We had come to the end of the last topic in the syllabus.
Among all the lessons within these two weeks, I enjoyed the games of guessing the meaning of idioms and proverbs most. I learnt many new idioms and proverbs from the lesson. Although my group did not win the game, it was exactly an exciting and interesting competition. This kind of learning strategy will really attract the learners’ interest to participate actively in the learning process.

Happy Holiday & Happy Practicum!!!

This week we had learnt about clauses and types of sentences. Besides, we had also presented our work on transformational rules. Almost every group had made a few mistakes in the presentation. For me, this indicates that grammar is really hard to learn.
In addtion, we had also started searching the information on semantics. After my reading, I still find that I could hardly understand and differentiate the denotative and connotative meanings. Anyway, I will still further my readings.

There was one more word formation game was carried out this week. It was about animal words puzzle. Although it seemed easy to solve, yet our group still spend some time to solve it. In my opinion, this kind of game really can attract pupils’ interest in learning new vocabulary.

in addition, we had also learnt more on tree diagrams this week. It is becoming more and more complex with the appearance of new phrases like complementizer phrase.

Besides, we had also learnt some transformational rules . For me, I know and learnt some of the rules before but i had never known their name. From the lessons in this week, I had learnt their name and recognized them more deeply.

This week we learnt about phrases. Actually, I do not like grammar very much. It is too complicated especially it comes to more detailed ones. For example, the basic structure of verb phrase is (Aux) + Head + (Object/ Complement) + (Modifier). It had been quite hard for me to analyze it already. Yet, there is something else similar to it which is verbal phrase.

Besides, we had also learnt something on tree diagrams and phrase structure rules to analyze a sentence. In addition, there were a few groups had also presented their word formation games. The game of “Week of Fortune” was quite interesting but it would be better if all the groups had the chance to take their turn and play. For the word puzzle game, it might attract primary pupils’ interest to learn more vocabulary. The game on finding as many words as we can was also very exciting. Although the game seems easy, yet for me, I learnt a few new words from the game. Overall, all the games are very interesting and improve the mood and initiative of learning English.

This week we learnt about word formation processes. We had also presented our minimal pairs in the class. My group had tried to find as many minimal pair as we could. We are very proud of our effort although some of them are unacceptable.  Anyway, we learnt from our mistake. Now, we knew that even though the spelling from the pairs seem might be the minimal pairs, yet their phonics will show that they are not.

In addition, we had handed in our draft for essay this week too. Thank you, Mdm Ira, for going through my essay and gave me so many helpful suggestion and ideas. I will learn from my mistake.

Furthermore, we had started preparing our classroom activity on word formation too. We have to present it next week.

We has done revision on phonology this week.Besides, we had also stated a new topic on morphology. There are a few types of morphemes. At first, I thought that it might be very difficult to understand those morphemes. However, Mdm Ira had given extremely clear explanation on the morphemes. And thus, I think I will be able to differentiate the morphemes now.

School life begins again…Still in holiday mood…:(

We had presented our dialogue for role play this week. The topic of my group was Chinese New Year. Actually, all groups had played their dialogues well. We had shared and discussed all the language functions that could be found in every dialogue with Madam Ira.

Besides, we had also given a task. We were required to find five minimal pairs with initial, medial and final phoneme differences. I found that it was hard to find the minimal pairs from Internet. I could only find some readings for my further information on the pairs. Actually, I cannot understand the phoneme well. Yet, I still try to find some pairs from dictionary. Hopefully, I will understand better after next discussion on the phoneme in the class.

This is my first time having a blog and writing my reflection on the blog. This is exactly a new experience for me.

For the first two week in Semester 5, I learnt about language and communication. I learnt how culture affects English language. My group members and I had done a presentation on this topic. But, based on our lecturer’s comment, we had not done enough research to prove our statement. Thus, further research has to be done after that since it will be part of our coursework as well.

Besides, we had to prepare and act out a dialogue in groups too. The dialogue should consist of at least five language functions. Our group had chosen the topic on Chinese New Year since it is coming soon. We had also presented a mime of snatch-theft. I like my friends’ mime on hunting most. It was really interesting and funny.

Then, we had started a new topic on introduction to phonology – speech organs. We had to access Internet and get at least three tongue twisters to share with our friends. I enjoyed the process of practicing the tongue twisters. It trains me to pronounce better and clearer.