Saturday 12 September 2015

Building Students Writing Skill through Writing Diaries



This article actually was made in order to finish the assignment of subject Essay Writing's. I'm still developing my writing skill.

English as an international language has been influence other countries in the world. Everyone race to learn English although for some people it is difficult to learn. However, English is important for people because it has been used as the world lingua franca. English itself has integrated with four skills namely Speaking, Reading, Listening, and Writing. Another thing that relative most difficult to learn in English is the grammar. Many learners made mistakes on grammar rule. However, the grammar itself most gets attention in writing skill. Actually, this makes writing is something difficult to do especially for EFL students. Gomaa (2010) indicated that “students’ first language affects learning the target language”. This is why students make certain mistakes and repeat them. What makes writing is difficult to do is because some factors such as grammar, sentence structure, vocabularies, and the ideas. These factors actually must solve by the teacher itself. The teacher must use innovative and creative techniques to teach the students for this English skill which can build students grammar, sentence structure, parallelism, and the ideas. In this case, the teacher could use ‘Writing Diaries’ strategy to build students writing skill.

To get the writing skill, there are five components of the materials to be taught, namely: structure, reading, vocabulary, conversation/dialogue and composition or writing. Relating to the importance of teaching writing skill at the senior high school, as far it is known some students are always faced with problems of using the right sentences. In order to help students improve their English writing skill, strategy is needed to be found. However, writing diaries strategy actually one of the simple way to do by EFL students. Students which afraid to make mistakes in grammar can write easily. They can ignore the grammar error at first they try and then the teacher can assess the student’s grammar after the students have made their own diaries. Besides, they also have wide ideas to writing through diary. The students could write about their daily activities which is simple to do by them. Then, the students will find new vocabularies to describe their activity in their diaries. In this case, the students are able to look new vocabularies in their own dictionary. Also, by writing diaries the students can learn the chronological order of writing. They will learn how to develop an event of their stories. Through writing diaries, students build their writing skill with simple way. Just let the students writing without pressure. Teacher can assess the students writing a relaxed manner but still can increase their writing skill. It can make students writing casually and effective to develop their writing skill.

Building students’ writing skill through ‘Writing Diaries’ strategy actually as simple as when students are writing with their own language and used less time than formal/academic writing. From vocabulary side, the students itself could use the vocabulary which they have known and the students also could use the dictionary to help them in writing. This strategy also used less time and effective for students who do not like writing class. The teacher can give task for students to write their own diaries after class. It can use about ten minutes for students to write their diaries, after that the teacher can assess it by submitting students’ diaries or, the teacher can assign students to write their own daily activity through another media such as Facebook, Twitter and Blog. Although this strategy is simple, the teachers must evaluate the result of students writing and have a follow up of those writing. Teacher has to follow up the students writing to make students’ writing skill developed than before. If the teacher assigns students to write their diaries through media social, the teacher must be updated about students writing in their own account. Also, teacher has to correct the students’ grammar, sentence structure, parallelism, tenses, spelling, punctuation, etc. The teacher can correct those elements of writing one by one related to students’ ability. In short, the students will not fell suppressed in this task because they develop their writing skills casually in every English class.
            Saleh (1985: 2) states that teaching English as a foreign language means that English is taught as school subject or a dual level solely for the purpose of giving the learner a foreign language competence which he/she may use to read literature technical words and scientific book, to understand the dialogue in films, and to communicate orally or in writing, with the people of other countries. Besides, the students of English class should develop their skills in writing. Actually, this is the hardest one to do by students, but the learner able to use written English for the purpose of writing out forms, informal letters and business letter also for diary. Here, writing diaries is actually a simple way to develop students writing. It is informal but students can use the English diaries to communicate their feeling. It can reduce the students' pressure in writing because they writing expressively based on their own daily life. In other words, writing diaries is the first step for students to develop their writing skills which can do wherever and whenever.

In teaching writing, it is seen as a good way to develop thinking, researching, and writing (Shih, 1986:58). Write expressively based on experience or recollection offers actually very good insight on the students’ own perception of their learning process by reflecting on their own lives. Additionally, they will gradually gain independence from the teacher and autonomy in their learning. It can be said that the strategy of Writing Diaries in order to improve students’ writing diaries is suitable for students’ condition in English class.

Building students’ writing skill through ‘Writing Diaries’ strategy actually can improve students’ vocabularies, parallelism in writing, tenses, spelling, punctuation, and also developmental of writing. It used less time and can do by students wherever and whenever. Also, it is a simple way to develop students writing which can reduce students’ pressure in writing. It is informal but students can use the English diaries to communicate their feeling expressively. Teacher still has to follow up the students writing to make students’ writing skill developed than before although writing diaries can do whenever and wherever. Here, the students will gradually gain independence from the teacher in learning because it can do regularly based on students’ needed, not just for score in academic way. The most important thing is this strategy can help students communicate with English simply without big pressure of writing but effective in their learning. In short, Writing Diaries strategy is an effective way to develop students’ writing skill.

Wednesday 2 July 2014

Pulsa gratis! Mau? NO HOAX (for android users)

Halo people, kali ini saya akan membagikan cara untuk mendapatkan pulsa gratis loh!
Siapa sih yang ga mau dapat pulsa gratis dengan cara mudah? Pasti mau lah ya...
Ini saya bagikan hanya untuk anda, no hoax!
Saya sudah membuktikannya sendiri! Ga percaya? Ini buktinya

(klik untuk memperbesar gambar)

Penasaran? Ingin mendapat pulsa gratis juga? Anda bisa anda buktikan sendiri kok.
Anda hanya tinggal mendaftar disini (klik teks) kemudian daftarkan nomor handphone anda.
Kemudian, anda hanya perlu mengikuti penawaran yang ada.
Biasanya anda akan mengintsal aplikasi - aplikasi untuk android.
Alangkah baiknya kau anda membuka link yang saya berikan lewat android anda sendiri, karna jika anda sudah terhubung dengan android anda, anda hanya perlu mengintal aplikasi dan langsung mendapatkan pulsa gratis!
Mudah bukan?
Jika kalian sudah berhasil, jangan lupa share ceritanya disini ya ^_^
Arigatou..

Klik dan daftar

Tuesday 24 June 2014

70 Ways to Improve Your English

  • Start your own English language blog. Even for people who don't have to write in English, writing can be a great way of properly learning the kind of vocabulary you need to describe your own life and interests, and of thinking about how to stop making grammar mistakes. The problem most people have is that they don't know what to write about. One traditional way to make sure you write every day in English is to write an English diary (journal), and a more up to date way of doing this is to write a blog. Popular topics include your language learning experience, your experience studying abroad, your local area, your language, or translations of your local news into English.
  • Write a news diary. Another daily writing task that can work for people who would be bored by writing about their own routines in a diary is to write about the news that you read and listen to everyday. If you include your predictions for how you think the story will develop (e.g. "I think Hillary will become president"), this can give you a good reason to read old entries another time, at which time you can also correct and mistakes you have made and generally improve what you have written.
  • Sign up for a regular English tip. Some websites offer a weekly or even daily short English lesson sent to your email account. If your mobile phone has an e-mail address, it is also possible to have the tips sent to your phone to read on the way to work or school. Please note, however, that such services are not usually graded very well to the levels of different students, and they should be used as a little added extra or revision in your English studies rather than as a replacement for something you or your teacher have chosen more carefully as what you need to learn.
  • Listen to MP3s. Although buying music on the internet is becoming more popular in many countries, not so many people know that you can download speech radio such as audio books (an actor reading out a novel) and speech radio. Not only is this better practice for your English than listening to English music, from sources like Scientific American, BBC and Australia's ABC Radio it is also free.
  • Listen to English music. Even listening to music while doing something else can help a little for things like getting used to the natural rhythm and tone of English speech, although the more time and attention you give to a song the more you will learn from listening to it again in the future.
  • Read the lyrics to a song. Although just listening to a song in English can be a good way of really learning the words of the chorus in an easily memorable way, if you want to really get something out of listening to English music you will need to take some time to read the lyrics of the song with a dictionary. If the lyrics are not given in the CD booklet, you may be able to find them on the internet, but please note that some lyrics sites deliberately put a few errors into their lyrics for copyright reasons. Once you have read and understood the lyrics,  if you then listen and read at the same time, this can be a good way of understanding how sounds change in fast, natural, informal speech.
  • Sing karaoke in English. The next stage after understanding and memorising a song is obviously to sing it. Although some words have their pronunciation changed completely to fit in with a song, most of the words have the same sounds and stressed syllables as in normal speech. Remembering which words rhyme at the end of each line can also be a good way of starting to learn English pronunciation.
  • Write a film, music, hotel or book review. Another motivating and easy way to make yourself write in English is to write a review for a site such as Amazon or Internet Movie Database. Many non-native speakers write reviews on sites like this, and if you have some special understanding of the book, music or film due to your first language or knowing the artist personally, that would be very interesting for the English speakers who read and write reviews on the site.
  • Only search in English. Switching your search engine to the English language version of msn, yahoo, Google etc. can not only be a good way of practising fast reading for specific information in English, but could also give you a wider choice of sites to choose from and give you an idea of what foreigners are writing about your country and area.
  • ICT in Education

    The Promise of ICTs in Education
    For developing countries ICTs have the potential for increasing access to and improving the relevance and quality of education. It thus represents a potentially equalizing strategy for developing countries.[ICTs] greatly facilitate the acquisition and absorption of knowledge, offering developing countries unprecedented opportunities to enhance educational systems, improve policy formulation and execution, and widen the range of opportunities for business and the poor. One of the greatest hardships endured by the poor, and by many others who live in the poorest countries, is their sense of isolation. The new communications technologies promise to reduce that sense of isolation, and to open access to knowledge in ways unimaginable not long ago.

    However, the reality of the Digital Divide—the gap between those who have access to and control of technology and those who do not—means that the introduction and integration of ICTs at different levels and in various types of education will be a most challenging undertaking. Failure to meet the challenge would mean a further widening of the knowledge gap and the deepening of existing economic and social inequalities.

    How can ICTs help expand access to education?
    ICTs are potentially powerful tool for extending educational opportunities, both formal and non-formal, to previously underserved constituencies—scattered and rural populations, groups traditionally excluded from education due to cultural or social reasons such as ethnic minorities, girls and women, persons with disabilities, and the elderly, as well as all others who for reasons of cost or because of time constraints are unable to enroll on campus.
    Anytime, anywhere. One defining feature of ICTs is their ability to transcend time and space. ICTs make possible asynchronous learning, or learning

    Wednesday 11 June 2014

    Sacha Stevenson's Funny Videos

    Hello my friends!
    Today I will share to you some funny videos were created by Sacha Stevenson.
    Okay, before we watch the videos, I will tell you a short biodata of Sacha Stevenson.

    Sacha Stevenson is Canadian youtuber which live in Indonesia. She was used to be a teacher in Jakarta until she decided one day to take an acting Class at "SAS" with Eka Sitorus. This changed her path and so she quit her job and dove into a career of acting, presenting, and modeling for tv and commercials. She absolutely love it! She has done several commercials, programs and some modeling as well. Most recently she has been on a comedy/travel show "Wara Wiri" as Sasa with Komeng and Adul.

    I think, her videos are very funny and I like her videos so much.
    Here are the videos. Hopefully you like them too!






    Wednesday 28 May 2014

    Just share my arts!

    Hey guys! I would like to share my arts.
    I used Photoshop in making these arts.
    Actually, I made these arts for some event in my Campus.
    FYI, i like editing photo/making arts using Photoshop since I was in Junior High School.

    I think my arts is not really good, so I need your comment for these arts. I'm still learning in making some arts.
    Wanna see them? Just check it! :)

    Thursday 22 May 2014

    The Role of ICT in Teaching and Learning: Past, Present and Future Perfect


    To go back in time, the first commercial computer was launched only 60 years ago and the first microcomputers appeared in schools about 30 years later. Schools up to that time could mostly be described as traditional, having changed little from the learning institutions of 100 years or so previously. But these first microcomputers were beginning to bring about gradual change in classrooms as recorded in a UNESCO publication, Developing Computer Use in Education (1986). This time may be considered as a baseline; the beginning of the use of ICT in schools – termed theemerging stage.

    To jump to the present, we see today the linking of computers across the world. The year 1996 may be remembered as the year that the Internet made its initial, far-reaching impact, on learning institutions and on much of the rest of human activity. Today’s web of computers and what we call ICT (Information and Communication Technologies)

    Impact of ICTs on Learning & Achievement

    Guiding Questions:
    1. How are ICTs actually being used in education?
    2. What do we know about the impact of ICTs on student learning?
    3. What do we know about the impact of ICTs on student motivation and engagement for learning?
    Current knowledgebase
    What we know, what we believe -- and what we don’t
    General
    1. It is generally believed that ICTs can empower teachers and learners, promote change and foster the development of ‘21st century skills, but data to support these beliefs are still limitedThere is widespread belief that ICTs can and will empower teachers and learners, transforming teaching and learning processes from being highly teacher-dominated to student-centered, and that this transformation will result in increased learning gains for students, creating and allowing for opportunities for learners to develop their creativity, problem-solving abilities, informational reasoning skills, communication skills, and other higher-order thinking skills. However, there are currently very limited, unequivocally compelling data to support this belief.