Virtual Mr Kek 2009

Students in my 2009 English classes, please visit http://virtualmrkek09.wordpress.com for instructions.

This is my 2008 blog which you may explore for reference.

Goodbye 2008. Hello 2009.

Feedback

I would like to have some feedback on this blog-journal system and my English lessons.

1) What is good about this blog-journal system?

2) What are the areas of improvement for this blog-journal system?

3) What is the most memorable EL lesson this year? Why is it memorable?

Please give constructive comments. Thank you.

Time after time

Sometimes I feel that time is a relentless driver that pushes us forward. We may protest and complain. We may curse and swear. They make not a difference to time. The seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months just go on rolling by. It was not too long ago that we had Madonna singing “Papa, Don’t Preach”, and today, is the third last day of July.  

I believe I have frozen a moment of our classroom life with 3JT. Do you still remember the afternoon light spilling in at that moment? Can you still hear the fan spinning quietly over your head? Twenty years later, when you have your 3JT class gathering in some posh restaurant, would you still be able to recall that very moment? Would the details still be sharp, or would they have faded already? Or would they have been modified inside your head by the time that adds to your age?

I believe I have frozen at least a semester’s worth of memories with both my English classes. At least 20 entries of your teenage thoughts. Unlike memories, words do not fade. Unlike human bodies, blogs do not die (unless Blogspot and WordPress decide to terminate your account). Let us just hope that twenty years down the road, your blog will still exist virtually in this world. Let me just hope that twenty years down the road, you will appreciate having kept a blog.

It is difficult to imagine two decades when your entire lifetime stretches only to about 15 years. So, please listen to your teachers who at least have walked the road far ahead of you, and be patient. So, please listen to your teachers and complete your homework.

So, please, COMPLETE all your necessary journal entries! Thank you very much. 🙂

~*~

I am unable to embed the Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’ music video onto this post. Here’s the link if you are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6AXnnjgqI

The English examination on Thursday, 24 April 2008, is but a stone on the long and winding road of life

I have yet to take a close look at Paper 2 of the English exam, so, please do not bother asking me questions about it. However, I would love to discuss with anyone on how you could improve your language skills. I hope this will minimise the harassment I get from some of you. 🙂

Based on the nominations given in your comments, I have awarded titles for several well-written blogs. You can see the additional titles on their links. I am truly impressed with the effort put in by quite a number of students. In fact, a handful of you have been consistently posting your weekly journals up even during the examination period. Keep up the great work!

As for the not-so-consistent students, I will be checking your blogs again after 18 June 2008. All students are expected to complete the necessary number of journal entries by that date. Students who fail to comply will be sent for detention. I think I am starting to find this punishment rather convenient. So, my dear students, don’t give me the opportunity to start liking it. Do your journal writing!

Other than completing the weekly journal entries, there are a couple of extra tasks to be done during the holidays.
Task 1) You need to comment on the latest post of all your classmates by 18 June. That means you need to make about 38 comments. Making all 38 comments in one day is strongly discouraged. Please don’t ask me why. Hazard a guess.
Task 2) Post 5 interesting facts about your favourite author and write down why he/she is your favourite in about 100 words. You must do some research on the author before writing up this post. The easiest way, of course, is to search in Wikipedia on the Internet.

Keep your fingers crossed and hope that that is all the English holiday homework there is.

Meanwhile, enjoy the video of George Michael singing “The Long and Winding Road”.

Under a microscope/On a weighing scale

I have taught you, my dear students, for almost 4 months! Gosh. Time does fly when we are enjoying, don’t we? 🙂

Anyway, I wish you strength and determination during this examination period.

This is the format for the English examinations.

Paper 1 Section 1- Writing to a topic (30 marks)

You will be given a choice of 5 topics. The topics can be narrative, personal recount, descriptive or persuasive. Please make sure you write to the topic.

Paper 1 Section 2 – Situational Writing (30 marks)

Read through all the situational writing compositions you have done from Sec 1 to Sec 3. For this section, please make sure you identify all the tasks and elaborate on them.

Paper 2 Comprehension (25 marks) and Summary (25 marks)

I have touched on quite a bit on ‘using your own words’ type of question. I hope the training has been useful. As for summary, remember to look for points that answer the question, and not just underline whatever you fancy. Please rephrase the text when writing out your summary, in a single paragraph. Also, DO NOT exceed the word limit.

Meanwhile, here is a little music video for you to savour. The video’s narrative structure is rather interesting. Perhaps you may like to analyse it along with the lyrics.

March holidays!

Ever wonder why March is labelled as March, why October is the 10th month of the year (when octopus has only 8 legs and octagon has 8 sides) and why July and August are named after Roman emperors?

Wondering is fine but action is necessary. I would require certain actions from you, my beloved students, for this March holidays.

Necessary Action 1 

By 13 March 11.59pm, you are to post on your blog a 300-word discussion or argument on one of the following topics:

a) Do parents over-control their child nowadays?

or

b) Computer games addiction

You are to use at least 4 modals, 3 discourse organisers and 1 introduction technique as listed in the Persuasive Writing notes.

Necessary Action 2

Read through your classmates’ blogs and nominate the best one by posting a comment on this entry, before 13 March 11.59pm.

You have to explain why the nominated blog is good in about 100 words.  You also have to leave your NAME and CLASS in that comment.

Necessary Action 3

Leave a comment on the blog of your classmates which have + and – 1 of your register number, by 13 March 11.59pm. You know what I mean. If you don’t, you better find out.

The 3 Necessary Actions must be executed, at all costs. The faithful will be rewarded.

I shall end off Term 1 with a video of Queen singing We Will Rock You and We Are The Champion at Wembley Stadium in 1986 to more than 120,000 fans. Can you imagine a crowd of 120,000 fans?

Wonder, wonder, what a wonder…

Apathy? Laziness?

I’ve read through the blog posts of almost everyone in my two classes and I must say that I am rather impressed by the standard of writing. What I am more surprised, however, is the lack of interest of many of you, my dear students, in reading, or more precisely, commenting on your classmates’ wonderful journal entries.

Is it that students do not bother about what their friends have to say? Or is it that students cannot be bothered to leave an encouraging or critical comment after reading? Is it apathy or is it laziness? Or is there another explanation to this phenomenon? Perhaps someone would like to enlighten me.

Anyway, I’ve embedded a video in this post. I found the video rather hilarious initially. My baby girl enjoyed it too. However, after several more viewings, I felt a little sad.

What is it in the video that is making me sad? Anyone would like to guess?

Writing as art as expression

Why does one write? Why does one create?

Why do you write?

Perhaps these are some questions you need to answer before taking the ‘O’ Level English composition examinations. I would love to hear your answers to these questions, in my comment box.

Anyway, the best post of Term 1 Week 2, in my humble opinion, is the one written by Tan Yi Han of 3EP. She has managed to portray the conflict between students and the Discipline Master with a delightful minimum of words, and fulfilling the 5 vocab-word condition I’ve imposed on your journal entries at the same time. She has also, in her short post, challenged the concept of utopia. Is there utopia? Is it a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? (Try chasing a rainbow if you ever see one.) I would also love to hear your views on this.

By the way, you can read her post by clicking here.

Finally, I would like to bring back the point that: if you can’t feel, you can’t write. I believe it is the same for singing. So, I’ve put up a video below, featuring Patti Labelle doing a cover of The Pretender’s I’ll Stand by You. Again, in my humble opinion, she is one singer with a really big heart and a really big voice.

Feel it. Resonate.

Some reminders

I think I am quite a naggy teacher. It is a bad habit but, when dealing with students, it is a necessary habit. So, here goes…

1) You MUST follow the journal instructions and blog rules mentioned in my previous post. Note the modal used – MUST.

2) You have to complete your Term 1 Week 2 journal entry by this Saturday. Make use of 5 words learned in the 11th and 12th week of your 1100 Words textbook for that journal entry.

3) You have to put up your feature article by this Friday. I will be commenting mainly on the organization of your article.

4) You have to check the link in my blog (the one that is under your name) to make sure it is working. If not, there is no way I can read your blog.

I am putting up a video I found in Youtube here. It is a song originally sung by James Brown, but I like this version much better. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.

Instructions to your online journal writing

Instead of writing your journal entries in a book, you are now to publish them in your blog.

Please set up your blog by Term 1 Week 2, and follow the guidelines below.

Journal instructions 

1)      write a journal entry by Saturday every week (free to write about any subject)

2)      title of the weekly entry must include Term number, Week number and Subject (e.g. T1W5 How to make your blog popular)

3)      each entry must contain at least 5 words (from the 1100 words textbook) learnt in that week and the words must be underlined or highlighted in another colour

4)      leave at least 1 comment on the journal entry of the student with the next register number every week (you may also comment on your other classmate’s journal entry)

5)      photos, music, videos and hyperlinks may be used

6)      constantly check this blog for updates

7)      other than the required weekly entry, you may post as many entries as you like in the blog

Blog rules 

1)      blog’s heading must be your full name

2)      blog owner is fully responsible for all content in the blog, including comments

3)      no insults, vulgarities, obscenities or seditious and racist remarks

4)      blog owner has the right to delete any comment left in the blog

5)      there must a proper title for each journal entry

6)      set up an archive column so that I can access your journal entries easily

7)      there should be a comment function for each entry

8)      use proper English at all times!