Thursday, April 9, 2009


my best friend and me

BLOG QUEstiOnAiRe- SKBP 1023™

Age : 20 years old

Tutorial group : group 3

Lecturer : Assoc Prof Datin Dr. Norizan Abdul Razak

1. Do you enjoy blogging?

Yes because this is my first experience to have my own blog although it is only for posting my SKBP-1023 assignment and I really enjoy it.

2. Based on your experience what is benefit of blogging?

The benefit of blogging is we can share our ideas or opinions with another people without need to feel guilty and there is no limit.

3. Do you need more assistance to set your blog?

Of course I need more assistance right now to set my blog because this is my first blog. I need someone else to help and explain to me what the function for each gadget is.

4. Do you have any memorable / favorite topic in your blog?

No memorable and favourite topic.

5. List 5 advantages of blogging for you

· The process is more like play and less like work

· Blogging is easy

· Blog can reflect the personality

· Cost efficient advertising

· Blog can be a positive way of getting feedback, and keeping your finger on the pulse, as readers react to certain pieces, suggest story ideas, etc.

6. List 5 disadvantages of blogging

· Most people don’t have very much to say that’s interesting, and or are unable to write down their ideas in a compelling and clear manner.

· I have often found that the people who have most time to write have least to say, and the people who have most to say don’t have enough time to write it. Thus, the real expertise within the organization lays hidden, as you get drowned in trivia.

· Like practically everything else on the Web, blogs are easy to start and hard to maintain.

· It can be quite stressful when you’re overwhelmed with posting schedules, deadlines, e-mails and other mambo jumbo that might intervene. This all ads up and can be damaging to your health.

· There is a risk that an ill-judged comment could be seized upon by the media or disgruntled investors.

7. Will you continue blogging after the course?

Yes because I feel this blog can be medium to contact for each other between my course mate and me, and also between my lecturer and me.

8. Do you think that blogging improve your writing?

Yes.

9. Do you think that we should continue with blogging activity for the next batch of students?

Yes.

10. Will you recommend your friend to blog?

Yes.

11. Can you teach a friend to set up his or her blog?

No by right now and yes for the future.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

THANKs foR VisiTiNg☺


CONcorDaNcE™

Posting 5 is about CONCORDANCE. I have found two articles about concordance and its applications in language learning.

FIRST ARTICLE

The first article is about 'Is there any measurable learning from hands-on concordancing?’ by Tom Cobb, Division of Language Studies, City University of Hong Kong. To know more detail, you can read the summary that I have evaluated.

Summary

This article attempts to identify a specific learning effect that can be unambiguously attributed to the use of concordance software by language learners. A base-level hypothesis for learning from concordances is proposed, that a computer concordance might simulate and potentially rationalize off-line vocabulary acquisition by presenting new words in several contexts. To test this idea, an experimental lexical tutor was developed to introduce new words to subjects, either through concordances or through other sources of lexical information. In a series of tests involving transfer of word knowledge to novel contexts, a small but consistent gain was found for words introduced through concordances.
If you want to read more about this article, just link to http://www.lextutor.ca/cv/Hands_on.html
SECOND ARTICLE
The topic of the second article is ‘Giving learners something to do with concordance output’ by Tom Cobb. I hope that you can make the first view about this article by read my summary about it.
Summary
The article is about Hands-on learner concordance that has been regularly described for more than 15 years as an interesting approach in computer assisted language learning. However, it is not clear that concordance is ever used with any but advanced students (while the vast majority of language learners are intermediate), for more than a handful of guided sessions (which rarely lead to subsequent independent use), or that there is any demonstrated learning advantage of concordance over cheaper means of exploring a second language (e.g., dictionaries, grammar books, TV or cassettes).
You also can read this article by visit this web, http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/conference/papers/Cobb
My Own Personal View
Concordance is a tool or a program (software) that helps to list the words in context. Purpose for concordance is to analyze the text and it’s suitable for those who want to study texts closely or analyze language in depth. We can use concordance to make indexes and word lists. Secondly, we can use it to counting word frequencies. This can help us to make sure our work easier. Other than that, using concordance, we can compare different usages of a word, analyze keywords, find phrases and idioms, and publish it to the web. Applications of concordance, besides language teaching and learning we also can apply concordance as a data mining and data clean-up. Like me, I use it as our literary work and linguistic. Concordances are frequently used as a tool in linguistics that can be used for the study of a text, such as: comparing different usages of the same word, analysing keywords, analysing word frequencies, finding and analysing phrases and idioms, finding translations of sub sentential elements, e.g. terminology, in bitexts and translation memories, creating indexes and word lists (also useful for publishing).