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izz aty

if I was / if I were - WordReference Forums - 0 views

  • Whenever, impossible situations(hypothetical ones) needed to be expressed, were would be used. If we rather wanted to express a past situation which could have been possible otherwise, was might replace were there.
izz aty

Short Stories for ESL Learners | The Wedding - 0 views

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    It was a strange day-Thursday-for a wedding. Who ever heard of a Thursday wedding? "Well," Harlan explained to everyone, "the Thursday event is going to cost me half of what Friday, Saturday, or Sunday would cost me. And a 50-percent discount is a lot of money, believe me." Everyone believed him. Harlan knew how to count his pennies. The early evening event was at Cowfish, a popular restaurant and meeting place on campus. Nevin and Janelle arrived at 5 p.m. for pictures, but the photographer had been delayed on the freeway because someone had jumped off an overpass. So they decided to take a stroll on campus. Walking westward, they soon found a fish pond. About a dozen small turtles were swimming in the eastern end of the pond. As Janelle kneeled at water's edge, all the turtles swam toward her. A couple of them climbed out of the water and onto the footpath. They wanted food, but a sign advised visitors not to feed the fish or turtles. So she apologized to the turtles-not that she had any turtle food anyway, she added. Nevin and Janelle took pictures of themselves and the turtles. They walked back to Cowfish just before the ceremony was to begin. Some of the preacher's words were unclear because of static on the portable microphone. After the preacher pronounced Harlan and Ellen husband and wife, guests clapped and cheered. The photographer, who had gotten "some great pictures" of the fallen body, busily took pictures of the bride and groom, the preacher, the parents, and the guests. After their meal, Nevin and Janelle said good night to the newly married couple. This was the fourth marriage for Harlan, so everyone was hoping it would be his last. Then Nevin and Janelle walked out to their car, holding hands and talking about what would be the same and what would be different at their own wedding. That is, if they didn't decide to just drive to Las Vegas for a quick marriage, with Elvis performing at their ceremony. "That way, our only
izz aty

In Honor of Teachers - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    My brother is a teacher. When people ask him why he took a job where he got paid less than he could make otherwise and got blamed for everything wrong with society, he says, "Did you ever have a really good teacher who transformed your life?" If they answer, "Yes," he says, "That's why." And, if they answer, "No," he says, "That's why."
izz aty

Breaking News English ESL Lesson on Facebook and MySpace - 0 views

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    Facebook and MySpace start 'hyper-targeting' The world of advertising is set to change as social networking sites open up their pages to advertisers. The sites Facebook and MySpace are now seemingly locked in a battle to win over advertisers by offering them exclusive access to visitors' pages on their websites. Both sites will allow companies to place targeted adverts based on the information their users have provided in their profile. There is a huge amount of data for advertisers to aim at, including geographical details, hobbies, employment, likes and dislikes and a whole world more. This opens up enormous potential for advertisers for what is now being called 'hyper-targeting'. The sites have calmed fears that private information might be used. MySpace has assured its users that only data they choose to be made public will be available to advertisers. The social networking sites have hundreds of millions of users, half of whom logon to their personal pages on a daily basis. The sites allow people to connect with others across the globe and are now an important part of people's lives. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg described how his new ads would work: "It's no longer just about messages that are broadcast by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends," he said. Zuckerberg described how advertisers will also use Facebook to advertise: "The core of every user's experience on Facebook is their page and that's where businesses are going to start as well," he explained. He added: "The first thing businesses can do is design a page to craft the exact experience they want people to see." Companies such as Coca Cola, Microsoft and Sony have already signed up.
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Critical thinking - 0 views

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    A worksheet which can be used with a lot of texts to develop students' ability to look at texts critically.
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Vered - An Activity for Teaching Prepositions Associated with Time (I-TESL-J) - 0 views

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    Many language learners have a problem learning the prepositions associated with references to year, month, date and hour. The following activity is based on the explanation of prepositions of place provided in A University Grammar of English, as represented by the diagram.
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Birmingham Grid for Learning - Multiple Intelligences (Secondary) - 0 views

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    It has been claimed by some researchers that our intelligence or ability to understand the world around us is complex. Some people are better at understanding some things than others. For some of us it is relatively easy to understand how a flower grows but it is immensely difficult for us to understand and use a musical instrument. For others music might be easy but playing football is difficult. Instead of having one intelligence it is claimed that we have several different intelligences.
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ADMC HD Common Year English Writing: Process - 0 views

  • Process: How something happens, takes place. Often uses Passive tenses Procedure: Giving Directions or Instructions. Usually in Active voice
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    Describing a process means writing about how something is made or how something happens. Examples: the rainwater cycle, how coffee is grown, how glass is made, getting a driving license, starting a business.
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ESL BOX123: Process & Procedure Essay - 0 views

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BBC - Skillswise - English - 0 views

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    Practical literacy skills for adults. Choose a topic area.
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Azam: About writing - 0 views

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    Aku rasa budak2 MRSM ni tulis cerita tak best bukan pasal depa kurang tengok dunia ke apa (the Internet took care of that) tapi pasai depa kurang guna pancaindera. Semua benda diproses pakai otak. Mata nampak tapi tak melihat. Hidung bau tapi tak menghidu. Jari sentuh tapi tak merasa. Maka jadilah cerita fiksyen bunyi macam karangan fakta.
izz aty

Printable Teacher Songs and Poems - 0 views

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    Songs and Poems Printables: Pick a song or poem that you would like to print out.
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Writing Lesson Plans - Poetry - 0 views

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    Websites, lesson plans and books about poetry!
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Clines in language teaching | Recipes for the EFL classroom - 0 views

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    "Clines can be very effective in conveying and clarifying language, giving a very visual representation of meaning. They highlight shades of meaning, they are efficient and can cut down on teacher talking time. They also provide students with a good record of language to take home."
izz aty

How I Became an Unfair Teacher - Atlantic Mobile - 0 views

  • But most of all, people remember injustices. False accusations of cheating. Getting singled out randomly for scolding. Points deducted on a cheap technicality. As a teacher myself, I vowed I’d do better, that I’d run a fair classroom where every student got a voice and a straight deal.
  • The asymmetries of the classroom are intense. With each teacher responsible for a hundred students or more, the typical kid occupies a teacher’s thoughts for—at best—a minute or two per day. But each student only has a handful of teachers. Every instructor looms large in her world, wielding power over her days, via class periods; her nights, via homework; and her future, via grades. She spends much of her time thinking about the teacher’s demands, the teacher’s expectations, the teacher’s preferences and inconsistencies.
  • So when a teacher briefly focuses attention on a particular student, it comes with the heat and intensity of a spotlight. A moment the teacher barely remembers might stick with the student for years.
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  • Classroom lessons may slip quickly through students’ fingers, but the classroom experience lingers in memory. Each teacher offers students a different model of authority and justice. We set our own standards of fairness and sometimes fail to honor them. A teacher swings a heavy club, and we can leave big, purple bruises if we’re not careful.
  • My biggest rule is a familiar cliché: Always ask before drawing conclusions. It seems simple, but it's a defense against instinct.
  • My own memories of petty student frustrations should have taught me what a wrecking ball a teacher can be. But they didn’t. The understanding came only after carelessly knocking a few of my own students to the ground, and then working—slowly, purposefully—to help them back up.
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Job prospects bleak for adults with autism | Disability Now - 0 views

  • The National Autistic Society’s (NAS) Don’t Write Me Off report says that only 15 per cent of adults with autism in the UK are in full-time paid work and that many of those not in work are also excluded from the benefits system and rely on friends and family for financial support. More than a third of those surveyed said that their disability employment adviser’s knowledge of autism was “very bad” or “bad”. Peter Griffin, who has Asperger syndrome and is from Hertfordshire, works on a check-out at a supermarket one day a week. He has a masters degree in astrophysics and would like to teach maths.
  • The National Autistic Society’s (NAS) Don’t Write Me Off report says that only 15 per cent of adults with autism in the UK are in full-time paid work and that many of those not in work are also excluded from the benefits system and rely on friends and family for financial support.
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Master a third language, Idris Jusoh advises students | Malaysia | Malay Mail Online - 0 views

  • In his winding-up speech at the Umno General Assembly 2014 last Saturday, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also Education Minister, said the ministry was considering making the third language an elective subject. Muhyiddin made the announcement in response to a proposal by Wanita Umno head Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil at the assembly that learning a third language like Arabic, Mandarin or Tamil as an elective subject would make it a crucial communication tool towards fostering unity. “This (mastery of language) is not a new thing as in European countries, they master four languages such as English, French, German and Italian,” said Idris. He said four national schools in Besut would begin teaching Mandarin to Malay students, beginning next year
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Inclusive Education In Malaysia Education Essay - 0 views

  • Inclusive education in Malaysia originated from the ‘special education’ agenda as defined in the Education Act 1996 (1998) and its approach is referred to this tradition.
  • These mandates are intended to promote equal rights and access to education for persons with disabilities. The ‘educability’ criterion assumes that there are children who are uneducable within the public school system and thus these children are catered to within community-based rehabilitation (CBR) settings (MOE, 2006). CBR programmes are government-initiated, centre-based programmes at the community level aimed to provide education that emphasises therapy and rehabilitation to children with learning disabilities (Kuno, 2007). CBR programmes are quite detached from the mainstream school system. However, in practice, the division between both provisions is less definite, and students who should benefit from them become victims of bureaucratic procedures (Adnan & Hafiz, 2001).
  • Malaysia embarked on the first stage when the first school for the blind was opened in 1929, followed by a school for the deaf very much later in 1954
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  • These schools were initiated under the programs of the Ministry of Social Welfare with the help of religious missionaries. Malaysia entered its second stage when professional preparation programs for special education were formally established by the Ministry of Education in 1961. Lacking its own expertise and technology, Malaysia entered its third stage when it began importing knowledge and expertise by sending its education professionals abroad for research degrees and in-service attachments in special needs education in the 1980s and 1990s, and attempting to customize what was learned to its national conditions. Malaysia’s participation in international workshops and activities of the UN and UNESCO and subsequent reforms as reflected in the Education Act (1998) describes the active development of policy and changes in practices during this period. In 1993, the first preservice teacher preparation leading to a Bachelor of Education degree program in special needs education was initiated in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The program was developed alongside a collaborative project in curriculum development with three universities in the United Kingdom, namely, the Universities of Manchester, Birmingham and Cambridge (Jelas, 1996; 1999).
  • The terms ‘special needs’ introduced in the Education Act 1996 (1998) are defined as follows: “Pupils with special needs’ means pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities” And ‘inclusive education’ is introduced as part of the continuum of services available for children with special needs: “Special education programme” means – A programme which is provided in special schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment; An integrated programme in general schools for pupils with visual impairment or hearing impairment or with learning disabilities; and An inclusive education programme for pupils with special needs and who are able to attend normal classes together with normal pupils” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 341)
  • However, the eligibility for special education placement is based on the ‘educability’ of children as assessed by a team of professionals. This is documented in the Act, which states: “(1) For government and government-aided schools, pupils with special needs who are educable are eligible to attend the special education programme except for the following pupils: physically handicapped pupils with the mental ability to learn like normal pupils; and pupils with multiple disabilities or with profound physical handicap or severe mental retardation. A pupil with special needs is educable if he is able to manage himself without help and is confirmed by a panel consisting of a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD, as capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998, p. 342) The eligibility dilemma
  • While the current public policy for children with special educational needs, particularly those categories of children classified as experiencing ‘learning disabilities’ have access to regular schools as stated in the Act, the ‘educability’ criteria contradicts the goals of providing equal education opportunities as stipulated in the United Nation’s Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (1993), The Salamanca Statement (1994) and the Biwako Millenium Framework for Action (UNESCAP, 2002).
  • Foreign experts are initially relied upon to provide the knowledge and to encourage its development prior to the emergence of a profession within a country. The first professionals to provide services are usually trained abroad. The second stage followed this first stage, in which colleges and universities established programs and departments to teach the discipline and prepare the professionals. The second stage leads to the third stage, in which colleges and universities import developed from abroad to achieve standards that characterised the discipline in more developed nations. During this stage, the concepts, theories and models of implementation found in the more developed countries are taught, applied and tested; some of which may transfer more successfully than others.
  • Before special programmes were available, students with special needs were described by their characteristics and by the instructional challenges they presented to teachers. When the education system began to respond to the needs of each emerging group of special needs students, services were established and eligibility criteria determined. From that point on, a child was identified (for school and placement purposes) as having or experiencing a ‘special educational need’ and if he or she is “able to manage him or herself without help” (Education Act 1996, 1998), the child will be eligible for a given programme or service. This process was repeated as each new group of special needs students emerged – for example, children with visual and hearing impairments in the 1960s, children with mild intellectual in the 1980s and 1990s, and more recently, children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and children with dyslexia.
  • in the Education Act 1996 (1998) that the perspectives of professionals (“a medical practitioner, an officer from the MOE and an officer from the Welfare Department of the MWFCD” p. 342) have the most power in determining the way children are categorised and whether these children are “capable of undergoing the national educational programme” (Education Act 1996, 1998)
  • policy makers and professionals continue to see special schools and classes as well as categories as having an important place in provisions. Responses at the Ministerial level revealed an emphasis on diversity and acceptance of human characteristics as problematic and that learning difficulties are technical problems that require specialised discipline knowledge that cannot be dealt with in the “normal classes with normal children” (Education Act 1996, 1998 p. 341).
  • The National Report on the development of education states: Inclusion in Malaysia subscribed to the concept of placing SEN students into mainstream classes to be educated alongside their peers, either with or without additional support, and within the present school system. This concept of IE (inclusive education) might not be in line with the ideal concept based on “acceptance, belonging and about providing school settings in which all disadvantaged children can be valued equally and be provided with equal educational opportunities … (MOE, 2004, p. 28),
  • Even though inclusive education was implemented at the policy level more than 10 years ago and school participation has rapidly increased quantitatively, Malaysia is far from reaching its goal of providing “a responsive education path for every child and youth with SEN” (MOE, 2004)
  • The emphasis on the ability “to cope with mainstream learning” seemed consistent with the integration models that came about in the 1980s. Integration models mainly focused on placing students with mild disabilities, identified and “diagnosed” as having special needs in mainstream schools. In such models, students must adapt to the norms, expectations, styles, routines and practices of the education system instead of the education system adapting to the learner (UNESCO, 2008). The integrated programme is the dominant format for delivering services to special needs students in Malaysia, then and now.
  • Once placed, few special education students returned to the regular education class on full-time basis. Although the special classroom and special schools continued as options, integrated programmes (placement in regular classrooms) for students with visual and hearing impairments are available with support from the resource teacher
  • Historically, the disenchantment of many special educators and the concern of the efficacy of the prevailing approach (Ainscow, 1994; Meyen & Skrtic, 1995; Sorrells, Rieth & Sindelar, 2004; Stainback & Stainback, 1992) raised questions about how best to assure a quality and equitable education for students with disabilities and spawned the push for a more inclusive approach to special education programming. While these reforms were mandated in the United Nations Declarations and UNESCO’s Framework of Actions on special needs education of which Malaysia’s policy on inclusive education subscribes to, the focus on diagnosis, prescription, and intervention continued to be central to determining eligibility and making placement decisions. Thus, although special education practices had changed, the grounding assumptions of human pathology and organisational rationality (Biklen, 2000; Oliver, 1996; Skrtic, 1991) have not been critically examined. In this context, special education is used to maintain and legitimise exclusion of students with disabilities within a school culture and system characterised by competition and selection (Skrtic, 1995; Corbett, 1999; Slee, 2001; Kearney & Kane, 2006).
  • While the philosophical basis of including SEN students into mainstream schools is accepted as a policy, the continued legitimization of paradigms that exclude SEN students is also acknowledged by rationalising between the “ideal” and the “not-so-ideal” concept of inclusive education. This ambivalence is reinforced by the following statements: Prior to inclusion, especially in the early part of their formal education, SEN students are equipped with relevant basic skills and knowledge to enable them to cope with mainstream learning. Only those who are diagnosed capable to cope with mainstream learning would be included fully or partially. (MOE, 2004, p. 29)
  • In principle, Malaysia is committed to providing education for all with the implementation of compulsory education in 2003 as evident by a high participation rate of 98.49 per cent (MOE, 2004). This statement of intent towards compulsory education for all which was an amendment of the Education Act 1996, however, did not include children with disabilities
  • The radical perspective that leads to a reconceptualisation of special educational needs have been well documented for the past twenty years (Barton, 1988; Lipsky & Gartner, 1989; Ainscow, 1991; Fuchs & Fuchs, 1994; Clark et. al., 1998; Donoghue, 2003) and critiques argued and showed evidence how the education system creates rather than remediate disabilities (Skrtic, 1991; Corbett, 1999; Vlachou, 2004; Carrington & Robinson, 2006). The new perspective on special educational needs is based on the view that the way forward must be to reform schools in ways that will make them respond positively to pupil diversity, seeing individual differences as something to be nurtured. But, as cautioned by Ainscow (1994): This kind of approach is only possible in schools where there exist a respect for individuality and a culture of collaboration that encourages and supports problem-solving. Such cultures are likely to facilitate the learning of all pupils and, alongside them, the professional learning of all teachers. Ultimately, therefore, this line of argument makes the case that increasing equity is the key to improvements in schooling for all. (Ainscow, 1994, p12)
  • Education in Malaysia is driven largely by an examination–oriented system characterised by curriculum rigidity and rote learning rather than critical and independent thinking. Like schools in Singapore and Hong Kong (Poon-McBrayer, 2004), school leadership are in great pressure to compete for the best examination results in terms of the percentages of passes and the number of A’s acquired by students in public school examinations
  • The culture of elitism compels parents to prepare their children to be accepted into high ranking or fully residential schools which usually achieve high scores in examination results.
  • Although the ‘intertwining of the standards and inclusion agenda’ can lead to positive consequences (Ainscow et al, 2006), the emphasis on the preparation and drill for the public examinations therefore, left little or no time for teachers to accommodate individual learning needs of students in general. Media reports on schools’ and students’ performance intensify competition and further marginalise SEN students, who, to a large extent are not expected to compete. Competing priorities make it more difficult for schools to fully include children with SEN.
  • Continued advancement of special needs education in Malaysia will require bifocal perspectives. One focus has an international perspective and requires Malaysians’ awareness of the international body of literature and trends in practice that enables them to take advantage of the knowledge and experience gained by those in other countries. Malaysia may also profit especially from knowledge provided by its Asian neighbours namely Japan, India and China, or other countries that seems to be struggling with many of the same issues.
  • effective special needs education services require awareness of social and educational traditions, social philosophies that manifest in schooling and school culture and ways of resolving conflict that may be unique to one country and the impact these qualities have on general and special needs education services (Peters, 2003).
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