TV: No Way!

By the end of this month, we will celebrate our 3rd anniversary of not having any TV set at home. Yes, I gave up owning TV in 2005, the time when we moved from Balikpapan to Jakarta . I subscribed to cable TV when I was in Balikpapan, and I can tell you that was terrible since my family was addicted to it. In the following paragraph, I will tell you some negative effects of television, especially to our children (it’s a modification of my paragraph-writing assignment).

Bad behavior, poor health, and wasted time are problems that result from children watching too much television. The first problem on behavior is mostly triggered by children’s excessive watching on violent programs on tv. When children quietly and passively watch program such as crime news or killing scenes on tv drama very often, it can desentize them to violence and even instigate them to aggressive behavior. It is quite common now to see outbursts between brothers and sisters, as they frequently see quarrels and fights too on the screen. The second problem on health can be derived from reduced sleep time or constant sitting. Most tv lovers, including children, are absorbed in late television viewing, which only make their brain keep on awake and eventually cause poor concentration and sleepiness the next day. If this happens very often, how many brain cells children have destroyed within a week, a month, or a year? Also, children have no idea that sitting for hours in front of the boob tube, always wanting the next series of Naruto or exploding cars on serials action, is nothing compared to playing football or flying kites with friends, which are much healthier physical activities to do. Indeed, lack of exercising is one of children’s problem; they keep on piling up fat but never do the fat-burning: move, come out, and play. Now the last problem on time management: thousands of children hours are wasted on useless stories of “sinetron” and a few loud explosion. They should have spending this time on school work, studying, or productive play. In other words, children should make up the lost of time by reading, writing, exercising, playing monopoly with sisters and brothers, and other positive activities that can strengthen their brain or the family bond. Time is so precious that wasting it means throwing something very valuable in life. Seeing those negative effects, I think it’s better to cut the cord, throw the set in the street, and let children live without it. My decision to quit TV works well to improve their cognitive, behavior, and physical activities. Dare to try?

Activities in Teaching Speaking

Speaking is an important part of the learning and teaching process of English as a second language . Despite its importance, for many years, teaching speaking has been undervalued because English teachers continually teach speaking just as a repetition of drills or memorization of dialogues. Nowadays, however, the goal of teaching is shifted to improve students’ communication skills, because, only in that way, students can express themselves and learn how to follow the social and cultural rules appropriate in certain circumstances. There are several activities to teach second language learners how to speak communicatively.
The first activity is discussion, which aims at drawing a conclusion, sharing ideas about something, or finding solution on a problem. In this activity, a teacher must set the purpose of discussion in the beginning, so that students will discuss relevant points according to the purpose. In addition, they will not spend their time chatting with each other about irrelevant and unnecessary things.
The second way of setting students to speak is role play and simulation. In role play activities, students pretend they are in various contexts and have a variety of social roles. The teacher then gives information to the learners such as who they are and what they think or feel. For example, the teacher can tell the student, “Andy, you go to an accountant and tell him what happened to your business last month.” Simulations, on the other hand, are more elaborations of role play, because students can bring items to class to create a realistic environment. For instance, if a student acting as a doctor, he brings a stethoscope to examine his patients, and so on. Role play and simulation have advantages. For one, it is entertaining as well as motivating students. The second advantage is increasing the self-confidence of hesitant students, because they have a different role and do not have to speak for themselves, which means they do not need to feel ashamed of making mistakes.
The third activity is brainstorming, which necessitates students to produce ideas on a given topic in a limited time. Brainstorming is very effective to encourage students to speak up their thoughts and feelings quickly and freely. The good characteristic of this activity is that students are not criticized for their ideas, so students will be open to share new things collaboratively.
The fourth and the most favorite, in my opinion, is storytelling. Students can briefly summarize a tale or story heard from somebody beforehand, or they may create their own stories to tell to their classmates. This activity encourages students to have creative thinking, because they must organize the story in the format of beginning, development, and ending. In addition, students must be able to describe characters and the setting of the story very clearly. By this activity, the teacher can both explore students’ speaking and entertain the class.
The last activity is reporting, which integrates students reading or listening skill with speaking ability. Before coming to class, students are asked to read newspaper or magazines, or to listen to news on radio or television. Later in class, they report to their friends what they find as the most interesting news. Students can also express their opinion about the news, or tell whether they have experienced anything related to the news worth telling to class. This activity fosters the creativity of the learners as well as their public speaking skills.
In summary, teaching speaking can use a variety of communicative activities, ranging from discussion, role play and simulation, brainstorming, storytelling, and reporting. By using those communicative methods, students will have more opportunity to communicate with each other based on real-life situations, or to engage in active tasks to promote their confidence, creativity, and speaking ability in the ways that are meaningful and fun for them.

Reference:
Kahyi, Hayriye