Friday, September 11, 2009

I'm done marking! I am so glad that I'm through with it.The past 8 days were terrible. I was tempted to fail many of them but at the same time I knew that making them repeat the paper would not help them to improve their English either. The results proved that we the educators were not miracle workers and that the fourteen weeks we had with them was not enough.

As I marked the written work, I noticed that students were very much alike in their thoughts. The storyline of their essays were very predictable. Where did they get their ideas from? The sample essays sold in the market? I understand that many have poor command in their language but I am disturbed that many of them lacked in ideas. They did not have logical reasoning in their points for essay.

I remembered myself sharing with my students on our Deputy Prime Minister- Tan Sri Dato' Haji Muhyiddin bin Mohd. Yassin once and my students asked me who was that. Surprised by that question I asked my students from other classes if they knew who this man was and only a handful of them told me that he is the Deputy Prime Minister. How could tertiary students not know who their Deputy Prime Minister was? In fact, what do they actually know?

I'm disturbed by it and at the same time keen to create some awareness within them....where do I begin?.....how to make them think and at the same time enjoy it?

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