Hypertext

NELSON MANDELA

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. Mandela himself was educated at University College of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand and qualified in law in 1942. He joined the African National Congress in 1944 and was engaged in resistance against the ruling National Party's apartheid policies after 1948. He went on trial for treason in 1956-1961 and was acquitted in 1961.After the banning of the ANC in 1960, Nelson Mandela argued for the setting up of a military wing within the ANC. In June 1961, the ANC executive considered his proposal on the use of violent tactics and agreed that those members who wished to involve themselves in Mandela's campaign would not be stopped from doing so by the ANC. This led to the formation of Umkhonto we Sizwe. Mandela was arrested in 1962 and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labour. In 1963, when many fellow leaders of the ANC and the Umkhonto we Sizwe were arrested, Mandela was brought to stand trial with them for plotting to overthrow the government by violence. His statement from the dock received considerable international publicity. On June 12, 1964, eight of the accused, including Mandela, were sentenced to life imprisonment. From 1964 to 1982, he was incarcerated at Robben Island Prison, off Cape Town; thereafter, he was at Pollsmoor Prison, nearby on the mainland.During his years in prison, Nelson Mandela's reputation grew steadily. He was widely accepted as the most significant black leader in South Africa and became a potent symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He consistently refused to compromise his political position to obtain his freedom.
Nelson Mandela was released on February 11, 1990. After his release, he plunged himself wholeheartedly into his life's work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after the organization had been banned in 1960, Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation's National Chairperson.

Article Review

Voice Blog: An Exploratory Study of Language Learning

Language Learning and Technology, June 2009, Volume 13, Number 2

http://llt.msu.edu/vol13num2/sun.pdf

Yu Chih Sun is an associate professor at the Institute of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. Her research interests include computer-assisted language learning, academic writing, and speech instruction.
(Email: sunyc@mail.NCTU.edu.tw)

Summary of the article:
The aims of this particular research article is to provide a theoretical and a pedagogical foundation for the premise that extensive practice on blogs can constitute an integral part of instruction; and that blogs enable students to structure their thoughts and to make them publicly available in a way that is rarely possible in other media. This study also posted two research questions which were: 1) What are the learners’ learning processes and learning strategies in voice-blog activities? and 2) What emerging themes characterize perceptions of participants’ blogging experiences? This study used two data collection procedures which were: 1) a survey of student attitudes towards the use of voice blogs, and 2) retrospective interviews with students. The subjects/samples used in this study were 46 college students in Taiwan in two oral classes taught by the teacher-researcher. Both classes were relatively large: 24 and 22 students respectively. Of the 46 students, 15 were female and 31 were males. Students’ average age was 20.67 years. One student was a freshman, 14 students were sophomores, 8 students were juniors, 22 students were seniors, and one student was a graduate student. The subjects had been studying English as a foreign language about 9 years, most of them had never studied abroad in an English-speaking country. They were majoring in a variety of technical disciplines, such as electronic, mechanical, information management science, and electrophysics. All of the subjects tended to have relatively little exposure to English in their content-based classes. The finding of this study was all of the 46 subjects have uploaded a total of 1, 239 voice-blog and 646 comments on their classmates’ blog entries. On average, each participant posted 27 voice blogs and 14 comments on the class blog over the course of one semester. The results of this study reveal that students went through a series of blogging stages, including conceptualizing, brainstorming, articulation, monitoring, and evaluating, and used a wide variety of strategies to cope with blogging-related difficulties. In addition, students perceived blogging not only as a means of learning, but also as a means of self-presentation, information exchange, and social networking. Furthermore, the findings suggest that blogs constitute a dynamic forum that fosters extensive practice, learning motivation, authorship, and development of learning strategies.

My reaction:
This research does interest me as it is simple and understandable. Furthermore, this research provides clear information which I can easily comprehend as this research was done in an area which I know best which is language learning. However, I found that voice blog is new information to me as I never heard of it before. The research is well conducted as what I can see from the questions in the questionnaire provided, it helps the researcher to answer the research questions and it is reliable.
The implication(s) of this research in the teaching and learning of ESL is that, this learning technique (voice blog) can be a significant method in teaching and learning process in Malaysian context eventhough it is very rarely used in Malaysia. However, teachers need to have the skill in using or applying voice blog in order to cater all students’ needs. I do personally think that when applying this learning method, teachers would face difficulties as the number of students in Malaysian school context is large compared to other countries. Nevertheless, if this learning method is applied, students’ motivation will be increased and through voice blogging, they can share information and at the same time they can still do social networking with their friends all over the world.
Other than that, I can see that through voice blog, students can learn at their own pace as this method is very much a student-centered approach whereby students can take control of learning content and learning process. When students get the chance to experience the learning process by themselves, they would engage themselves in a meaningful learning and thus from the experiences, they will generate knowledge and understanding. This method (voice blog) is parallel with the theory of constructivism in which it suggests that learners construct knowledge out of their experiences. Furthermore, voice blog can help students who have low level of confidence to improve their learning process as voice blog does not involve any nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and body language. Therefore, through voice blog, it will help students to improve language learning as it provides a safer and more relaxed environment for language learners.

In-class task 2 (electronic worksheet)

yeay!!!!finally i'm here!!! (",)

olla...first of all..both my mum n dad gave me this wonderful name which i love.... nur hidayatulshima omar..since i was small,everybody calls me yaya or yayah..n i wud prefer people call me 'yaya' too...well,i'm not really into this blog thingy as i don't prefer conveying thoughts into words..however,after designing my own blog,i started to like it n i'll try my level best to share whatever i've in mind...so..here i am..

regarding the computer software i know how to utilize would be the basic software such as Microsoft Word, Power Point, Publisher, Excel, and Windows Movie Maker...there are few other softwares which i know how to uitilize,but for this moment,i couldn't remember..maybe i'll update it soon... ["-"]

the second question which is on computer hardware skills and knowledge i have..DEFINITELY,i don't have any skills and knowledge in computer hardware at all...i repeat,at all.. :( i just know how to uitilize software but not hardware..any problems regarding the hardware,i would just refer it to the experts..he he ;p

owh,for this one,i would most probably spend at least 3-4 hours downloading songs,movies n videos...it doesn't matter how long would it takes as long as i get the chance to listen n watch to the songs n videos that i love..other than that,i also spend most of time on social networking (facebook and friendster),web surfing (academic n non-academic resources),uploading pictures,chatting (YM,facebook) n reading other poeple's blog..hu hu

during my practicum week,i got the chance to use computer in my classroom for only once..the truth is,my school,they don't really put an emphasis on using computer except for ICT classes..whenever i want to use computer,i would face difficulties n lack of facilities...however,there was once i got the chance to use it with my own laptop..the students love it very much n i found that students would love this kind of learning activities....

i've never participated in any online learning as i don't have the opportunity for it....but,when i was in Britsh Council for a short course,i myself experienced learning using Active Board in class and it was interesting and i also did video conferencing with my tutor back in British Council...

i guess,that's all for now....one thing for sure,i'm starting to love my blog [^o^]