Good Listening in Class

It is important for you to be a good listener in class. Much of what you will have

to learn will be presented verbally by your teachers. Just hearing what your teachers say is not the same as listening to what they say. Listening is a cognitive act that requires you to pay attention and think about and mentally process what you hear.

Here are some things you should do to be a good listener in class :

1.Be Cognitively Ready to Listen When You Come to Class. Make sure you complete all assigned work and readings. Review your notes from previous class sessions.

2.Think about what you know about the topic that will be covered in class that day.

3.Be Emotionally Ready to Listen When You Come to Class. Your attitude is important.

4.Make a conscious choice to find the topic useful and interesting. Be committed to learning all that you can.

5.Listen with a Purpose. Identify what you expect and hope to learn from the class session. Listen for these things as your teacher talks.

6.Listen with an Open Mind. Be receptive to what your teacher says. It is good to question what is said as long as you remain open to points of view other than your own.

7.Be Attentive. Focus on what your teacher is saying. Try not to daydream and let your mind wander to other things. It helps to sit in the front and center of the class, and to maintain eye contact with your teacher.

8.Be an Active Listener. You can think faster than your teacher can speak. Use this to your advantage by evaluating what is being said and trying to anticipate what will be said next.

9.Take good written notes about what your teacher says. While you can think faster than your teacher can speak, you cannot write faster than your teacher can speak. Taking notes requires you to make decisions about what to write, and you have to be an active listener to do this.

10.Meet the Challenge. Don't give up and stop listening when you find the information being presented difficult to understand. Listen even more carefully at these times and work hard to understand what is being said. Don't be reluctant to ask questions.

11.Triumph Over the Environment. The classroom may too noisy, too hot, too cold, too bright, or too dark. Don't give in to these inconveniences. Stay focused on the big picture - LEARNING


Read more at http://www.how-to-study.com

Top Ten Reasons to use Email in your Classroom

From http://www.epals.com

Top Ten Reasons to use Email in your Classroom

	Email makes communication easy! Assigning homework, receiving completed assignments and setting up parent conferences can be done with the click of a mouse.
	Get students excited about writing! Students are motivated by the social experience of exchanging emails with pen pals and classroom peers.
	Go green! Email helps us use less paper, which is not only a cost-saver for your school's budget, but also protects planet Earth.
	Give students the skills they need for tomorrow. When students practice using email in the classroom, they are learning essential workplace skills.
	Embed writing in all class subjects. When using email to communicate, students integrate writing in all classes, even math and science.
	Engage parents in classroom activities. Email allows you to communicate easily with parents about class activities and increase their involvement in the classroom.
	Provide authentic writing opportunities. Unlike worksheets and drills, writing to peers with email creates authentic learning experiences, providing deeper learning and encouraging higher-order thinking skills.
	Improve standardized test scores. When email is a regular part of the classroom, students write more and score better on standardized tests.
	Safely bring the world into your classroom! With SchoolMail's robust security features, students are able to safely connect and collaborate with students from around the globe.
	Remove language barriers! SchoolMail's integrated, instant translation feature allows easier communication between those who speak different languages.

Common Mistakes We Make while speaking English!!

1. "It was a blunder mistake."
Correction, people! The word 'blunder' means mistake, so you could say:
"It was a blunder," or
"It was a big mistake."

2. "It would have been more better."
The word 'better' itself implies that the option in question is superior -- the use of the word 'more' in the sentence is, therefore both inappropriate and unnecessary. Thus the correct sentence would go as follows:
"It would have been better."

3. "Why don't he get married?"
The term 'don't' applies when discussing a plural subject. For instance, "Why don't they get married?" The right way to phrase that sentence would be:
"Why doesn't he get married?"

4. "Your hairs are looking silky today."
This is one of the most common bloopers! The plural of 'hair' is 'hair'! Thus:
"Your hair is looking silky today."

some more::

1. Loose vs lose:
Many people make this mistake. They inevitably interchange the words 'loose' and 'lose' while writing. 'Lose' means to 'suffer a loss or defeat'. Thus, you would write:
'I don't want to lose you," and not ' don't want to loose you.'

'Loose', on the other hand, means 'not firm' or 'not fitting.' In this context, you would write,
"My shirt is loose," not "My shirt is lose."

2. "One of my friend lives in Kelantan."
This is one of the most common bloopers ever! The correct way of putting that is:
"One of my friends lives in Kelantan."

Why? Because the sentence implies that you have many friends who live in Kelantan, but you are referring to only one of these friends.

3. Tension-inducing tenses.
People often use the wrong tense in their sentences. For instance, someone might say:
"I didn't cried when I saw the movie."

Unfortunately, the word 'didn't' is never followed by a past tense verb, in this case 'cried'. The correct way of putting it would be:
"I didn't cry when I saw the movie."



That's all for the time being. 
Read and avoid making the same mistakes, children. 
Good Luck :-))

Grammar Notes Part 1

PARTS OF SPEECH                                                                                              

1.  NOUN

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, idea, or quality.

Examples:  Aiman, Syahid, boy, girl, children; Proton Waja, Acer , classrooms, notebooks; freedom, intelligence; hope, anger, joy

2.  PRONOUN

A pronoun is usually a substitute for a noun. The noun is called the "antecedent" (but an indefinite pronoun has no antecedent).

Examples:

  a.  Personal pronouns:  I, mine, me; you, yours; he, his, him; she, hers, her; it, its; we, ours, us; they, theirs, them.

  b.  Interrogative pronouns:  who, whose, whom, which, what

  c.  Relative pronouns (include):  who, who, whose, which, that;  whoever, whomever, whichever

  d.  Demonstrative pronouns:  this, that, these, those

  e.  Indefinite pronouns (include):  all, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, many, neither, nobody, no one, none, one, others, some, somebody, someone, such

  f. Intensive or reflexive pronouns:  myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves

3.  VERB

A verb expresses an action or a condition (a state of being).

Examples:  Harith will eat the burger.  (action)                  Zuliah is happy.  (condition or state of being)

                    Aiman won’t eat the burger.                         Ameira isn’t happy.

                    Will Harith eat the burger?                           Is Zuliah happy?

4.  ADVERB     

An adverb describes a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Adverbs usually tell how (for example: slowly), when (e.g., lately), where (e.g., there), how much (e.g., very), or why (e.g., therefore).

Example:  He always chews his gum loudly.

5.  ADJECTIVE

An adjective describes or limits a noun.

Examples:  tall, young, pretty, light, blue, new, white  (The tall, young, pretty girl is wearing a light blue dress with her new white shoes.)  (NOT:  ...a light dress blue with her new shoes white.)

Adjectives and adverbs have three degrees of comparison:  positive, comparative, superlative.  Examples:

Mariam has a smart child.  Salmah has a smarter child.  Naemah has the smartest child.

Azman is an intelligent student. Sofian is more intelligent than Azmant.  Rafiq is the most intelligent student.

The blued car is expensive.  The red car is less expensive.  The yellow car is the least expensive.

I’m a good painter.   She’s a better painter.   He’s the best painter.

I’m a bad singer.  She’s a worse singer.   He’s the worst singer.

6.  PREPOSITION

A preposition usually  shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and another part of a sentence.

There are many prepositions, including:  about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, as, at, before, behind, below, beneath, between, beyond, beside, besides, by, down, during, except, from, for, in, inside, into, like, near, next, of, off, on, out, out of, outside, over, past, round, since, than, through, till, to,  toward, towards, under, underneath, unless, until, upon, up, with, within, without.

Examples:  My pencil is under my desk by my foot.         Maznah drove from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur.

  

7.  CONJUNCTION

A conjunction connects words, phrases, and clauses.

Coordinate conjunctions connect words, phrases, and clauses of equal value:  and, or, nor, but (and sometimes for).  e.g., The rabbit and the cat are hungry.

Correlative conjunctions occur in pairs:  both-and, either-or, neither-nor, not only-but also.  e.g., Both the fish and the snake are thirsty.

Subordinate conjunctions connect unequal clauses (dependent clauses with independent clauses). They include:  after, although, as, because, before, if, since, than, though, unless, until, when, where, while.   e.g.,After they ate, they had dessert.

8.  INTERJECTION

An interjection is a word that expresses feeling or emotion; usually it is followed by an exclamation mark.

Examples:  Oh!  Ah!  Wow!  Darn!  Gosh!  Golly!  Gee!  Ow!  Ouch!  Yikes!  Yippee!  Hooray!  Boo!   Whew!    

Practice Makes Perfect

Some tips on how to answer Question 1 - Paper 2 English for UPSR

1. Look and study the picture carefully. Do not worry about spending 2 or 3 minutes on the picture.
2. State where it is ....... a playground , school canteen, supermarket etc etc
3. How many people are there in the picture?
4. Identify what the people in the picture are doing.
    E.g. ............... is reading ...............
5. State specifically who you want to talk about.
    E.g. The man who is wearing a hat is ...............
6. You can also spice up your answers by using phrases like "There is/are also .."

Words given at the bottom of the picture are to help you. They are meant to feed you with some ideas to construct your own sentences. HOWEVER you may ignore some words if you feel that you are not comfortable
using them and that you have better way of describing the picture, using your own choice of words.

Good Luck .