4th Post! We're Bridging You, Digital Divides!

Okay, so I've read two articles about digital divides and the issues regarding the bridging of said divides. Here are the summaries!

First one is 'Bridging the Digital Divide' by Teresa Peters of Bridges.org. How does one measure a digital divide? According to Teresa, a digital divide between countries is measured "in terms of the number of telephones, computers and Internet users". Between groups of people in a certain country, however, race, gender, disability, income, age and location are used as measurements. Despite growing use of ICT, the digital divide is growing faster than it can be bridged because there are ICT 'haves' and ICT 'have-nots'. ICT 'haves' are increasing their access and use at a rapid rate, whereas the 'have-nots' are getting left further and further behind, even though they are technically increasing their own access and use.

So what is being done to address this problem?

Governments, individuals, etc have studied the problem and have suggested ways to overcome it, such as specific ground level initiatives and policy reforms. Many also cover wider issues that affect the digital divides, such as e-commerce and information society. Major international initiatives like the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) bring leaders and decision-makers from all over the world together to discuss the key factors and how to deal with them. But most of the time, it is a lot of talk with no action. There are also many 'on-the-ground' operations that are trying to help deprived populations get access to technology. Efforts range from creating centres where poor people can use the telephone and the internet, to programs using innovative technology in small business applications and are driven by organizations that range from the tiny, like SchoolNet, Namibia's effort to put computers in schools; to the gargantuan like HP's $1 billion "E-Inclusion" initiative to promote hardware innovations suitable for developing country environments. However, most of these efforts do not become self-sustaining because local people do not use them as they do not have locally relevant material.

So what exactly is needed? Well, real access, for one. Access to technology would not be enough if the local people do not use it because it is not affordable or they can't understand it. Bridges.org has come up with 12 factors that would determine whether ICT can be effectively used by the people:

1. Physical access
2. Appropriate technology
3. Affordability
4. Capacity
5. Relevant content
6. Integration
7. Socio-cultural factors
8. Trust
9. Legal and regulatory framework
10. Macro-economic environment
11. Political will
12. Local economic environment

Governments also play a fundamental role in creating a technology-friendly enviroment. It is their responsibility to use technology to ensure that their citizens would have long-term economic growth and social prosperity. To cross the digital divide and put ICT to effective use
to improve people’s lives, countries and communities must be "e-ready" in terms of infrastructure, access, training, and a legal and regulatory framework that will foster ICT use. If the digital divide is to be narrowed, these issues must be addressed in a coherent, achievable strategy that is tailored to meet local needs.

Whew that was super long. And now, on to the next one! This is summarised from The Digital Divide: Current and Future Research Directions, by Sanjeev Dewan and Frederick J. Riggins.

The digital divide is being bridged by way of providing internet access for everybody, but there are problems that arise, such as lack of tutorials that would help the population use what has been provided. There are some obstacles in the way, which hinder the bridging process, as what has been discovered in the study utilizing methods from visual studies, Barbatsis et. al (2004). It notes that many minorities find the content, information and services found on the Web irrelevent to their lives. The authors have found that the digital divide may well be more of a design issue than a socio-economic problem as the computer interface consists of icons, menus and command words that are familiar to white, middle-class culture but may seem foreign to others. Plus, visitors to websites like to feel that the web designer is someone like them. If there is a lack of 'near-peer experience', they would feel discouraged from adopting and further using that site, hindering the bridging process.

Besides appropriate interface and design, another way to bridge the digital divide is to provide ways other than the traditional means of access. Zhang and Wolff (2004) have developed an economic cost model to examine the possibility of providing broadband WiFi access to rural and remote areas using a few new technologies like high-grain antennas and multi-hop routing. The results prove that using innovative technologies can result in economic ways to enable people who live in remote places to receive internet services.

And now we've reached the end (at last!!) of the post. It is definitely not easy to bridge the divide, and I'm super glad to have internet!!

Last (6th) post! Blog Questionnaire

Age: 20 (going on 21!)

Tutorial group: ....um. I cant remember.

Lecturer: Mr Afendi (this one i can remember!)

1. Do you enjoy blogging?
Yep!

If yes or no, please explain why.
Because it is fun, and it is a great way to allow people to keep up with the goings on in my life! And its really easy for me to keep up with the goings on in my friends' lives as well - well, those who blog, that is.

2. Based on your experience, what is the benefit of blogging?
In my experience, blogging enables one to put forth one's opinions in a place where anybody can read them. If one is naturally opinionated, this would be a very very big benefit. Also, as I have stated above, it is a great way to keep up and be kept up with!

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

4. Do you have any memorable/favourite topic in your blog?
Nope... I like all my topics, or else I wont have posted them!

5. List 5 advantages of blogging for you
i) I can share things that interest me with my friends/the world, such as tv shows, music, etc via videos, pics, and/or written reviews.
ii) I can share details of my life, and in a more interesting manner than just talking because i can add pictures
iii) It's fun to read other people's blogs
iv) i can join communities, etc, where i can meet people with similar interests and suchlike
v) my blog is my own personal space where I can post my own opinions on things. i like!

6. List 5 disadvantages of blogging
i) there is a risk of getting embroiled in controversy (esp. in m'sia!), so one has to be very, very careful. which, obv, takes the fun out of the 'i can say whatever i like on MY blog!' thing.
ii) unless it is privatised, your blog can be stalked by weirdos.
iii) weirdos can actually save whatever pics you post online, and do weird things with them.
iv) again, if not privatised, people can post random (and hurtful!) comments on your blog.
v) there might actually be pressure to keep updating one's blog, especially if that blog has many followers. blogs are supposed to be fun! sometimes its just as big a pressure as work and assignments.

7. Will you continue blogging after this course?
Yes!

If yes or no, please explain why
Because I have a private blog that is not related to the course, and I'll continue updating it with stuff from my life as well as the random observations i like to inflict on whoever visits.

8. Do you think that blogging improves your writing?
Nope

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

10. Will you recommend your friend to blog?
Yep!

11. Can you teach a friend to set up his or her blog?
Yep! But there are step-by-step instructions already....

5th academic post! Concordancing for Language Learning?

When you think of a concordance, what do you think of? I immediately envision boring, dry tomes that need a concordance because the words in the said tomes aren't generally used in day-to-day conversations now, therefore we need the concordance to grasp the context of the words. Examples: the Bible and Shakespearian works.

Before I go into my personal opinion of concordances and its benefits (or lack thereof), let me summarise the article i read in order to fully understand what concordancing is.

First up is Concordancing in Language Learning by John Flowerdew. He states that 'error analysis and correction' is a good way for learners to begin using concordances, as it gives learners specific words to search for, and simultaneously they can also see the (if any) differences between the way they use their language and the way the concordance does. One of the easiest ways to learn language through concordancing is to practice serendipity learning - allowing learners to use the concordancer as and when they wish, for whatever purpose they wish. Easiness aside, there are also benefits that can be reaped from the serendipity method such as:

i) learners are autonomous and responsible for their own learning,
ii) searches are learner-initiated, therefore the results will be tailored to the learner's needs, and
iii) researching a language this way will make learners develop an overall awareness of the language.

Inductive learning uses the application of inductive and deductive reasoning. For example, if a teacher presents material, and explains it using a concordance, then it is a deductive approach. HOwever, if the learner is told to research about the material using a concordance, it is then an inductive approach to learning. Serendipity learning, for instance, is inductive learning. This method of learning makes it possible for students to access the concordance to answer specific questions. Hence, learners become researchers, because they initiate the search question and look for the answers by themselves.

A few writers have suggested a use like the one described, for example Pickard (1993) has described an EAP course called 'Learning from Expert Writers' in which learners are trained to use the concordance independantly as a tool to improve their writing. Ma (1993) has also described a similar situation which encourages learners to use a concordancer and access a corpus to enhance their writing.

Both applications are in sync with a suggestion made by Levy (1990) for the concordancer to be available online so that it is possible to access a dictionary, spellchecker, thesaurus and grammar-checker. According to Levy, learners may use the concordancer in the following ways:

i) checking meaning
ii) checking general syntax
iii) checking usage
iv) exploring special lexis especially ESP vocabulary
v) checking derived forms
vi) checking collocates of words
vii) exploring set pieces; eg: phrases, cliches

And that's pretty much all from Flowerdew's article!

In my personal opinion, concordancers are very useful in language learning because it is very important to know how to use a word in certain contexts and the concordancer helps you - and very clearly too - by listing down a particular word in all the sentences it appears in. This makes it easy to study and learn, one word at a time.

I'm not a teacher, but I can imagine that teaching would also be somewhat easier. Instead of having to think up contexts in which a particular word can be used, one can check it out with the help of a concordancer! And it is also (i think) easier to teach students - instead of having to drill all the rules and possible uses of each word, it is much much easier for students to understand (and therefore, for teachers to teach) when there are examples for them to look at and understand.

There, those are my two cents worth. I hope I sort of make sense!

The pic and video that was requested.

I suppose this is TECHNICALLY an academic post.. but it's so much more fun to post pics and videos!!

So, this is me (in case there arent enough pics of me on this blog, and maybe you have short-term memory loss and just cannot remember what i look like) camwhoring outside the steamboat place where we had sin yee's birthday party.


This is well, me again, with mun yee this time!
Me and Mun Yee, we used to sit together in class and get into SO MUCH trouble cos we'd never EVER stop talking. We'd literally start when we saw each other in the morning and continue the whole day til it was time to go home. Man, our class teacher hated us so bad... she threatened to mark down my testimonial, and that scared the crap out of me. I never kissed ass so much and with so much enthusiasm as i did the couple of weeks before the testimonials were due to come out. Worked, though. My comments came out as 'seorang murid yang mesra' instead of 'seorang murid yang bercakap banyak dan tidak memberi perhatian di dalam kelas' which was what she said would come out.

heh heh. there are major benefits to ass-kissing, i tell you. hated every second of it, though.

Ooh, ooh, i really love this song! it's only the most romantic song ever. Listen to it! I defy you to tell me it's just blah.

3rd post! Another boring academic post (kidding! .... or am I? *mysterious music*)

"Hey, i dunno how to find lyrics online."
"Use a search engine, you dummy."
"Search engine? Whazzat?"

Unless you're as clueless as the dummy, you'd pretty much already know what is a search engine and its basic function - basically, to search. According to Wikipedia, 'a web search engine is a tool designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are usually presented in a list, and are commonly known as 'hits'. The information may consist of webpages, images, information, and other types of files.'

A few of the numerous search engines available on the internet include mamma metasearch, yahoo! search, google scholar, and eric digest. As is obvious, they share similarities such as search capabilities, and all of them except for eric digest have a minimalist page (just a box to enter the search keywords, and a few tabs). Mamma Metasearch and Yahoo! search are both 'regular' search engines, which mean that they are used to search for general things, whereas Eric Digests and Google Scholar are specifically for academicia-related searches. Mamma and Yahoo! also have directory options, enabling the user to search for specific places.

Similarity-wise, Yahoo! and Mamma enable internet users to search the web, video, search for businesses and jobs, and make it easier for shoppers to compare prices. They differ on many points, for example, Yahoo! also has tabs for people to search for images, audio (songs, etc), answers (people post questions and other users may answer them. the answers are rated, based on how useful they are), and, most importantly, the directory that Yahoo! first started out as. It was the start of the Web search thing, when there were no bots to go around looking through websites and people actually went from site to site, categorizing them and posting their work on the Yahoo! directory. Mamma's unique feature is both the Yellow Pages, and the White Pages. The Yellow Pages is similar to Yahoo's 'Local' tab, which enables people to search for business, and the White Pages is used to search for people. Mamma also has a 'Travel' tab, which is useful for those who are about to travel. The tab makes it easy for people to compare prices between airlines, and search for rental car and hotel room availability, as well as book cruises.

Google Scholar and Eric Digests, are, as I mentioned earlier, more specific search sites - all academic stuff! So, compared to Mamma Metasearch and Yahoo! search, they have very limited search capabilities. However, they are very useful for researches and suchlike, as they both allow users to search for academic works. There are differences, though. Eric Digests only allow users to search for documents (reports, etc) that are produced by the former Eric Clearinghouse system. Google Scholar, however, searches journals, not reports like Eric Digest. More specifically, Eric Digests targets teachers, administrators etc, but is generally useful to the broad educational community. Google Scholar, while useful to educators and students, covers a broad spectrum of topics, and is not confined merely to education-related issues.

Oh, and there's a new search engine that is about to be launched, called Wolfram/Alpha. According to Information Week, Wolfram/Alpha is a computational knowledge engine. It is being designed by Stephen Wolfram, to answer any factual question; a breakthrough in technology with the potential to 'redefine the act of research itself.'. It uses semantic web technology, which is, according to Wikipedia (my favourite website! or maybe only til wolfram/alpha is launched), an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content. Cool stuff, huh. Imagine being able to type out 'when was the atom bomb created?' instead of typing out 'atom bomb' and having to sift through all the stuff you didn't ask for but are facts of the atom bomb. Research will be way faster!

Oh and by the way, researching this topic was mind-numbing. Can't wait for the Wolfram/Alpha launch. May, baby! Just a couple of months to go!

College Dinner!

MAP was pretty nice, corporate theme notwithstanding. I had my girls, so we entertained ourselves... though during the speeches (VERY pro-palapes) i though we'd pass out and die from boredom. sad, but true. anyhow, a couple of pics from the night, the rest i have to steal from chrissy's camera, and the pics from mine will have to come later cos i forgot to bring my cable.

From left: lisa, hani, me and gloria. Hani's hand is blocking my face, dammit, but its still a nice pic. taken during a group excursion to the ladies'. hehe. the toilet in panggung seni is way bigger and nicer than the ones in dectar! so we obviously had to take pics in there for, you know, memories. so we'd remember which side has the bigger and nicer toilet.

The ktho debate team that made it to semi finals (and almost had mental breakdowns in the process)!! first speaker (me), second speaker (hazel) and third speaker (hani bunny)... good times. some sore loser called us the 'bimbo ktho team'. well, the bimbos kicked your ass, boy, and don't you forget it!

What i'd like to think of as my 'demure pose'. ^.^

All in all, fun night. And omg, all the palapes dudes were HOT HOT HOT in suits. Abg wan in a suit!! There are perks to living in ktho after all! =D

2nd post! Blogs: A method of improvng one's english?

It is, theoretically, possible to improve one's language, and specifically, writing skills by blogging. However, it is imperative to have somebody with a high language proficiency level available to check what has been written. If not, the blogger will just keep making the same mistakes, and, worse, become set in his or her ways, making it even harder to be corrected once the mistakes have been - belatedly - discovered.

it may be best to join an english language blogging community, where there are many people with the same purpose - to improve their english. There, the community supports its members and it is easier to learn when there are people to correct one's mistakes and answer any questions that are posed. It is almost like a classroom, only a virtual one, and correction may not be immediate, depending on who's online. An example of english learning blog communities is the english blog. There are also bloggers who set up their own blogs, and ask for people to help them correct grammatical mistakes, etc. However, these aren't so successful, as people may or may not give helpful comments. For example, English learning blog is written by Emilio, who published posts, but never seemed to improve much. The motivation is very obvious, however, it just wasn't very effective without a constant group of people to help him out. The blog's last post is dated the 6th of December 2006, and his english still wasnt very good, which proves that he
a) gave up, and
b) didnt improve much.

The thing about blogging is that it is fun to read other blogs as well. Assuming they are all written in perfect english, reading other blogs is an entertaining way to learn improve one's grasp of english, subsequently improving one's writing skills (larger vocabulary, proper grammar, etc). An individual can then, with his or her new knowledge, write posts using what was learned, therefore practicing, and commiting the knowledge to memory. This is how writing skills are improved by blogging, in my humble opinion.

As a blogger of sorts, i have also found many blogs that i find extremely interesting and i visit them practically daily. Amongst them are Perez Hilton's celebrity gossip blog, and Katie Macalister's blog (one of my favourite authors).

And that's all for now! =D

Theme: Corporate. Grumble grumble, complain, whine.

I can't believe I have to wear CORPORATE WEAR to my college dinner. College dinner? Formal? Preferably gowns, etc? Nope, not ktho, home of the palapes. WE buck the trend. WE wear effing corporate-type clothes to dinner. WOW. The night every girl dreams of: looking like a cross-dresser. oh, and the night every guy dreams of: girls in shirts.

AND i was thinking about wearing this really cute yellow blouse that's sleeveless.. i mean, it's a dinner right? they might not mind the sleeveless.. after all, if the theme was different, i definitely wont be wearing anything with darned sleeves. but i talked to hani bunny about it.. and she was like 'nope, better not, abg wan will be there. after naik nafsu.' and i'm like 'oh, yeah! darn it! now my wardrobe choice is even more limited... cos the sight of my exposed upper arms might drive our ydp to depravity'. and the sad thing is? i wasnt even kidding. i hate ktho. if only moving out was a more popular option with my friends. argh.

but anyhow. still seriously considering the blouse. i mean, nobody is going to literally leap on me and wrestle me to the ground right? i should be bloody well able to wear what i want to the darn college dinner.

clarification: it's not just my upper arms that might cause the nafsu-ness. it's everybody's upper arms. nobody's safe!!

Eye candy of the day

Zac Efron is hot. Zac Efron in a leather jacket just blasts my thermometer into smithereens. Thank you, God!

First! Academic Post Today

Reading for pleasure is...

First things first. What is reading? It's a relatively simple question that nonetheless stopped us in our tracks. I mean, what is reading? We just take it for granted that when we pick up a book, we'd just see the alphabets and comprehend their meaning and voila! That is reading!

But no, reading is, according to my lecture notes, the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language.

Tough stuff. =P

Anyhow. I've chosen to discuss reading for pleasure cos, honestly, that's the only reason I want to read at all. An example of what I read for pleasure would be poems, at an online poetry workshop - http://poetrycritical.net/

they met in a confession room we are imperfect. behind locked doors 1 both minister and sister 2 share their last 3 adulterated cheroot 4 wrapped in profane 5 Manila paper, 6 and cloaked in sacred 7 Venetian drapes 8 they speak of forbidden love- 9 half truths and half lies, 10 while Sunday pew warmers 11 gather reluctantly 12 to receive the Truth 13 that would set them free. 14 16 May 04 [!]

The above poem is by a poet on that site, called mrkhoo.

As far as the comprehension process goes, internet reading and 'proper' reading (books, etc) isn't much different, therefore no new skills are needed beyond the ability to surf the internet. It is, perhaps, easier to understand the poetry when it is online, because when one is on the internet, there is easy access to online dictionaries, or even other poetry sites which one can use to compare, i don't know, styles of poetry or something. However, this site can be considered 'web-based learning', only it is the poet who learns, not the reader. As it is an online poetry workshop, the level of interaction between the poet and his or her readers is very high, compared to if it was a published piece of work, as it is possible to leave comments regarding the work. And learning-wise, again, there is no new skill needed to learn, only the ability to actually use the internet and a computer. So it is not that different skills are needed, per se, just additional ones.

I hope I make sense.

Taxed Mental Capacity

Wow, it is not easy to memorise a five minute long speech. But I did it! Go me! My brain is exhausted. >.<

Frustration

I've been trying to do a tense table, with active and passive sentences, and all that whatnot, and all i've gotten for my trouble is this massive migraine. I'm doing literature, dammit! It's about the art of the language, not the technicalities (sorry, mr ravi, i know you think them important)! Argh. I know, i know; as mr ravi says, to break the rules as literature often does, one must first know the rules. But still! I KNOW how to use past perfect or perfect continuous tenses, its just that when i use them, i don't really know what they ARE. It's frustrating! Do i need to know them? Sometimes, i get a vague understanding of their importance, but most of the time i feel that i've survived without knowing their names for coming on 21 years, and another 21 years of blissful ignorance will suit me just fine.

And on a related subject, passive sentences are boring, dry, and just plain screwed up. They make the sentence sound like it's coming from very far away, or something. 'The letter was typed by Sharon' sounds so.... I dunno... listless. I sppose that's where the term 'passive' came from. Ah well. Going to sleep now. Midvalley tmr! I heart fridays! NO CLASS!

New Author Discovery!

She's not new to the market, but she's new to me! Lisa Kleypas, this FABULOUS romance writer. I downloaded a whole bunch of her books, and i started reading just now... omg! super fantabulousity! it's about a bunch of wallflowers, as is easily deduced, and its full of love and good old bodice-ripping romance! Simple and warm feeling-inducing, i just couldn't stop reading the minute i started. This is her latest Wallflower book, titled A Wallflower Christmas.

Havent actually read it yet, but i've downloaded it already. Just the right kind of fluff to make you go mushy inside. ^_^

So today, Adriana Lima was mentioned as an incentive to stay awake.


Here she is, in full lingerie glory. I have to say though, she does nothing for me. Well. I'm, of course, straight, so as I've posted something to keep guys awake, I now wanna post something that has kept ME awake during the long hours doing assignments. Just look at this and tell me that it doesn't motivate you to keep your eyes open!!

Henry Cavill! *swoons* This pic was taken to promote his movie - Tristan + Isolde, a medieval Romeo and Juliet story - a couple of years ago. He's now in The Tudors, this really fabulous tv series by Showtime, that deals with King Henry VIII and his wives. He's the king's best bud, but even though he isn't the main character, he still gets a lot of screen time and a LOT of love from the ladies! Especially in the first season. Yeah, the tv show got a lot of flak for being historically inaccurate, from the costumes and hair to the fact the the king (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, another hottie!) isn't portrayed as fat and ginger-haired, and also because it's totally sexed up. I think they used the really hot relationship between Anne Boleyn and King Henry as a selling point, and so they really REALLY played it up a lot. This is a promotional picture, I swear to god, and it just proves how shows made by the British are way more open than American ones.


Not bad huh? This is the most decent i could find, actually. Compare The Tudor's Anne Boleyn
with The Other Boleyn Girl's Anne Boleyn
No cleavage in sight, this one. Anyhow, the Tudors is still way better in how they portrayed Anne Boleyn as a rounded character (my lit-ness is escaping me), and not just a one-dimensional, really horrible person. Yeah, and my history nerdiness is showing itself too. I can't help it! I just really love all the stories, especially around the Tudor era. Anne Boleyn, and her daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, expecially. Woman power! I'm pretty sure HBO will show the Tudors sometime, but i'm also pretty positive a lot of the show will be chopped off due to censorship (it really has a lot of indecent scenes, i watched it online). So anyway, i'll post the trailer, but i warn you, it's pretty pervy. So... don't watch it if you don't wanna see nekkidness! Sex aside, i swear its a good show. Especially the second season... the first one is a bit slow-moving.

I Want it That Way

A music meme... hahaha... just put your ipod or whatever song player you have on shuffle, and answer the questions with the title of whatever song pops up!

IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY' YOU SAY?
So Yesterday - Hillary Duff

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Feelings - Il Divo

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Playing Favourites - The Starting Line

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
Don't Look Back In Anger - Oasis

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
Voyeur (The Enema Strikes Back) - Blink 182 (come on! i mean... seriously? that canNOT be my life's purpose - 'voyeur' and 'enema' are two words i do not want associated with myself or my life's purpose!!)

WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
Grow Up and Blow Away - Metric

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
I Remember - Mocca

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Better For You - Kutless

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
The Remedy (I wont worry) - Jason Mraz

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
Menghapus Jejakmu - Peterpan

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Heaven Here - Dashboard Confessional

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
Ghost of a Good Thing - Dashboard COnfessional (what the heck??! it is NOT)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
Mimpi yang Sempurna - Peterpan (hahahahahaha)

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
Kerajaan Cinta - Dewa (so apt)

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?

Your Own Disaster - Taking Back Sunday (is that a warning??)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
Dont Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
Healing Dream - DJ Tiesto (well it goes with what i want to be when i grow up, i guess.)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
Adagio For Strings - DJ Tiesto (it sounds scarier than the title suggests)

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
I Write Sins, Not Tragedies - Panic at the Disco

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?
I Still Believe - Mariah Carey

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
Menunggumu - Peterpan

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
I Want it That Way - Backstreet Boys

haha.. had loads of fun filling this meme out with my friend!! blogs are pretty damn fun!

how do we learn English?

Honestly, before we had to do a linguistics course in our first semester, i had never actually given serious thought as to how we pick up a language. Of course, one's first instinct is to answer 'in school, of course,' but i don't think i've actually learned much from school, mainly because my teachers taught us boring things like grammar and spelling. Yes, those are important, but those are also, unfortunately, the things that do not stick in a person's brain. Because those school lessons only lasted for about an hour, three times a week, we weren't really drilled on conversational skills, or encouraged to read, two skills i find are important when picking up a language as complicated and full of slang as English.

Personally, i firmly believe that my grasp of English is due to my nerdy bookwormy habits as a kid and the fact that i never shut up, therefore giving me ample oppurtunity to practice whatever new vocabulary i picked up from reading. Listening is important too, especially if one is not so confident about one's ability to speak fluently. Listening to (or eavesdropping on) a conversation is a really good way to pick up on the nuances of the language, right? Plus, you won't embarrass yourself by saying the wrong thing or mispronouncing certain words.

So, yeah, I think that listening, speaking and reading are major players in the learning English arena. Doing workbooks, not so much, unless that person is really motivated to learn from his or her mistakes and keep practicing what was learned in the book. It all boils down to practice, really. There's no possible way to remember all the confusing, strange rules of the English language if it isn't practiced regularly, and that's the fact of it. That's all from me for today! ^.^