Hepi Teechairs Days

dear teechair,

i is wanted to swishing u olzzzz one happeely teechairs dayz. bescouse off you, many peoples dident spellt loike theese. tenchiu. but why peoples steel spellt ‘keep it up’ as ‘kipidap’. ‘daughter’ as ‘doter’ and ‘update’ as ‘hapdet’? oso i see dis ‘cantik’ as ‘santek’, and 'je' as 'jew'? the word ‘je’ is ohledi bahasa pasar, why we want to further degrade our language?

dis verry worry me. bahasa jiwa bangsa, izzit? plis du your part, teechair!

oh, HAPPY TEACHER’S DAY!

my eldest sister yong; teacher syazrin with students @ rps, ipoh. raja perempuan school is so lucky!

Saya Mahu Jadi Pujangga Dari Blog Ini Fynn Jamal Cakap

mommy lyna dari MySuperKids nak kasi iPad? iPad!!!

caranya bukanlah mudah. ye, susah! betul susah! hihi. kena tulis artikel, dan pastikan artikel itu menarik minat juri. tulis artikel berkenaan apa? hanya bertajukkan ‘saya mahu… dari blog…!’

* * *

saya?

saya sangat suka menulis. saya sangat suka berpuitis. saya sangat suka dengan bahasa, dalam apa jua gaya. menulis bukan hanya untuk orang baca, tapi untuk orang rasa. untuk orang terpana. untuk orang teruja.

saya mahu jadi pujangga dari blog ‘ini fynn jamal cakap’.!

fynn jamal. kenal nama ni? aduh. kalau tak kenal, sila singgah ke lamannya; ‘puisi tepi jalan’, dan lihat sendiri cara dia bermain kata. kalaulah saya bisa jadi pujangga seperti dia!

dia bukan tulis puisi semata. dia bukan berpantun sahaja. bukan pula bersajak belaka. tapi apa saja yang ditulisnya, pasti enak dibaca dek kerana pandainya menyimpul ayat penuh erti, penuh jiwa!

perihal abah yang sayangnya ya amat. alkisah cinta agung dia dan suami. tentang hidup muzikalnya. apa saja yang terlihat depan mata, dan ape yang terlintas di minda pujangganya!

 

ayatnya ringkas tapi dalam berkias,

gaya bahasanya kadang kasar tapi ada benar,

susun katanya kadang dalam marah tapi tetap bermadah,

paling suka ayat cinta pada suaminya yang berima sungguh indah.

 

betapa saya mahukan kreativitinya.

betapa saya mahukan gaya bahasanya.

betapa saya mahukan semangatnya.

 

semua orang boleh menulis, tapi tidak semua boleh menyentuh jiwa sebagaimana tulisan tulus fynn jamal.

semua orang boleh membuat luahan perasaan melalui blog, tapi tidak semua boleh mengocak perasaan pembaca supaya turut serta bersuka, murka atau berduka.

semua orang boleh cuba berpantun bermadah, tapi tidak semua boleh menjadi pujangga seperti fynn jamal.

 

jadi, saya mahu jadi pujangga dari blog ‘ini fynn jamal cakap’!

* * *

nah, bisa berikan saja saya iPad itu, mommy lyna? *kenyit kenyit*

* * *

“Artikel ini ditulis sebab saya mengidam iPad percuma MySuperKids. Sertai Bengkel Adsense di laman web buat duit online & mulakan gaya hidup sihat dengan vitamin semulajadi ShakleeTrialPack”

Shakespeare I Love!

do you like theater? poetry? in old english? do you know an old dude named william shakespeare?

william shakespeare, born 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616, was an english poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the english language.

he is often called england's national poet and the "bard of avon". his surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. his plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

~ wikipedia

i love reading shakespeare's work. sure, a huge chunk of his words are beyond my comprehension, but once i get a hang of it, it really does make sense! if you feel his language is too blah, then get a modernized, or simplified version.

trust me, you'd wanna read the stories he writes about! erm, do you like the teen movie '10 things i hate about you' starring heath ledger? the story is taken from a play by shakespeare. of course, modernized - but it's his work!


i've been in love after i was introduced to him in my literature in english class. since then, we've been 'intimate' - hihi. even in uia, my favorite course was shakespeare 101. and when i was choosing what masters degree to pursue, i noticed a 'masters in shakespeare studies' that i was really tempted to take!

my first, and remain one of my most favorite shakespeare's plays is 'macbeth'. the others would be 'twelfth night' and 'the merchant of venice'.

shakespeare, or sometimes fondly refered to as 'the bard' (bard is an old english word to describe a writer or a poet) is a great storyteller. he can narrate history, he can woo you with romance, he can make you cry with tragedy, and he can amuse you with comedy. he's like the p.ramlee of england!

* * *

truth is, i was just writing this because i stumbled upon this bit - simply the cutest 'macbeth in one minute' animation i found on the net. enjoy!

shakespeare's macbeth. by phineas, made at DoInk.com

Me No Sleep am Zombie

hi peoples at the out there,

i has not get the sleeping start in the day before and todays also agains. kazim slepting very little bits and woken ups inside every 30 minute resulted me no slepting in totally zero.

at now i is look as an zombie persons.

bapak belonged to kazim was come backing in the days tomorrow then it is meaning he must all the times helpness me for taken caring kazim in a night of time.

happy is me then.

Dubai Festival City's Funny Signs

just woke up.

hari ni macam nak demam. tapi ngade nak blog jugak. so this will be a short posting.

ok - dubai festival city is a shopping mall, and often a venue for big dubai events like 'dubai film festival', or 'dubai literature fest' and such.

one fine day we went and stumble upon a really amusing event - 'the signspotting project', a free show of the 'world's funniest signs', as discovered by travel writer and photographer doug lansky.

the funny signs that he collected were displayed along the marina promenade just outside the mall. the signs are made to look like the actual sign posts, so it's cool to read and smile at them as you take a walk.

ok.

demam sikit.

so just look at the pictures and enjoy the funny signs, ok!

* * *

* * *

cute. there's a sign, and underneath is a big rock boulder with explanation of the sign, and where it's taken from.

* * *

* * *

* * *

to read further on this guy's project on funny sign post, read this feature on gulfnews - click here! to my dubai friends, i'm sure the 'exhibition' is still going on, so head on to dubai festival city to have a little laugh!

* * *

ok. demam. nak makan, and tido balik.

Khaleef, Phonics Method & Dr. Seuss

read kak arin's entry on phonics method - how her daughter was taught the actual 'ABC' at home, and the sounds 'Aa' 'Beh', 'Ceh' at school, following the phonics method. well, i'm having the same problem - but the other way around! i started khaleef with the phonics method, and now only he's learning the actual ABC!

kak arin puts up some helpful link in the learning of the phonics method, and interactive bits for the kids. click on the link above for more.

Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters (e.g., that the sound /k/ can be represented by c, k, ck or ch spellings) and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations of unknown words.
~ Wikipedia

i was introduced to phonetics (the study of speech sounds) while doing my degree, and was involved more actively in phonics method while i was working at a kids' development center. i implemented the method with khaleef as early as when he was 2+, starting with mere 'sounds', and the pattern of combining the sounds to form a word, regardless whether he can recognize the alphabets.


this is my humble understanding of the phonics method, one that i exposed khaleef with:

1. first flash cards accompanied with pictures to make it easier for him to 'guess' the word - since he's still very young, i just played with sounds - (/keh/ + /et/ = cat), (/deh/ + /og/ = dog), (/ss/ + /neh/ + /ek/ = snake)
   
2. don't worry if he's not familiar yet with the whole A-Z sounds all at one go, because through practice and time, he will slowly pick up the rest of the sounds
3. remember that phonics method is all about the kid listening to the sounds a word makes, and how the sounds combine to make up words
   
4. then he 'graduated' to flash cards that comprise of the 'consonants' and single 'vowels' sounds (/b/ + /e/ = 'be') or (/s/ + /o/ = so)
5. next come the flash cards with more complex combo - (/b/ + /at/ = bat), (/h/ + /is/ = his), (/p/ + /ot/ = pot) - 'ot, at, ee' are the easiest ones to catch on first for khaleef!
6. when he has already mastered the sounds of 'at, ot, ee' and such, i simply changed the 'consonants' - 'p-at, m-at, b-at, s-at, r-at' to get him more familiarize
7. after that he moved on to more difficult combo - (/l/ + /ike/ = like) or (/th/ + /is/ = this)
   
8. at this time he's ready for sentence cards - and learn more about the different sounds that can come from the simple vowel sounds that he already knows like the 'oo' sounds can be 'ook, oop, ool and oot' - (/t/ + /ook/ = took) or (/w/ + /ool/ = wool)
   
9. after he has read a lot of sentence cards and got familiar with the pattern of joining words - like 'I go to..." or "I can see a..." he can move on to short, simple books!
   
10. at the same time, he tried to master words like 'a', 'the' and 'I' where phonics method cannot be applied, but occur frequently in sentences

at the time of writing, he's finishing his first ever ever book that he tries to read on his own - dr. seuss' 'the cat in the hat'. the super-cute 'book cover' above was by my sis syida. i highly recommend this book for the quirkiness of its storyline, it's catchy rhyming words and of course, because it contains a lot of phonics-applicable words.

hey, it's by dr seuss! of course it's awesome!

now that he has started reading an actual book, i can concentrate more on not only learning new sounds, but his pronunciation, and intonation, like in story-telling, instead of reading like a robot.

my understanding of the phonics method and the way i implemented it with khaleef may be off and on the spot here and there - but alhamdulillah, so far so good!

try it!

You Speak English, Izzit?

"your country what month very good go?"

awful. simple. and amazing enough, the meaning goes through crystal clear. mr. khairul had wanted to ask this guy from turkey which month is the best time to visit his country. and you know what, the turk understood, and mr. khairul eventually got his answer.

as much as i cringe at this 'english' he was using at that time, mr. khairul stood his ground and thought it was a perfectly fine way of communicating.

this is him. those who know him well enough knows that he's able to speak english fairly well but he strongly believes that you don't need grammatically perfect sentence to be able to understand and be understood.

haiya! of course-lah! true one! that's how manglish becomes manglish-maa! i agree loh. but very difficult izzit? you get me or not? english hor - dident belong to the english anymore you see. global ohledi loh! everywhere oso people speak english their way. everyone oso understand. who needs grammar kan?

hmm.

mr. khairul strongly advocates this especially in dubai where you might encounter people with limited grasp of the english language, he would rather ask the economical, "where, park?" rather than the more compact, "where can i park?" or "where is the parking lot?". even "where to park?" is still forgivable. he believes that this way:

• we eliminate any language barrier as the person would be able to understand the simple english
• the person therefore is willing to be more helpful as he understands us better
• i am no better than you are in the english language, so help us
• and we don't come across as a snobbish mat salleh sound-a-like

i understand his reasons and in fact do agree with some. however, being a teacher of the english language, i abhor the fact that he was willing to risk his command of the english language by speaking this way, be it by choice or necessity!

it's one thing if you're green in your command of the english language, and another thing if you're fine, yet you *choose* to speak it badly!

yes, practice makes perfect and if you don't practice, you lose your perfection!

next, saying "where do i park?" over "where, park?" does not necessarily throw the listener off from his understanding. he can still hear the word 'where' and 'park' and would be able to respond in the same way he would when we use the broken english.

whenever i brought this up (always after an intentionally bad english is spoken by mr. khairul in exercising his theory) he would tease me by doing a bad immitation of a british accent. and i don't even sound like that!

i'm not saying lets use thee thou thy, speak very quickly with a heavy accent and the works - "do you mind telling me the location in which i would be able to park my vehicle preferably in a safe spot?" ha, ternganga mamat tu karang.

all i'm saying is, by using a *simple* grammatically correct sentence, we're also fulfilling our social responsibility by also helping the listener improve his command of the english language. if he keeps hearing bad grammar, that's what he would pick up.

jika kita mampu, apa salah guna bahasa inggeris mudah yang elok grammarnya? he still understands, and we would still be able to uphold the dignity of the english language.

op op - before you start saying lupa diri or bahasa jiwa bangsa - this is a posting about good grammar versus intentionally bad grammar. bahasa melayu is in a different league altogether. and i'm not puting the english language on a pedestal here. i'm just saying that (if you can and able to) a language ought to be spoken in its truest form - just as arabic words should be pronounced well and mandarin in its many different inflections or else it loses its meaning.

oh-kay. see you peoples in the later time. i is going to taking a eat.