Saturday, October 18, 2008

Extraordinary English for Protocal Course -Part 2

For this i dedicate to members of our group...

Hello everyone,

I trust everyone enjoyed their day off today. There's still another day left to relax and spend quality time with the family.I spent today with the usual hike up Bukit Jalil, marketing, shopping at the mall and sending my children for their music classes.I also found time to email some reminders to my officers this afternoon and checking on my mail.It's been a day well spent.
Thought I'd use the remainder of the evening to do a recap of what we learnt yesterday in our class. This is our third class and we are more relaxed and more comfortable with Mrs J and with one another as well.

Let's see. In the morning we started our class with some new dance steps to the tune of Eckey Dikey. (Did I get the spelling correct?)It was fun. we had the session recorded so I guess that did inhibit some of our friends from displaying their full abilities. Did it guys?
Ok, coming back to what we learnt yesterday.As usual, Mrs J with her usual active and enthusiastic personality made the grammar lesson most memorable. We learnt the correct use of grammar in one morning. What an achievement! I enjoyed this revision class very much.Let's see, we learnt about the different parts of speech, nouns, verbs, adjectives, verbs-to-be, tenses : Simple Present tense, Simple Past tense, Present Continuous tense, Present Perfect tense and Past Perfect tense, time signals.We were also exposed to lots of different vocabulary, synonyms, antonyms etc.

Some of the words learnt included:
peer teaching, peers, comrades,f riends, colleaques, associates
impeccable,flawless,very good,perfect
focussing, concentrating, reinforcing, repeating, using,enhancing, enriching, enjoying, enthusiastic, full of enthusiasm, ridiculous, ludicrous, absurd, repeat, repetitive, interactive, passion, competence, innovative, motivated, household chores, domestic chores, relaxing, marketing, browsing the internet, accompany their wives, running errands, helping out doing odds and ends, deliberately, intentionally, purposely, illness, sickness, ailment, disease.

Wow, the list is so long, I do hope everyone knows what each word means and how to use it in context. If you are not sure, refer to a dictionary or call me, maybe I can help though I am no expert.

For tenses, time signals are so important. Did the action happen: now, today, this morning, yesterday, last night, just now, two days ago.
Also words like usually, always, never, generally, frequently and sometimes should be used properly.
We also learnt some proverbs and idioms:
Great minds think alike
Fools seldom differ
Jump the gun
Till the cows come home
Put the cart before the horse
thirsty for information

We also reflected on the following phrases:
The six most important words: I admit that I was wrong.
The five most important words: You did a great job.
The four most important words: What do you think?
The three most important words: Could you please...?
The two most important words: WE
The least important word: I

The rest of the morning was spent practising our language skills in groups of three and four. We also divided up work on the bulletin among us. Interviews began that morning as well. I was interviewed by Azmi at the car park. TVP and engineering people are always so professional, they think of the props, the setting, the lighting and also the script. Thanks guys.

I hope I will be able to get snippets of all the interviews for our bulletin.
Well everyone, I guess some of us missed the afternoon session. Can someone please give us a short report on the afternoon session. We would appreciate it.

Well another two more classes to go, folks. The dates are as follows: 14 and 21 November. Both are Fridays. As we won't be seeing Mrs J or be in our group, please email your thoughts and keep us in the 'loop'.

I also take this opportunity to wish Mrs J, her husband and her friends, a safe trip to the base camp of Mt Everest and back.
Good luck and have a memorable and enjoyable holiday.

Siew Wai, can we have photos of everyone taken individually for our bulletin? Thanks.

I want to apologise first in case there are some spelling mistakes and wrong information given. Please correct me if I am wrong, ok. No one is perfect and definitely not me! The most important thing is we try our best and give it our best shot.

Take care and best regards to everyone.
Enjoy the remaining part of your weekend.

Bye, your friend, Lucia.

1 comment:

jagjeet said...

Dedicated to EnglishExcel MOE enthusiastic excited learners - Comment No. 2

From the Trainer's Desk:

Dear All

I have always reminded, time and again to learners of English regardless of the level - and told all those who really want to hone their language skills fast , "you have to read whenever you can find a few minutes " and "write your journals" consistently. This is essentially because language learning takes place best when you are constantly reading and writing - the latter to practise and use whatever vocabulary and new structures you have learnt.

Lucia, in this blog, has taken great pains in her busy life to sum up for us all that went on in class on Friday 17th October. What I like about her writing is the way she presents her ideas and expresses herself. She uses a variety of structures which are grammatically correct and fit in well with her style of writing. And, she is creative and original in her presentation.

Her comprehensive account gives you a good indication of all that happened in clas that Friday morning. Now I would like you all to read her blog entry on this and even respond. It's not me who should be responding but you all.

An interesting well-structured well-captured piece of writing . I consider it good language practice - from a Trainer's point of view. You have persuaded me to respond! You have succeeded. Keep up the good work, Lucia.