language - Terengganu

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PINYIN TEXT TO SPEECH
MY EXPERIENCE SERIES 4
WHAT IS IT CALLED IN ENGLISH?
THE LETTER
DINA ZAMAN INTERVIEW PART 3
TEAM BUILDING SERIES 2012 PART 4
SAY IT RIGHT!
COMIC
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10-12
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A PUBLICATION OF THE LANGUAGE
DEPARTMENT OF UITM TERENGGANU
T
I S SU E 9
AP R I L - J U NE
2 013
LANGUAGE
bulletin
to a hundred
here is a saying that
money in paying for the fees
By SHAMSHAD BEGHAM BT. OTHMAN
goes “the older a person
but are reluctant to dedicate
gets, the wiser he becomes.” The question now
their time to the old man’s heart content. What a sad way
is what if he gets too old? Will he be any wiser?
of ending a person’s hundred year old life in a home which
In my opinion, to live to a hundred will not make a person
is far away from the beloved family.
any wiser but rather it will bring about the possibility of
Loneliness will be the greatest enemy to a hundred year
senility. I for one do not want to live to a hundred because
old man. He feels all alone because his once upon a time
of the reasons I am going to discuss below.
friends are no longer alive. Those young people around
him now are of a new generation who do not have the caA person who lives to a hundred is neither a strong nor a
pacity to share and value his feelings, memories and his
healthy person. A person who is in this condition poses
perspective of life. It is a fact that these youngsters prefer
problems to his immediate family because they have to
to have a more intimate relationship with technology rather
take care of him. The burden the family has to bear will be
than spending their time with an old man whom they confelt more if his mobility is affected. As a result, the family
sider uninteresting. The complete contrast between what
members will get bored because they have to do practithe old man has experienced before and the new era he is
cally everything for him. They have to spoon-feed him,
in makes it difficult for him to adapt himself and thus lonelibathe him and do other related tasks as well to make him
ness and isolation prevail.
feel comfortable, secure and happy. Performing all these
tasks will be easy if the old man is malleable but unfortunately stubbornness and forgetfulness will set in during old
age. This is where the family’s patience will be tested and
the rough handling of the old man is the result of losing
this test. Most people find that they have the patience in
caring for a baby who is not able to do anything rather
than dealing with an extremely old man who is helpless.
The probability of being left at the old folks’ home is great
when a person lives to be a hundred. In today’s world,
when everybody is in search of material wealth, nobody
has the time to look after a man who is very old. Obviously, the family will find it convenient just to leave him at
the old folks’ home and thus will pass on the responsibility
of looking after the old man to the staff who manages the
home. The family members are willing to part with their
Photo credit: rynoceros.tumblr.com
Continued on page 3...
CHALLENGE AND NOVELTY
Dear Friends,
Continued from page 1...
ters
I
t has been a busy month for all of
us especially those who are teaching the Diploma programs. With
all the assessing of students’ tests and
assignments, preparing next semester’s
exam questions, having consultations
for this semester’s final exam, markings, updating and uploading, not forgetting the thoughts of completing
CDL V8, CO-PO-LO-KI, exitentrance survey and SuFO, it seems
like a never-ending list. The month of
March was a terribly hectic month for
most of us in APB as we had to prepare many sets of questions for centralized quizzes, tests and
finalexam.. I appreciate all your efforts and hard work shown not
only in handling APB activities but also in participating actively
in other students’ and campus activities.
“We may be very busy, we may be very efficient, but
we will also be truly effective only when we begin with the end
in mind” – Stephen R. Covey. I love this saying, simply because
it reminds me of the end.
Some people become so engrossed in the present mat-
editor’s note
WHAT
that they forget to remain calm and focused.
Normally this happens to people who procrastinate and have
poor time management. Do not fret, as at one point or another,
we are all guilty in doing so.
Nevertheless, we need to focus on being productive
instead of being busy. As Lao Tzu said, doing nothing is better
than being busy doing nothing (>̴̴̴̴̴͡.̮Ơ̴̴̴̴̴͡)
Whenever I sense that I am getting too occupied with
my work and it comes to a point that it is getting bothersome, I
will try to detach myself from the task and begin to think about
things that I love to do. This has helped me not to detest my
present job, mind you. What do I do? I will transport myself
imaginatively to a faraway place such as Iceland. I have never
been to Iceland but that does not deter me from having a relaxing
and calming vacation in the magical and cloud covered coast
with snow-covered peaks, deserted fjords and magical views of
the frozen lakes.
p/s: Your help may go unnoticed, be helpful anyway...
T
he meme ‘Thank a Teacher if You
Can Read This’ is pretty popular
online currently since we are celebrating Teacher’s Day in the month
of May. We are able to do many things today,
thanks to our teachers. After all, aren’t they
very much like our second set of parents?
I’m sure most of us can still remember certain teachers who affected us in one way or
the other. For example, I still remember my
Primary 1 class teacher who also taught us
Mathematics, Cikgu Chin, who had the nicest
handwriting I’ve ever seen. Or Cikgu Dorothy, my Form 2 English teacher who always
brought a radio to class, to play songs that
the whole class would sing to together. I
guess it won’t be too much to say that teachers affect our lives not just in class but beyond it, to the extend that we make some lifechanging decisions based on what we
learned from them. I enjoyed my English
classes in both primary and secondary
schools so much that I decided to become an
English teacher myself, hoping I could instill
the same joy in learning English to my students and to affect them in positive ways that
they could carry their whole lives. Isn’t there
A person who is a hundred years old is not a pretty sight
anymore. At this stage he is so wrinkled, dried –up and frail
looking that it only calls for compassion. The lack of teeth,
failing eyesight and hard of hearing only makes him an unattractive figure to look at and what more to admire.
food also creates hazardous diseases such as diabetes,
hypertension and heart problem. If the young people of today are already suffering from these diseases, the chances
will be greater for one who lives to a hundred. Human beings of today’s world are vulnerable to these diseases and it
is very rare to find a man who reaches the age of one hunHowever, there is an opinion which says that, if a man can dred and is still healthy and free from any sickness.
be healthy at the age of one hundred, it does not matter if
he lives to a hundred. It can be argued that the world we In conclusion, to live to a hundred is not a blessing for a
are living in today is not the same as that in the olden days. man but rather he has to experience weakness, rejection,
Nowadays pollution is rampant and it can lead to all sorts of loneliness and deterioration in his physical appearance.■
diseases. In addition, the extensive existence of processed
华语角落 | MANDARIN CORNER
Chinese Pinyin Text to Speech System (CPTSS): Fostering Chinese Speaking Skill among
Non-native Speakers of Chinese as a Foreign Language
By Dr. GOH YING SOON, SAIFUL NIZAM WARRIS,
AILEEN FARIDA MOHD ADAM & MOHD SUHAIMI BIN SULAIMAN
Love,
Roszainora
a saying that goes “Teaching is a profession
that teaches the other professions”?
Then there are those who are not teachers
by profession but have also taught us a lot,
like our parents, relatives, driving instructor,
and many times, our own students. We simply have to keep an open mind that when we
go to class, we don’t just teach, but we can
also learn from the students, if only we give
them chances to provide input. As we become more connected than ever via IT, students nowadays have more channels to
voice out their opinions, with our aid of
course.
T
his system is very suitable for non-native
is to bridge the need of communication through listening
speakers with very limited Chinese characters.
to generate speaking. The pinyin text to speech system in
It allows users to key in pinyin texts and gener-
this study is a web-based system. It can be accessed at
ates speech files.
http://terengganu1.uitm.edu.my/mandarin/index2.php.
The purpose of this pinyin text to speech system
Figure 1 below shows the interface for the user.
I would like to end my note in this issue with
this hadith related to teachers by Rasulullah
SAW:
"Apabila meninggal dunia seorang manusia,
maka terputuslah pahla amalannya kecuali 3
perkara iaitu sedekah jariah, ilmu yang bermanfaat, anak soleh yang mendoakannya".
(Riwayat Muslim).
Happy Teacher’s Day!
aileen
Editor
[email protected]
I’M READING
bulletin
EDITORIAL
LANGUAGE
Figure 1: User Interface
Patrons
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Abdol Samad bin Nawi , Assoc. Prof. Dr. Baharom Abdul Rahman
Advisor
Roszainora Setia
Editor & Layout Aileen Farida Mohd Adam
Sub-Editors
Nor Ashikin Mohd Yusof, Norhayati Husin, Shamshad Begham Othman, Noor Dalina
Dr. Goh currently teaches Mandarin as the 3rd language to non-native learners in UiTMT. He has over 22
years experience in teaching Mandarin. His research interests include the use of educational technology in
Mandarin teaching and learning, as well as web-based instruction.
Email: [email protected]
Questions or Comments? Email them to [email protected]
2 Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
3
My experience series VI
A
cademy Studies of Languages staff often receive
grouses from the top management regarding the
issue of students not performing well in speaking
third languages. To whom should we put the blame to?
The students? The lecturers? The syllabus or the policy?
This issue has been going on unsolved year after year,
yet not many changes have been done throughout the
years. In my past 26 years of teaching a foreign language, I have discovered various causes leading to the
incompetency of speaking Chinese. In studying the complexities of the problem, I have come up with what I believe are 8 primary causes of the problem.
Changes in syllabus.
When I started teaching in ITM back in 1986, the text
books consisted of 8-10 chapters. The passages in the
text book were written in the forms of comprehensions,
and various types of writing drills were required to make
the students comprehend and master the language skill.
5 skills were mainly emphasized, firstly, reading and answering questions from the passage, secondly, techniques of writing essays, thirdly, constructing sentences
from the chosen vocabularies of a passage, fourthly,
techniques of writing Chinese characters. Listening drill
was equally important in improving a student’s proficiency in the language and conducted more frequently.
Nowadays, there is an increase in the number of chapters with 10-12 chapters depending on the levels of
learning. With this change, there should be advancement
in learning. In fact, it can turn out to be a total surprise!
Quite a number of students do not perform well either in
writing, oral or listening. Why is that so? Firstly, short dialogue is used as a passage. Short answers are given
instead of a full and complete sentence. Secondly, techniques of answering are not emphasized. Thirdly, essay
writing is substituted by dialogue writing. Dialogue writing
is easier, faster and does not require much of the techniques. Fourthly, techniques of writing Chinese characters are not a must as the answers are given, hence, the
students are asked to recognize the characters only.
Lastly, listening drill is conducted less frequently due to
time constraint.
Formats of evaluation
In the past, a student’s grades were evaluated based on
a written test, 2 listening tests, 2 orals and a final exam.
The written test consisted of a reading comprehension
question, sentence construction, and translation from
Bahasa Malaysia to Chinese, rearrangement of the
4 Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
By YEE LEONG YENG
words, rewriting Chinese characters to Romanized Chinese ( Pinyin) and vice verse, filling into the blanks and
essay writing. Now, a student’s grades depend on a written quiz, 2 online quizzes, 2 orals tests, 2 listening tests
and a language project. The written quiz is made up of
filling into the blanks for Chinese characters, sentence
construction (with a reduction in number of questions),
translation with lesser questions; dialogue writing has
been omitted starting from March 2012 for level two.
From what I observe, online quizzes do not bring much of
the help for acquiring the language skill; it can be considered as an online game for upgrading their vocabularies.
The old format for the first oral test came in the form of
question and answer; questions were asked by a lecturer
and answered by students. The new format for the first
oral is almost the same like the old format but is conducted by 2 students; one will ask a question and answer
will be given if the question was asked correctly. If any
fault incurs, a lecturer will step in to help. The format for
the second oral remains the same. Not many changes
are seen in listening tests, except for the numbers of
questions are reduced from 25 to 20.
The language project is a substitute for the final examination. Final examination requires knowledge, skill, techniques and full self preparation, whereas language project emphasized on team work. The project is done in a
group of 3; situational dialogue is written, played and recorded by the students. Any manipulation and dishonest
conduct are inevitable.
key to motivate their will power to excel in the language.
Following peers is a new trend now. Some go for the
wishes of their parents. Some do not like other third languages and opted for the Chinese language instead. Inappropriate choice leads to failure in mastering the language.
Personal Standards of Quality
Before entering university, students’ work are largely supervised and monitored by the teachers, generally they
are spoon-fed with knowledge. The trouble with this process is student do not realize the importance of developing high personal standard of quality in order to evaluate
their work. They sometimes overestimate their understanding of the subject or the materials given to them.
They frequently take things too easy and often feel that
their work is the lecturer’s responsibility. Some of them
cram their work and present themselves in the exam in
an unprepared form in hope to get sympathy from the
lecturer. Some do not turn up for the examination at all!
Some hold on to their belief that learning a language is
just to fulfill the academic requirement, not their personal
growth.
Number of Semester
Previously, students took 4 levels of a foreign language
in 4 semesters. Now, only 2 levels are taught for Diploma
level and 3 levels for Degree level. As a result, the impact is noticeable on a learner’s speaking and listening
skills. As we all know, learning a language is not one
time off, it comes along with endurance and perseverance; and thus requires a longer process.
Semester for Taking the Subject
Learning is a life-long process. Choosing the appropriate
time to learn a foreign language is fairly important. Back
in ITM, students learnt a language in 4 semesters starting from semester3.Upon graduation; many of them have
acquired the fundamental skills of speaking, listening and
writing as well. Great changes have been done especially late these few years. Students taking up a foreign
language depend on the guidelines given by the faculties, some learn the language in semester 1 and 2, and
some go for semester 3 and 4. The tendency for early
learner of a foreign language to forget is greater than
those who learn it during the final semester.
Selection of a Wrong Language
To a large extent, the success or failure of a student
hinges on mastery of the language. A student must be
able to read, to write, to speak and to listen in order to be
able to master the language effectively. Hence, the selection of the right language is necessary. There are
cases where students switch to another language excel
in their grades. Being ineffective in language abilities can
lead to poor academic performance. ■
Yee Leong Yeng
22 March 2013
Time Constraint
Time was not a major cause of concern those days. Besides keeping up with the schedule, ample time was left
for the students to speak, listen, sing and sometimes
watching an educational movie. Nowadays, rushing to
keep up with the syllables and schedule is a headache,
what more with the upcoming quizzes, test and many
other evaluations can be a setback at times.
The new format for Q & A form of oral is so time- consuming that the lecturer at times has to endure the agony
when students hem and haw.
Inappropriate Option
Chinese language is still an elective paper for courses in
Banking, Business studies and Public Administration until
today, but for students taking Food Services Management and Office Management, learning Chinese is a
must. Those days, interest was the main cause of action
for opting Chinese language course and also the main
Source: http://www.coreyshepherd.com/wp-content/uploads/Grades_Cartoon.jpg
Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
5
WHAT IS IT CALLED IN ENGLISH?
Identifying Your Active and Passive Vocabulary
By NUR SYIKRI BIN HARUN & FATHIYAH BINTI ISMAIL
H
ow good is your word power? How many
words do you know? Do you think your vocabulary size is satisfactory? Are you able to
read and comprehend reading materials inside out? Do
you understand very well what people are talking about?
Do you use plain English when talking? Does your writing use simple words or the complex and bombastic ones
like those you hit upon in books or journal articles? Are
you sometimes retrieving and looking up for some particular words that precisely explain your idea(s) to other
people? Well, those questions in a row may unveil the
truth about your vocabulary whether it is actively used or
still remains inactive and passive.
People are usually judged by their vocabulary
(Seely, 2002). Commendable compliments such as “He’s
very well educated. He uses a lot of long words” and
“She’s kind of a walking dictionary” support this notion.
Eminent writers such as William Shakespeare and
Charles Dickens are also well-recognised for their large
stocks of vocabularies. For this reason, we as the nonnative speakers of English are attempting to cram in and
memorise as many words as we could as rapidly as possible just to propel ourselves to higher levels. This is because acquiring an extensive amount of vocabulary is one
of the largest challenges in learning a second language,
which if done well, those people will be perceived as the
good language learners and are closely associated with
fluency in speaking the target language.
While conversing or writing, we normally use
vocabulary to give or receive information. According to
Ahmad Azman (2010), vocabulary is a device which people use to think, convey ideas and feelings, and discover
about the world they live in. Meanwhile, Clarence (1968)
has stated that vocabulary usually develops with age, and
serves as a handy and primary tool for both communication and acquiring knowledge. This linguistic form can be
technically divided into two broad types of vocabulary;
the active and the passive. An active piece of vocabulary
is a list of linguistic items a person understands and uses
actively in both speaking and writing while a passive vocabulary is a list of words that a person understands but
6 Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
Meanwhile, the writing vocabulary is the list of words
utilised in writing formal essays or informal messages,
of which many people generally tend to use a limited set
of the linguistic forms. Thus, it means that the range of
vocabularies of the receptive skills, which are reading
and listening, are comparatively wider than those of the
productive ones, which are speaking and writing, because we normally receive the input more than giving
the output. In reality, if we are not conscious that passive
and active vocabulary is two different things, there is a
probability that we are among the individuals who can
read and listen to a language very well yet can only
speak or write very little of it.
Spotting the Activeness and Passiveness of Vocabulary
does not use them in those productive skills of language
for some reasons. This is because some of people may
probably lack confidence to use some particular words
because they are not really sure what those mean, what
part of speech they are, how they are used, and how they
are pronounced. Just because we know what the words
mean does not mean that they are the active vocabulary
as the active words are vocabulary which regularly used
for producing the input via speaking and writing. However, Laufer (1998) has acknowledged that the learning
of a word usually progresses from receptive to productive
knowledge, which means, our active and passive vocabulary keeps changing constantly. This is because from time
to time, we use words, try new meanings, forget or abandon words that have no use, and revise words.
Types of Vocabulary for Different Language Skills
Fundamentally, there are four main types of vocabulary, which are of reading, writing, listening, and
speaking (Barnhart, 1968). A reading vocabulary of a
literate person is the list of linguistic forms the person
can recognise when reading. This is relatively the largest
type of words compared to those of other language
skills. In the meantime, a listening vocabulary is all the
linguistic forms a person can recognise when listening to
speech. On the other hand, a speaking vocabulary is the
list of words a person uses when speaking. However, due
to our experience, words are often compensated, in natural way, by either facial expressions, tone of voice, intonation, pitch, or hand gestures in our conversation.
Do you have any ideas how to identify your vocabulary whether it is active or passive? To answer this,
we need to look at this word sample – GAUGE! If we
know what the meaning of the word is, and how to use
and pronounce it recognisably, the word would then belong to our active vocabulary repertoire with a condition
that we actively use it in our speech or writing (Cortazzi
& Jin, 1993). However, if it is not of our frequently used
linguistic forms, it is then called a passive vocabulary.
To enhance our understanding, let us compare these two
sentences uttered by two different people who use different noun phrases to refer to the very same place:
Sentence A: “Tonight, I’m going to the ballroom”.
Sentence B: “Tonight, I’m going to the... well...
uhmmm... a place where people dance”.
In sentence A, the word ‘ballroom’ is used by
the first person to refer to a dance hall. This is undeniably an active vocabulary for the person since he or she
knows the exact word that refers to the dance hall and
utters it without hesitation. In contrast, the second person, who probably forgets the correct word to refer to the
dance hall, uses approximation, which is a representation
of something that is not exact but still close enough to be
useful for representing the vocabulary that is forgotten or
cannot be retrieved. This is probably due to the second
person's uncertainty of the exact word to refer to ‘a place
where people dance’ or maybe such word is not yet imprinted in his or her memory. This explains why the person is not able to retrieve or recall the common noun to
name the large public hall for dancing, instead, he or she
uses approximation to explain. After all, we can smell a
sense of hesitation (well... uhmmm...) emerging in the
interlocution made by the second person when retrieving
the suitable word for the dance hall. These are all the
clues that prove the word ‘ballroom’ is the passive vocabulary for the second person.
Measuring How Well Your Vocabulary knowledge Is
As the non-native speakers of English, we often
mistakenly think that we ‘know’ a large number of words
because we have no trouble understanding when hearing
other people using them. But when we speak, how often
do we find ourselves talking around vocabulary that we
cannot recall fast enough? It therefore signifies that simply knowing a great number of English words does not
show that they can be active vocabulary. According to
Cortazzi and Jin (1993), there are several degrees of
knowledge ranging from the full knowledge of the meaning of the word, its connotation and collocation, its family, and how to use it to no understanding of a word at all.
Seely (2002) has therefore designed an experiment to
indicate how well people ‘know’ some assorted words
which come from a different level of complexity. Hence,
to measure how well your wordpower is, please go
through the following list of words below and write down
a letter for every single word to indicate how well you
know it:
A
I know it well and would feel confident to use it.
B
I understand what it means but wouldn’t feel confident to use it.
C
I think I know what it means but I’m not sure.
D
I’ve seen or heard it but I don’t really know what it
means.
E
I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before in my life.
In the meantime, there is a suggested list of words that can
be used to help you to define your broader types of vocabulary, as follows:
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
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

Denomination
Juxtaposition
Stratum
Brave
Chair
Denticulate
Hophead
Manpower
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





Apt
Bathos
Gesticulate
Teaching
Computer
Usufruct
Lawful
Perpetrate
Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
7
As we can see from this exercise, we ‘know’ different
words in different ways and different level of knowledge.
Some words like brave, chair, manpower, teaching, computer, lawful, and hopeless are words which we are very
acquainted with. These words can be listed in the active
vocabulary (Group A) because we know them confidently
and may use them actively in both speaking and writing.
In contrast, some other words such as denticulate,
hophead, bathos, gesticulate, usufruct, and perpetrate are
all linguistic forms that we may have probably not heard
about or bumped into previously, which can be listed under passive vocabulary (Group E). As stated by Seely
(2002), the receptive vocabulary is relatively larger than
the productive one, which is typically circa 25 percent
bigger.
Ways to Convert Passive Vocabulary into Active One
Even though our vocabulary size is not that big,
we do not have to worry about using a small quantity of
English words as there is a lot of word family which can
be expanded. For instance, the word beauty, which is
originally an abstract noun, can be changed into verbs,
adjectives, and other forms of nouns such as beautify,
beautiful, beautifulness, and beautician. Those words
which are derived from a single word, attached with certain suffixes, can then be our active vocabulary. Moreover, we can practise memorising those passive words by
using a dictionary. Though seen as tedious, boring, and
old-fashioned, memorisation is still considered one of the
best methods of vocabulary acquisition. Besides, reading
constantly can also enhance our stocks of active vocabulary as our brain needs repeat exposure to catch the words
and imprint them on a canvas of memory. On top of that,
we can also use flashcards to upgrade the amount of active words. If using flashcards may look like too childish
(which they are!), we can increase our active vocabulary
by simply writing articles to be published, for instance, in
Language Bulletin or any other English-oriented publications using those passive words. Another way to increase
the active vocabulary is to teach and explain the selected
inactive words to other people. This is because getting out
and using language in context is important to help transforming those ‘fringe’ words to active ones. Constantly
practising these will gradually enlarge the sphere of active
vocabulary, which balancing up between active and passive vocabulary.
In a nutshell, it can be concluded that the active
and passive vocabulary is essential for communication.
However, to establish the dividing line precisely between
the two seems to be impossible since the fact that the input and the output of communication are not even-handed
and equitable. Nevertheless, it is not a good strategy to
learn words out of context. There are some people who
memorise words from a dictionary, which ending up
building their passive vocabulary but not the active one.
Referring to dictionaries is a good practice but memorising words from it is not actually preferable. The best way
to convert our passive vocabulary active is to know what
our passive vocabulary is, by preparing a list of passive
vocabulary on a regular basis and seeking opportunities to
use them both in our everyday speech and writing. ■
I
BY WAN NAJMIYYAH WAN MD ADNAN
should have written to you years ago. The problem is, I am too self-absorbed with myself that I nearly forget that you
have ever existed. It is my fault, really.
Let me start right after my graduation. I was considered lucky to be able to secure a permanent job right after graduation. I refused to teach and actually spent more than 2 years working in the corporate world. Don’t get me wrong – I always have the
heart for teaching but it’s just that I was too curious about "the real world" that I had to join in. The offer to teach came exactly at
the right moment. I was drained out from working 24/7, and was close to giving up. I thought I was ready to teach - alas things
we see are not always what we seem. By the time I started teaching, my confidence had dropped to the lowest level as I perceived
myself not being good enough compared to other experienced teachers. Most of my colleagues were much younger than me and
they have already experienced teaching for few years! I thought I was left behind and started blaming myself for every decision I
had made in my life.
The truth is, I sometimes think that I am not doing enough in things I do. Every time students show their lack of concentration in class, I feel hopeless and start to self-criticize myself. It never fails to boil up my anxiety and dampens my alreadytarnished confidence. I start feeling uncertain and anxious about myself and my style of teaching. Even the slightest show of discouragement would left me crippling with self-doubt. I am hardly satisfied with myself and the situation would really affect my
mood inside and outside the classroom.
I once confessed to you that I am my worst critic and self confidence is something I found very difficult to hold on to. You
said I don’t look like someone with lack of self-confidence. Do you really think so? Then why am I feeling insecure over myself?
I don’t even understand my strengths and abilities, so how am I supposed to comprehend them? The fear of not being good
References:
Ahmad Azman, M. (2010). Achieving native-like English
lexical knowledge: The non-native story. Journal
of Language Teaching and Research, 1(4), pp. 343
-352.
Barnhart, C.L (ed.) (1968). The World Book Dictionary.
Chicago: Thorndike-Barnhart.
Clarence, L. B. (1968). The world book dictionary. Chicago, Illinois: Thorndike-Barnhart.
Cortazzi, M. and Jin, L. (1993). Ways with words – Chinese students’ learning of
vocabulary. Pand
per presented at 2 International Symposium on
English Teaching,
Taipei.
Laufer, B. (1998). The Development of passive and active
vocabulary in a second language: Same or different? Journal of Applied Linguistic, 19(2), pp. 255271.
Seely, J. (2002). Words: One step ahead. Oxford: Oxford
University Pr
Rasulullah SAW bersabda:
"Orang yang paling menyesal pada hari Kiamat ialah lelaki yang ada peluang menuntut ilmu di dunia tetapi ia tidak mengambil kesempatan
menuntutnya, dan lelaki yang mengajar ilmu kepada orang lain; lalu yang belajar darinya mendapat faedah dari ilmu itu sedangkan ia sendiri
tidak mendapat apa-apa."
8 Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
The Letter
enough makes me contemplate more of improving my weaknesses instead of strengthening what I do best. Sometimes, I do believe I
try to pose a whole new and better me so I can be as better as others. I have attempted to run away from my real self -which is
not something I should be proud of. Perhaps it is my fear of competition, or perhaps I do expect too much from myself and would
be frustrated and disappointed if I fail to achieve what I want.
Perhaps I need to start accepting myself for who I am. Perhaps I need to become a mature person emotionally by starting
to appreciate myself. Perhaps I should tell myself everyday that I am well educated, I have good social skills, I laugh a lot and my
students do like me. There are so many others who would want to be in my shoes. I should also accept that no one is perfect and
flaws are what made us humans. Why should I worry so much?
Perhaps I really need to have a control over my own feelings. I should learn not to feel at loss or helpless when I fail to reach
my aims. Aiming for the impossible would again lead me to failure, thus would greatly affect my self-respect. Wishful thinking alone
is not enough. Even if I fail along the way, it does not mean I fail in my life. It shows that I could do better.
I know I need to face the truth even when it hurts my feelings. I need to view all comments and criticisms as something
constructive, instead of something destructive. I have to start looking at the bright side of things, even in the most difficult time. I
believe that there is always a silver lining behind every misfortune, sorrow and disappointment we face in our lives. I have to anticipate to the hard reality and I believe this will help to achieve the super emotional strength I have been looking for.
I know you are not the perfect person to ask about these things, but I guess I am not asking for advice. I am just asking for
someone to listen, and you're perfect for that.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Your alter ego.
Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
9
DINA ZAMAN’S INTERVIEW PART 3:
“WRITING & PUBLISHING: THE CHALLENGES”
BY MAZNI MUSLIM
D
ina Zaman, the contributing columnist for The
Star (A Writer’s Life) and The Malaysian Insider,
has published her latest collection of short stories
King of the Sea in 2012. The collection, published
by the Silverfish Books Kuala Lumpur, is longlisted for the
Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award in Ireland. It is
a wonderful achievement for our Malaysian writer to be recognized and accepted in the West. Now, she is working on the
Holy Men, Holy Women, her second non-fiction book that is
serialised in The Malaysian Insider. At the moment, she is based
abroad (Indonesia and Thailand) as a recipient of the API (Asian
Public Intellectual) Senior Fellowship. In this third/final part of
the interview series, I asked Dina about her writing career and
the challenges faced in getting her works published.
In the 1996 interview by Dr Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf, you
mentioned that you were working on a story for Skoob New
Anthology and also compiling some short stories on the seeming
side of KL. Are they published yet? They were all compiled in
the Rhino Press collection in 1997. You heard of Rhino Press?
Yes. OK. Bernice and Fay Khoo came up and founded it and
they asked me and a bunch of writers to come out with anthology. So, all the stories that I was working on have been compiled into Night and Day. So, that’s about it. And then after that,
some poetry was published overseas in University of Hawaii’s
journal, The Manoa. That’s about it for now.
That journal published in Hawaii, can we get it in Malaysia?
You have to order the journal from the university.
We do not have that journal in our library, I think. OK, let me
look if I have an extra. The problem you see, they wanted to sell
it here but nobody wanted to take the book and distribute. We
have a lot of difficulties to get people review it because that
journal was all about Malaysian writers. Nobody wanted to review it except for Dr Faridah who did. And nobody wanted to
sell it. They could not find a market. They were quite disappointed about it because they said, “You know, this is something
about Malaysian writers and it’s being published abroad. Why
didn’t you publish it here?” But there wasn’t any support at all.
So that’s about it. And I was talking to Faisal Tehrani. You
heard of this writer?
Yes. So Faisal told me of how it’s hard for him to find someone
to publish his work. And then if it was published, all kinds of
10 Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
things happened like the cover was not right etc. He wrote a
political book but the cover was similar to Mills and Boon
(laughs). So I think the concern for many writers right now is
that we do not know who’s going to publish our work. So I keep
on writing until hopefully, somewhere out there someone will
come up and publish.
Why don’t you publish it yourself? No. It’s a lot of hard work. A
lot of legality. I helped Rhino Press out with the PR. They had to
go and get ISBN numbers from the state. They had to do it properly and it’s a lot of hard work. MPH and Time Distributor were
supposed to distribute the books but they never did you know.
So Fay Khoo had a huge fight. This is what I got from the owners, Fay and Bernice. Nobody wanted to sell the books because
they were not commercial. They were saying, “How come you
can sell literary fiction by the whites, but locals you don’t want
to.” “Oh but you see, you’re not international.” They were so
shocked. So they were selling practically like door to door. Now
it slowed down because Bernice can’t do it. No money. You
need a marketing team to go out there but there wasn’t anyone to
do it.
You are now actively publishing in the internet like Malaysiakini and Silverfish website. What is the intention? To make
money or to make a difference? OK (laughs). I have been writing in the internet like Skali and the Asiahi. That’s just content.
“You write like this.” You write. “Find out about this thing.”
You do it. Of course it’s basically for money. Silverfish is a review. I’m not earning any money from Silverfish. They said,
“Let’s do something.” I said, “I’m quite OK. Give me a column
to write about writing. What they like about writing. What they
hate about writing.” You can contribute. We can only pay you
like food because we got no money. So we thought we do that.
Get people to write about writing you know. So far there are a
few but a lot of people have not committed themselves which is
a little bit sad. They are busy you know. Malaysiakini was because I started missing writing like ‘Dalca’. I was reading Malaysiakini and I said, things are seem to be really serious here. I
felt why I just don’t give it a go. Write about issues based stuff.
Last time it was all fufu stuff in NST. So why don’t I write
about this. And I am now. It’s not perfect but at least I’m learning like you can’t do this. You must not lose the argument. You
must always be critical. So I’m enjoying it because it’s different.
I’m only going to be paid like RM100. I’m not making any
money (laughs). But it’s OK. I don’t know them. I just send my
things to the Internet.
You said that you were more comfortable writing about women
because women had more stories to tell. Do you still hold the
view? I think at that time I was using that because when you
were starting out, you tend to stick to what you know and for
who you know. But I think men have their own stories too. It’s
weird actually because when I went to do my Master’s I had to
come up with a portfolio. I had to do a novel and I had to construct a short story for collection. And then I started experimenting with this new genre. I called it short short. Everything is less
than 500 words or less than 1000. And all my stories were about
a man. His journey you know. In fact, my novel is about a boy
and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the phase you go through. I
did some stories about women also but I find it really easy to be
with a man. There was a bit more freedom. Probably because
with a woman, there are so many politics and things that you
had to explain and all that. And it was also because of the cultural differences in the UK, I have to make it easier for everyone
to understand. I maybe unconsciously chose a man. I think also
partly because when I first started writing I had more male
friends than female friends. Then when I worked in ASTRO and
when I started freelancing I started to be around more with men.
You see I had male friends before but I think I met more men
who were writing and all that. There were very few women
scriptwriters that I met. All men you know. Then they become
friends. You hear their stories and you realise that there are stories that they can tell you know. They have very interesting stories. They can feel as much as a woman. In fact more you know.
So I think maybe that’s why when I went to the UK, I had all
these stories and started writing.
You once said that your Creative Writing course mates in the
US were hostile to your ideas especially on women’s issues.
What was the reason to the hostility? I will tell you but it’s not
really nice because I had one or two American friends who were
very nice you know. But I think this happens in America. I think
most people do not want to admit it but Americans are insular. I
stayed right at the Bible belt you know, like in the Midwest
where they don’t even know where Malaysia is. In fact there
were some Americans from California who came studied all the
way because they wanted to experience winter. They transferred! They could not take their thinking. Because they thought
everything was them, them, them! Very insular! It’s not that
they are bad. It’s the whole culture. You won’t believe it but
they are more conservative than us. I was very surprised. Then
of course this feminist movement and all that. Of course they did
not like me because I was quiet. But in the end, one day I said,
you all have problems because you asked for it. I don’t know
about you but I came from Asian society. We are supposed to be
downtrodden but I think we have less problems than you. Of
course they did not like me after that. But I mean, you are asking
for too much. A man is a human being too. “Oh, you are typical
Asian. Everything is man, man, man!” I said rubbish. I wrote
about this woman and she’s being downtrodden and all that.
And they said, “This is about a destitute woman.” But I’m telling a story. I’m not writing about a feminist thing and I got actually fed up. Everything’s feminist, feminist! Bloody political
with these Americans. I had this black classmate. She’s into
politics also. Her story did not work. People said so. “Oh, you
don’t like me because I’m black.” In the end I give up. Compared to the British and I purposely went right up to Lancaster. I
did not want the city. I want to stay at the countryside. My university was on top of a farmland. It was beautiful. The Brits
were very open-minded. They were very open to a lot of writings. They accepted. They gave good criticism. And I think I
was a bit more savvy. They were very encouraging which I
never had that support from Michigan. I was very surprised and
in fact sometimes like in two weeks I did not send a story. I was
lazy (laughs). And they said, “You know, you should work on it.
You have it. Just write. Whether it’s published or not, it’s another thing.” I was very comfortable with them. I was not shy
you know. Even if they did not like my story, at least, they were
open and they have agenda like, “Dina, the reason why we did
not like it, we think because it did not work. It was stuck. It was
the same thing over and over again.” And I said OK. I don’t
know but if I had studied in New York or California, it would be
a different story.
You write in English because you said that you cannot write
beautiful Malay or expressively in Malay. Did you receive any
hostile reaction from those who were against writing in English?
I did but I rather be true to myself. It’s not because of being impressive but I really had a bad experience. I know this is a bad
excuse but my father travelled. He travelled here and there to the
point that my sister spoke Russian for one good year (laughs).
No English, no Malay. At that time my father was posted in
Russia. We had this part time help who spoke Malay. And she
had to translate you know. So that was our lifestyle. We were
really like nomads. We were travelling. No religious class because there’s no ustaz. We don’t know how to read al-fatihah.
We even could not speak Malay properly. Because of that, I
think when I was twelve years old my father gave up his career.
We came back. I went straight to day school. I had to catch up
with other subjects. They were all in Malay. In day school, the
medium was mostly in English during my time. I was in Convent Bukit Nanas and our geography class was taught in English
even though the textbook was in Malay. I had problems you see.
My parents were so worried. They sent me off to TKC. I went
there but it was a really different environment. I was like, oh my
God! (laughs). There was no one to tutor me. So I memorised
everything. I memorised essays because I did not know how to
cope. So at one point I was failing Bahasa. And of course everyone said, “What kind of Malay is this?” I could converse in my
Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
11
Terengganu dialect but writing, I couldn’t. Surprisingly, for
SPM I got A2 for BM. But I don’t know how I got that (laughs).
It’s still a mystery you know. But after that, I just felt phobia. I
told my dad that I wanted to take tuition. But I’m just so scared
after all these experiences you know. My father said, “Just take
your time.” So that’s why I thought because I think in English, I
write in English. I express better that way you know. It’s not
anything.
How has your MA at Lancaster helped you enhanced your creativity as a writer? It really, really helped. When I came back
from US, it was very much a beginner’s thing. I came back and I
wrote. There were some people who helped. I went for workshops at the British Council. I pestered my friends to help. But
most of the time I was left to myself. I think I picked up a very
bad habit because I had no one to go to. So when I went to the
UK, I was quite nervous. I don’t know what to expect. You had
to bring out your portfolio and you had to pass it to all your
friends. And we read everyone’s work. And the first thing you
know what, I did not write for three weeks. They said, “We
don’t understand the story. This story did not go anywhere.”
And that was the story a friend said, “Oh, it will go somewhere.”
And you know for the last six, seven years since I graduated, I
thought I’m going somewhere with my writing. It was not nasty.
It was very strict criticism. My head of the department spoke to,
“You have to start all over again. You picked up very bad habits.” I was really stunned. Oh my God! I’m going to fail my
MA! I have to pay back my scholarship. What am I going to do,
you know. So I observed my friends. And in between classes,
they would give exercises. Then I learnt what story telling was
about. In the end, the main crux of it is that, you can be experimental or whatever. But you must tell a story. Fullstop. And
whose story is it? Is it first person or second person or third person? Or is it your story? You have to be sure. I did not know.
Now when I looked backed at what I had written, oh my God! I
don’t want to look at them because I can see the mistakes that I
made. Why it was not working. So that was one. Next, how to
make a story moves. They said, “What is the use of describing a
stupid scene?” I think if you read certain writers, they talked
about a scenery and all that. They said, “You can describe the
scenery but you describe it with two or three paragraphs long. I
mean for what reason? Is it going to help you? To help the story
or not? Is the character going to move? Just get into the story
and tell it.” So I learnt that. Then the next thing I realized, who
is your audience? Of course, when you first write, it’s always for
you. Later on, as any writer will have to admit, he wants to show
it to people. So who is your audience, you know? Then they all
asked, “Who is your audience? Is your audience mothers? So, no
use you write historical story. They won’t appreciate it. They
won’t enjoy it. They probably want to read something like romance. If you want an international audience - you want com-
mercial audience or literary audience where they are highbrow.
You must think of all that. Because in the end, your writings
belong to them, not to you anymore.” So it was a shock to me.
To be honest, I did not know how to start. So I started slowly
and then I improved. Of course it’s ego-bashing but it’s good
because I think I tend to pick up a lot of bad habits. Sometimes
you meet young writers who said, “Oh I want to be published.”
But you said, “You know you have to make your stories move
this way.” Some are open but some are like, “But people said it
was good. Why should I work on it?” You cannot be egoistic.
You must be humble. To tell you the truth, writing is a very
humbling profession (laughs).
Why humbling? I think because you will always fall into a trap.
It’s because when you are writing either for content of fiction or
journalism, you are too close to the story. So that’s why you
need editors to look at the story and bring up whether you are
too close. No one else will understand except you. So you will
always have people criticising it and you will also have people
looking down on you because you are a writer. There’s no way
for you to feel like I’m the best. You will always have to strive
to be better. Writing is one of those jobs where it is so personal,
so deep inside you that every criticism even though it’s positive
it hits back a little at you. It reflects on you and you just want to
become better. And there’s no way you can lie in writing. Like
recently, I was on the plane reading Going Places and there were
some articles about the place and he really went into like, “Oh
you know, this place has all these things and the people….” He
really got into the atmosphere. And there was another writing
about local Malaysian island and it was like, “If you go here,
you get this. It’s beautiful. The sea is beautiful.” But you read
about it all the time. There’s nothing for me to fall in love. It’s
another stupid island. So you can see it’s very personal in a
sense.
What is your mission as a writer? I just want to tell stories and
be published. As simple as that. And then sometimes I imagine
winning the Booker Prize (laughs). I just wish I had the means
in a sense that I had a job that pleases me, that I can come back
at five or four and then I just write in the afternoon.
Any advice to future writers out there? (Laughs). My advice is
read a lot. Read anything. I won’t say you should start reading
what’s good writing and what’s bad writing. Also read a lot of
magazine like Writer’s Digest. Read how to improve your writing. Get books. So at least you know where you are going on.
You have to work at it. And you must be open to criticism. You
must be committed. Writing will not bring you overnight wealth.
So what else can I say? Have a lot of fun. Always tell a story.
Don’t try to be too clever. That’s why everything goes KO. ■
Team Building 2012 Series Part 4
By YEE LEONG YENG
activity is that we do not always get the things we
wish for all the time. At times we realize that it is difficult to fulfill the demands from the top management.
However, we have two options in order to survive in
the system; either we resort to other methods to fulfill the demands or we run away from handling the
requested demands.
T
he next event was the “M.E.S.P Race”.
There were two activities to be carried out.
The first activity was to collect as many
dried leaves as we could with our bare
hands. We were instructed to place 200 grams of
these leaves into a plastic bag without the help of a
measuring scale. The instructor would confirm the
weight of the collected dried leaves and if they weigh
more than 200 grams or less, we had to collect the
dried leaves all over again because the rule of the
game was to collect exactly 200 grams of the leaves,
not more not less. The frustrating thing was that we
had to discard all the previous collected dried leaves
if we did not achieve the exact weight. We were
lucky to have both Mr Mohd Ikhram and Mr Acai in
our group. Mr Ikhram, our quick-witted team leader
had asked the instructor’s permission to use a drinking bottle filled up with 200ml of water so that we can
use it as a measuring scale to obtain the exact
weight of the dried leaves.. As for Mr. Acai, the security officer who resembled Kojak, was able to
weigh the leaves correctly by tossing the leaves and
the bottle in which he used both his hands, one hand
holding the drinking bottle and the other holding the
bag of leaves. The two of them were marvelousand
thus we were the first to finish the game., T h e
message that the instructor wants to convey in this
The invention of a catapult was the next activity for us to crack our head. We were given some
rubber straps and wooden rods and we were required to create our own catapult. The ladies’ task
was to look for pebbles. Amazingly, the guys from
our team were creative enough to invent a look-alike
and usable catapult in a very short time. It brought
back my childhood memories where my brothers and
I used to hunt birds using the same device. It looked
simple but it was definitely not easy! Other team
members even borrowed it from us.
After we have succeeded in making the catapult, we were asked to hit one of the three bottles at
a time and these bottles were, arrangedin a row.
Each time we hit a bottle, we would get some points
and we had to accumulate theseaccordingly. To hurl
a pebble using a catapult was not as easy as we
thought.Each team was required to collect the exact
points within the stipulated time. Whichever team that
failed to do this had to start hitting the bottles all over
again. Skill, strength and accuracy played an important role here. Again, Mr. Acai managed to collect
most of the points for our team even though the ladies were way behind. Safety had to be taken into
consideration too. When the guys were hurling the
pebbles, the ladies went over to collect the pebbles;
accidents might happen if we were not careful. Anyway, we were glad that no such things happened.
The lesson that we get from this activity is
that in order to survive in an organization, skill, wittiness, team work, tolerance and perseverance, not
forgetting safety are essential elements in paving a
journey to success. ■
12 Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
13
By NAJLAA NASUHA
“He likes his new career.”
In English language class, I love to test the students’ pronunciation by giving them this short sentence. One of the most
obvious things that I noticed is the students have problem in pronouncing the correct pronunciation of career, instead, they mostly
pronounce it as in the pronunciation of carrier.
Above is just a simple example of the importance of
checking the correct pronunciation among students. How many of
you agree that when it comes to reading aloud and speaking activity, one of the biggest challenges that most of the language teachers experience is correcting the students’ pronunciation? What
makes it important for the language learners to correct their pronunciation?
According to Abbas Pourhusein(2012), “people are
judged by the way they speak, and so learners with poor pronunciation may be judged as incompetent, uneducated or lacking in
knowledge.” Being able to pronounce words correctly is important
as the listeners have to rely on the lips reading and situational con-
Tongue Twister
LET’S SPEAK ENGLISH
text to guess the meaning of the words and subsequently grasp
the message conveyed to them. Apart from that, it also helps to
boost the learners’ confident in engaging themselves in speaking
activity.
Claudia (2013) wrote that “th” is one of the hardest consonant sounds to pronounce. It can be pronounced in three different ways: as a “d” (/ð/) in this, that, these, those, they or them; as
the voiceless /θ/ in three, thing, thought; or as a /t/ as
Adapted from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld3hCJ5C8so
Hi, I’m here to
sing “Ken Lee”
by Mariah Carey
in Thai or Thames. The pronunciation of the /θ/ is especially difficult for some students, in which they often say tree instead
of three. Apart from that, she also writes that students have problems in differentiating the long and the short ‘i’ as in fit - feet and
hit - heat as well as the ‘silent consonant’ as in Wednesday and
foreign. So, how do we, as language teachers, can help the students with their pronunciation instead of drilling?
Suggested below are some of the techniques that can be
used in teaching pronunciation to the students, which are:
Tongue twister helps the students to practice correct sounds of words. Start with a short and simple
one like,
It helps to illustrate the natural stress and intonation patterns in a fun and exciting way by linking the
rhythm of natural spoken language to the rhythm of music.
“The bread was stale
It was four days old.
The milk was sour.
The coffee was cold.
The butter was rancid.
The steak was tough.
The service was dreadful.
The waiter was rough.
My bill was huge.
His tip was small
I’m sorry, I went to that place at all”
*TIPS: The students can make sounds (i.e: clapping hands) according to the rhythm while presenting Jazz Chants
“I wish the wish which you have wished will be wished as you wished”
*TIPS: Choose sentences that have similar sounds like tongue twister and give only 2 minutes for
the students to pass the message to the last person in their group before writing the message on the
whiteboard.
14 Language Bulletin Jan—Mar 2013
References:
Broken telephone is helpful to test students’ pronunciation and listening skills. The students’ ability
to pronounce words precisely and grasp the message being delivered by their friends is tested with
the last student in the group. For instance,
Claudia Pesce., (2013) . 7 worst pronunciation mistakes ESL students make around the world. Retrieved on April 29,
2013 from http://busyteacher.org/14846-7-worst-pronunciation-mistakes-esl-students-make.html
*TIPS: There are countless tongue twisters available on the Internet!
Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani., (2012). The significance of pronunciation in English language teaching. English Language
Teaching. Vol. 5, No. 4; April 2012.
“Through three cheese trees three free fleas flew.
While these fleas flew, freezy breeze blew.
Freezy breeze made these three trees freeze.
Freezy trees made these trees' cheese freeze.
That's what made these three free fleas sneeze.”
(Chinese Whisperer)
*Ken Leeee… tulibu dibu douchoo…
(translation*I can’t live… If living is
without you…)
You mean
“Without you”?
As the students progressed, you might want to try for another challenging tongue twister, such as
Broken Telephone
No. “Ken
Lee” (confidently)
Ok then. You
can start.
“I thought a thought. But the thought I thought wasn't the thought I thought I thought.”
Jazz Chant
Comic by: Firhana Nur Mohmed Hussin
Text: Nur Syazwani Halim
I’m sorry, what
language did you
use?
ENGLISH!!!!
http://beehac.blogspot.com/2012/03/lawak-komik-guru-sekolah.html
*The little boy wasn't getting good marks in school. One day he made the teacher quite surprised. He tapped her on the shoulder and
said ..."I don't want to scare you, but my daddy says if I don't get better grades, somebody is going to get a spanking."
http://www.teachhub.com/top-20-teacher-jokes
Language Bulletin Apr-June 2013
15
Prepared by:
Firhana Nur Mohmed Hussin
Nur Syazwani Halim
Nurul Izatee Md. Yusoff
Shahidatul Maslina Mat So’od
I
n conjunction with our effort to enhance the level of English proficiency among UiTM Dungun staff and
students, the Academy of Language Studies of UiTM Terengganu has come up with the idea to reactivate the English Speaking Day programme.
The chosen day for this particular event is on every Wednesday. Thus, on Wednesdays, all UiTM Terengganu members must converse in English and those who are found to speak other languages but English
will be fined. The rates are as follows:
Students, Lecturers and Staff: RM 0.50
APB Lecturers (English only): RM 1.00
The fine, however will only be applied on the 8th week after the implementation, which will be on the
10th of July 2013. The programme aims at improving and enhancing the targeted language of English
among the community in UiTM Terengganu. It also intends to raise awareness on the fundamental
needs to use English among UiTM Terengganu staff and students. ■
NURHAFIZAH BINTI ALI
I was born and raised in Terengganu in the early 80s. I got my early education in
a suburb national school in Chukai, Kemaman. There, I started to develop an interest and love for English. In the mid 90s, I went to pursue my secondary school
education at MRSM YT Dungun and MRSM Balik Pulau. I was encouraged to further my studies in accountancy; taking up the fast-track accounting program at a
local institution of higher education shortly after I obtained my MCE result. However, I turned down the offer since I knew I was not good with numbers. In fact, I
still am. Then I went for degree in TESL and I took literature (as a minor) at UPM.
A year after my graduation, I worked at a private college in Kuantan and soon after, I decided to pursue a master degree in ELS at UKM. I took a course that put a
greater emphasis in language, power and ideology. Indeed, I am deeply fascinated with explorations and
discoveries of language and its influence on cultural, social and political stance. I am an easy-going person, and I look forward to working with all of you in the future. I also hope to help students to gain intellectual and practical knowledge; providing essential academic, creative, mental and emotional support
thus, to make them recognise their individual values and potential.