My Identities vs. Stereotypes

Since I was born until I was in senior high school I lived in homogeny community. I lived among Sundanese people, Muslim and grew up among Persis organization. You see, living in diversity community like I was trying since I lived in Jakarta was not an easy effort for me. There are many different ethnics, religions, and even there are many differences within Islam. I mean these differences are among organizations which are based on and act for Islam.

I do not really care about these differences, but sometimes I felt like a strange people when I do something which is not commonly done by most of them. For example, while I am doing tahiyyat in Shalat I move up and down my index finger. Most of my Muslim friends in my campus do not do that while they are doing tahiyyat. Then, some people make a judgment that “Persis member” usually move their index finger when they are doing tahiyyat. Another example, some friends considered me as a very religious person only because of I wear certain dresses. To be honest, I am really not as religious as they considered. That is a simple case that I may not be concerned about, but sometimes it bothers me when somebody asks me why I do this or that.

For some people, the label Sundanese, Muslim and Persis may be the most familiar identities of mine. So that is why I should be ready dealing with some stereotypes which have been formed in the society. For instance, some people consider sundanese person as a fussy, stingy, coward and vindictive person who like money most. Having these identities is not necessarily I should become what those stereotypes said. I have my own personality which is perhaps different with another sundanese person. Moreover, I have the ability to turn over in mind before I do something. So, I make those stereotypes as a standard. If that is a good stereotype, I should do more than what that stereotype said. Thus, if that is a bad stereotype, I should prevent myself doing that.

However, most of my friends can understand my own self no matter how stereotypes of my identities are after they know me a few days. Some of them can break up which one is part of my personality trait and which one is part of stereotype only, and so do I. I did, do and will do it to everyone. Everyone has their own personality, so do not judge them only based on the stereotype which are grew up in certain community.

Sources :

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/Wayang_Golek_Sundanese_Traditional_Puppet_Show.JPG

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Is It Enough?

As I know, there are a lot of technologies and website which can increase our writing, speaking and listening skill, but how about speaking skill? Is there any technology or website which can increase it?

Talking about technology for increasing speaking skill, I thought about ability in assessing pronunciation, communicative approach, comprehensible input & output, providing online interaction, and also I was confused how this technology makes error correction in speaking for foreign language learners. There were so many thought, weren’t there?

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In fact, there are many sites in internet which provide not only listening but also speaking, interacting and pronouncing exercises. Mr. Teguh shared many sites which can help internet users to increase their speaking skill. Actually I have not been really familiar with all over these sites. So, I have not known how to use them effectively even for myself and apply it in learning and teaching process. I think these kinds of site supposed to be like familiar sites for English teachers, especially English as foreign language teachers and non-native teachers.

I have read briefly a research in Hong Kong about native and non-native English teachers. The result explained that native teachers tended to emphasize fluency besides that non-native tended to emphasize accuracy. So you see that these sites can be considered as input from native speaker to improve students’ fluency in speaking. So the input may be balance.

Thus, I am still doubt whether giving input from native speaker can be effective or not to increase their pronunciation. The guest lecturer in my class said that babies above 12 months old tend to have low sensitivity in distinguishing phonics / phonemes. It is because they begin to focus on meaning. So, can foreign language learners really care about the pronunciation while they have to focus on meaning? In the other hand, how effective these sites which some of them provide interaction with native speaker increase foreign language learners’ pronunciation?

Some of you perhaps may answer, “It depends on the teacher, learning and teaching process, and the students itself”. I do not know…

My Perspective of Multiple Intelligences

I think everyone agree that multiple Intelligences are very famous in educational field. I have heard about multiple intelligences when I was a participant in new Sampoerna School of Education (SSE) students’ orientation. At that time, I and the other new students were given some questions to find out what the strongest intelligence we have. Knowing my strongest intelligence can help me recognizing more about myself and what way should do to learn well. Before the orientation I have heard a little bit about verbal, logical-mathematics, music and spatial intelligence from my psychology teacher in senior high school.

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The unique thing about multiple intelligences I got when I did exhibition as Educational Psychology assignment from some lecturers. After I tell them all about multiple intelligences I knew they told me that those intelligences are related each other. One lecturer told me briefly a research about multiple intelligences. There were some students who have high capability in solving mathematic problem. Thus, when they were given some mathematics problems in narrative form, most of them could not solve those. The researchers assumed that is because of their linguistic abilities were rarely exposed. Then, after the students were given exercises related to linguistic ability they can solve those.

At another instance, I think an architect will have difficulties in designing a building if she/he only has high spatial intelligence. An architect perhaps needs logical mathematics intelligence also in measuring the dimension by operating certain mathematics formula. So, I think when someone masters in one field perhaps they are high more than one intelligence.

For me, learning about multiple intelligences makes me wiser. Talking about someone’s intelligences mean talking about how recognize him/her too. I believe that we should use some perspective when we want to judge someone ability because human is complex in every way including in intelligences. So that is why as a teacher to be I have to consider the diversity of my students to be. I have to provide some activities which can cover all of their intelligences.

To help me and my friends knowing the appropriate activity for teaching, Ms. Vera in LTM course meeting divide class into eight groups based on the strongest intelligence we have. Then each group created at least four activities related to their intelligences that can help them to learn well. We agreed that it is good to know what activity will be suitable for certain intelligence from those who are high in that intelligence.

Actually this meeting has inspired me. When I create online learning or teach in class I want to test their multiple intelligences first. It is only a simple test to make sure how the real diversity of their intelligences. I hope it will help me to arrange the appropriate learning activities for my class.

you can find out your strongest intelligence by fill this test..

MALL and Language Learning

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Have you ever been raided by your teacher because you brought hand phone, mp3, or PDA? If your answer is yes, how did you feel? Have you ever been confused why those technologies are not permitted to be brought to school? Have you ever thought that every technology including your hand phone can be good teaching aids?

Before I got some interesting material in TLL course about CALL (Computer Assist Language Learning) and MALL (Mobile Assist Language Learning), I thought some technologies especially hand phone can interfere the learning and teaching process. So that is why I agreed the rule in school which is mention about technology prohibition during teaching and learning process in class. Thus, after I followed TLL class 6 times, my mind was changed. Like in my previous TLL posting that teacher nowadays should not isolate digital native students from technology.

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In this class we discussed about how to use hand phone, mp3, iPod, and PDA (the MALL features) in language learning. Who was know? All friends of mine were really creative. Yeah, of course I and my friend in this campus should be creative, because we are the next generation of teacher. Because we are language teacher candidate, so at that time we shared our opinion in utilizing those technologies to increase students English skill completely like reading, writing, listening and speaking.

I hope all educational universities in Indonesia have the same idea with us about using technology in teaching and learning activity, or have higher ideas from us perhaps. I mean if the Indonesian teachers have a better quality in the future I think Indonesian school will be better also.

The Meaningful Learning and Teaching Process

On the third meeting I learned about models of instruction. Ms Ine explained that there are four models of instruction. There are lecture-discussion model, direct instruction model, guided discovery model, and collaborative learning model. At first, I felt confused whether models of instruction and teaching methods are same or not. Then Ms Ine said that both of two terminologies are quite similar.

 Then, one question appeared in my mind, “are both of two terminologies really same?”. I feel confused because what I learned with Ms Ine about models of instruction and what I learned when I was on senior high school about “metode – metode mengajar” in Ilmu mendidik course are different in some ways. From the number of methods, there were more than four methods which were explained by my previous teacher. I remember that there were lecturing method, discussion method, demonstration method, drill method, group work method, experimental method, socio drama method, and so on. Then I assumed that perhaps the models of instruction are the general one and teaching methods are the specific one.

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So, which is the model of instruction appropriate to be used?. Ms Ine answered this question. I agree with her that it depends on what learning objective we want to achieve indeed. Why does it depend on learning objective? I tried to answer it like this, when we make a lesson plan we have to determine the learning objective first. Then, we arrange the activities that can facilitate students and teachers to achieve that learning objective. So, how can we determine the model of instructional for our learning and teaching process if we do not know what the learning objective that we want to achieve, right?. Succeeding in achieving learning objective is what I call as the meaningful learning and teaching process.

My Name Is My Parents’ Pray

Since childhood I am very proud having my name. A long name which sounds unordinary is very cool I think. Thus I do not know why when I grew up become an adolescent, I realize that my nickname sounds more pleasant than my full name. Although my nickname is very ordinary, short, and not cool at all I still tend to introduce myself using my nickname. That is because when someone calls me by my full name, I feel not really close with him/her. Thus, when he/she call me using my nickname, I feel he/she has been closer with me. I think I feel like that because in the past when my mother was angry she often called me by my full name. Can you imagine how terrify my mom when she was angry and called me by my full name? hehe.

My full name is from Arabic language. My parents created my name using some words from Al Quran. For example, you can find my first name in Al Quran Surat Al A’raf : 26. My first name means dress or jewelry from heaven which is used by angles or elf. My middle name means chastity. Then, my last name means brilliant or clear. My friends joked like this, “your full name means a dress which is net and clear. So, you are like a detergent, haha”. Whatever they said cannot make me upset having this name. My mother said that my first name in Al Qur’an means not a real dress. The word dress is a metaphore for piety (taqwa) which is like protector of our religious. As we know, piety is like a fearful feeling to Allah until we keep ourselves not doing any disgraceful thing. In other words, it can protect ourselves from temptations of Satan. With this piety, my parents hope that I will have a pure soul and become a brilliant person.

That is a really good pray for me, but it is so hard to be realized. No body have no sin I think. It is so hard to keep myself not doing disgraceful thing at all. Sometimes, I pull a long face (feel frustated) because I have many sin and cannot attain my parents’ pray. Until I read my little brother book, he wrote “it is a normal thing when we make a mistake, but we should not make a same mistake”. I really like this words. This words made me realize that I cannot have no sin, but I can try to increase my kindness and always pray to Allah about everything I did, I do and I will do.