Non-Fiction
The fiction text follows a well-known pattern of thought. Every reader knows how to follow the characters through some events as they try to figure out the main issue. If readers were asked to give a summary of the story, they could give it quickly because they have a well-rehearsed mental framework to do so.
The Three Little Pigs story can serve to illustrate the familiar framework of fiction.
EXERCISE
Answer these questions and you will have summarized the story:
1. Who are the main characters?
2. What were the main characters trying to do?
3. How did they try to accomplish their ends?
4. How did it end or how did the characters resolve the major issue?
MY OPINION:
This reading for information articles helps the readers to
· Learn the difference between reading for entertainment (fiction) and reading for information (non-fiction)
· Examine sample lessons and learning strategies for teaching fiction and non-fiction
Furthermore, almost any child could answer those four questions about The Three Little Pigs or about any other story appropriate for their age and experience. They approach fiction with a well-formulated interactive strategy for fiction, which is:
Identify the characters and what they are trying to do.
Then see what happens.
KWL: A Strategy Used "Before," "During," and "After" Reading A Non-Fiction Text
China: An Example Using KWL Strategy
KWL is an instructional strategy used before, during, and after reading. It consists of three components: K-What I know, W-What I want to know, and L-What I learned. This instructional strategy uses writing and reading to activate students' prior knowledge (K), help them generate questions on a specific topic or concept (W), and guide them in finding resources to answer their own questions (L).
K in KWL: What I know. Students can work in small groups or individually to generate as many ideas as possible concerning what they know about "China." Students jot down their thoughts in the "K" column of the KWL Chart. Upon finishing, students share their ideas with the whole class or in small groups.
W in KWL: What I want to know. Again, students work in small groups or individually to generate their own research questions. For example:
How many people live in China?
How big is China?
What do Chinese people like to eat?
What is the biggest city in China?
The role of the teacher is to set up a classroom library with materials, such as films, posters, books, and audiotapes so that students can begin their research. The students should also begin to collect materials such as news clips, book lists, and printouts of articles that may help them answer their questions. Each day, students may add their questions in the "W" column of the KWL Chart.
L in KWL: What I learned. As students read each day, they should take time out to record what they have learned in the "L" column of the KWL Chart or to add new questions in the "W" Column of the KWL Chart. Then they can share what they have learned with the whole class or in small groups.
This sample article shows the general strategy of asking questions Before, During, and After reading a selection. Alternatively, KWL can be used by individuals as a monitoring strategy before, during, and after reading a place of non-fiction as well as fiction.
WORKING WITH TWO-STEP PATTERNS
Lesson Plans
1. Problems and Solutions
When a Storm Comes indicates that a farmer can identify solutions that will help solve the problem of erosion. A number of solutions are listed that will lead to the conclusion: "Farmers can stop erosion."
In this article, the problem is stated up front. If you used this article or one similar to it, you could demonstrate the problems and solutions organization by starting with the question: "What solutions can the farmer use to stop erosion?" Then draw a two-column chart on the board. You may also print out a blank Problems and Solutions chart for your own use.
Problems
Solutions
Erosion
2. Cause and Effect
A similar approach can be used to focus on the article, How Does My Bike Work? To start young children thinking about this type of article, start with the result or the effect--"Your bike moves forward." "What causes your bike to go forward?" Then list on the board the human effort and the mechanical devices that bring about the effect of a bike moving forward. You may also print out a blank Cause and Effect chart for your own use.
Causes
Effect
The bike moves forward
3. Compare and Contrast
After you are familiar with the graphic organizers for "Problems and Solutions" and "Cause and Effect" types of texts, you may want to try the graphic organizer for "Compare and Contrast" text structure below. The graphic organizer below can be used to sort and organize information for Sea and Land Animals. You may also print out a blank Compare and Contrast chart for your own use.
Name 1: Sea Animals
Name 2: Land Animals
Similarities
Attribute 1: Animals
Attribute 2: Sharp teeth to bite into food
Attribute 3:
Attribute 4:
Attribute 5:
Differences with Regard to
Live in the sea
Attribute 1: habitat
Live on the land
Attribute 2:
Attribute 3:
Attribute 4:
Attribute 5:
How is this chart different from and similar to those for other two-step articles we have discussed? How do graphic organizers like these help you to better manage and make sense of information?
4. Classifications and Summaries
In Some Things Float, the author divided daily objects into two categories: things that float and things that sink. Use the two-step pattern chart below to help you classify objects into appropriate categories and summarize information of the experiment conducted in the book. You may also print out a blank Classification and Summarization chart for your own use.
Formal assessments, usually conducted through standardized tests, give general assessments that may be used for comparisons. For example, teachers can learn which students are performing at the mean, below it, or above it.
In order to help individual students on specific tasks or to make decisions about a series of activities for a particular group of students, teachers collect information through their observations. Sometimes it is helpful for them to collect those observations systematically and to keep notes about individuals and small groups.
The need for systematic note taking is especially valuable when the teacher wants to know the processes that students use in learning or in solving problems. For example, what strategies do students employ in finding and remembering information for a quiz? When assigned to read a chapter in a book, do they follow a strategic plan? Do they have control over the reading so they approach the chapter systematically? Or, do they just dive in and hope for the best? If they read it three or four times, maybe they will retain what they need for the quiz.
Though particularly valuable for the observation of strategic learning, informal observation can be used as well on watching skill development or getting a picture of factual knowledge in a small group. The key to effective informal observation is to define what you are looking for. If you think it is valuable for students to ask themselves questions from the beginning to the end of an article, what will you be observing in student performance? For example:
Can they state a purpose for reading?
Have they formulated specific questions to answer?
Do they monitor their own comprehension?
Introspection and Conferencing
Introspection has the double value of calling student attention to desirable strategic activity while gaining a view from inside the learner. Introspection ranges from the wide-open technique of responding with very little guidance, to marking a rating scale on a series of specific behaviors. Some teachers like to get students to write whatever is going through their minds at the end of each paragraph or before each new subhead. Some students may respond in great detail with insightful observations about their mental processes, others may see it as a cumbersome and intrusive task.
At the other end of the spectrum for introspection is a list of behaviors on which the students rate their behavior as low or highly competent. See Figure 1 for an example of this kind of scale.
With data collected from the students' self-observations, the teacher can then hold a conference to work with them in improving the observed behaviors. "Where do you want to improve? How can I help you?"
One of the obvious advantages of introspection is that the student becomes aware of ways that he or she can direct their own learning. They will become more self-directed.
As teachers circulate among students, they are always observing the work of their students. To make that walk-about activity more productive, teachers can use a checklist to remind them of the observations that they make about student activity. That checklist may look for specific behaviors, such as, vocabulary knowledge, or it may look for strategic thinking. If for strategic thinking, the teacher may determine some of the following:
____ Has a general plan for approaching the text
____ Activates prior knowledge as a way of focusing the reading
____ Can give specific answers to questions
____ At intermediate points can summarize learning
____ Has an end-point review or summarizing routine
These observation checklists will vary to match the instructional techniques that the teacher has been emphasizing.
If the teacher wants students to use the text to solve a problem or asks them to find specific information, do they know how to proceed?
Some problems require careful reading of the text to solve the problem. For example: "What guidelines do you find in the text for calculating the coordinates of a particular place on the globe?" Can they locate the text area where that information occurs? And can they read and retain the guidelines that help them find places on the globe?
Some reading assignments call for specific information: "What is the political status of Slovenia?" Do the students have the skills to locate and extract the answer to that question?
These informal types of observations are used for instructional planning. And that approach suggests a teaching style quite different from merely assigning chapters to read and then holding a question-and-answer session to see who read the chapter. Informal observation techniques require teachers to attend to the manner in which their students learn. They watch them and discuss learning with them.
Informal techniques demand a respect of students so that they will talk about what they are doing and how they are learning. Some teachers refer to this approach as a think along technique. "As you read this passage, or as you solve this problem, talk aloud about what you are doing. Let me think along with you." http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/reading/i59/observation4.html
MY OPINION:
This article help the readers to identify the compare and contrast, discuss cause and effect, describe problems and find solutions, classify data and summarize, and so on. When readers are alert to these patterns, they can more readily understand and retain information. These strategies help students recognize and use the 4 two-step text structures.
