Sunday, 25 August 2013

English as Lingua Fra

JOURNAL 9
WEEK 10

ENGLISH AS LINGUA FRANCA

English as a lingua franca can be defined as a contact language used between speakers who do not share same mother tongues and cultures. It is a global phenomenon which a wider much range of people using English now as an additional language than native speakers. Indeed, it was estimated that nearly 80% of people worldwide communicate with different mother tongues of people. And the most exciting news is they use English instead of other language which can be found in the world. 

Generally, people choose English to be the lingua franca because of some reasons. Firstly, English is a very simple language. It can be learnt easily and everybody can learn it quickly. Besides, English language is spoken by the popular and well-known countries such as America, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. These few countries have major influence towards the world's economic, that is why it helping in the making of English language as lingua franca either.

However, making English language as lingua franca also brings in few negative impacts. As we know, lingua franca is very important as it allows us to communicate world-widely with people from different countries. Thus, people put English language at the first priority compare to their own mother tongues. This action will then caused them to forget about their own mother tongue as they are too busy focusing to the English language. In addition, we know that language is the main transport for cultures and tradition to be inherited. Therefore, not only their language will extinct, but also their cultures and traditions.

In conclusion, making English as lingua franca has its own pros and cons.


 

Tuesday, 13 August 2013

Gender imbalance in varsity

JOURNAL 8
WEEK 9 (14/9/13)

                                        GENDER IMBALANCE IN VARSITY

          In our modern era today, the revelation of the new issue in our education which is more females than males in varsity has totally unnerved the male-dominated education authorities. Frankly speaking, this issue is not a new issue anymore as it started since 1996. Based on PM Najib Razak, a girl in Malaysian school is more likely to go to university than her male classmates as the country is reaping results of investing in education 'without gender discrimination. From this dialogue, we can conclude that females in our countries are outperformed than their males classmates since primary school. That is why they do not have a bright opportunity like their female classmates to enter varsity.
          The government is worrying about this issue not because of the intention to against women dominance in varsity but to ensure healthy growth among men and women because to have a healthy growth of community, there must be the balanced amount of men and women in it. As we know, God created men and women and unite them to become one as to complete each others' life. It is the same goes to a growth of one community. It needs women as well as men in it.
          As government is very concerned on this issue, a few researches have been carried out in order to gain the statistics of the gender in varsities around Malaysia. Based on a research, it stated that in local University, we can see very big difference of number of male and female students but in Private university, the difference is very small.
It is not only happens in West Malaysia but as well as in Borneo. For example, in UMS, the ratio of gender by students in 2010 is 60:30 while in UKM which was situated in Selangor showed a very high difference of ration in 2011 which is 70:30.
It was said to be an unusual gap because there are almost a balance number of men and women in Malaysia overall. On one occasion, Mohamed Khaled said, however, there was a “healthy balance” of male and female students for technical-based courses.
          After few meetings, Mohamed Khaled suggested that they will try and fix these problems at the secondary school level in order to achieve our target in future.
From the evident above, this issue should be perceived as a serious matter because it really give big impact to our future socioeconomic and community growth.

Saturday, 3 August 2013

Week before Holidayyyyy!

JOURNAL 7
WEEK 8(5/8/13)

                                                      Week before Holidayyyyy!

          As a student, it is normal to feel excited and anticipated for holiday. It is the only time which we can go back to our hometown and spend our precious time with our beloved family. Additionally, it is the time where we are out from any works and classes and we can take a long rest. However, as a teacher trainee, we cannot escape from any assignments or homeworks even though during holiday. It is the norm of a teacher trainees' life as works always follow behind us.
          Basically, we started our Raya holiday this week. Many trainees from my college were very excited to leave the hostel and go to the airport. I'm not excluded from them too. It's normal because it's been a long time since we were apart from our family and home. So, last week, I started to feel the holiday mode. When I attended my class, it's just like only my body was in the class while my mind and soul both were absent.
          Nevertheless, I can't do anything and have no other choice. I just forced myself to accept anything that were being taught in class and pretended to be interested in class. Waiting for another week is just like waiting for another year! It is true that when you are eagerly want the time to fly faster, it feels like the time go very slow and vice versa. So, I tried to forget about it and just pretended to be patient of the time.
          Last week, we even carried out a newscasting presentation in class and it quite interesting as it made us very busy while we started to forget about the holiday. Besides that, we helped the seniors to decorate the auditorium for the Timbalan Pengarah's retirement day. It was really tiring because  we decorated it until almost 1am in the morning. It was really irritating that some of the seniors did not help us and they just sit there, eat while watching us. That really showed their irresponsible and ineffective attitude.
          At last, when it comes to Friday, everyone was crazily excited to go home. My flight was also on that day and I left the hostel on that evening to airport. My journey back to my beloved hometown, Sabah was full with tiredness and happiness.

Thursday, 1 August 2013

The " Balik Kampung" Phenomenon

ESSAY
01/08/13

                                              THE " BALIK KAMPUNG" PHENOMENON

         In fact, the phenomenon of " Balik Kampung" is a common phenomenon that happen regularly almost every year in Malaysia which always strikes a lot of negative effects such as increasing the rate of accidents on the road, rising the number of deaths, jammed which lead to the wasting time, as well as the increasing rate of pollution to our environment.
          Generally, we can find thousands of vehicles on the road during festivals in Malaysia which annually causes the high rate of accidents. In this modern era, many people work outside of their kampung or village and when the festival is just around the corner, they will driving back to their hometown either with their own cars or the public transport. Driving their own car usually increase the amount of car on the road which ultimately lead to high rate of accident as the more number of cars can increase the probability of rate of accident.
          Besides that, the rising of death also make people in worry when they are driving their vehicles back to their hometown during festival. Generally, festival should be something that is very happy and it is very bitter if the scene in a festival is being added with sad moment such as the death of our family members. As I have mentioned just now, more cars on the road will lead to the drastic increasing of rate of accident. Some unlucky accident usually will lead to death and it happens regularly and frequently rather than only finding out injured victims. This is because people nowadays like to drive very fast as they are always in hurry and sometimes they are being selfish.
          Apart from that, jammed will be the most famous and popular event on the "balik kampung" phenomenon. It is not a real phenomenon if there are only few cars found on the road because only from this phenomenon, we can see a lot of cars especially on the highway. However, this phenomenon is frequently leading to the long period of driving time and it always wasting the drivers time and turn them into a bad mood as they need to wait for very log time.
          Finally, this phenomenon is more likely to contribute to the increasing pollution especially air pollution. As we know, the rate of pollution in Malaysia has become worsen nowadays. In addition to the big amount of harmful gases and soot being released from vehicle exhaust, it again increase the pollution which lead to the spreading of various disease as well as the poor condition of environment. These poor condition of environment such as poor visibility can cause uncomfortably to the citizens in our country.
          In conclusion, the " balik kampung" event truly brings out a lot of bad implication. Related people need to take action immediately in order to solve this problem.