Don't Worry Too Much About Your Present Standard Of English

Journal Reflection for MUET

17 June 2013, 11.20 am

I have been giving a deep thought about training my students to be self-motivated, generative and autonomic. The trait of students that we are having nowadays are too dependent on the teachers. They are not self-reliant in many ways. At most times they are waiting for the instructor’s decisions and commands to act. What I hope to have here is a batch of students who can plan, design strategies ant take actions according to the nature of the tasks given. They are supposed to be critical, analytic and creative.

We should not produce moulded cakes but self-raising buns which take many shapes and sizes. They need not be good looking but tasty and nourishing.  What we should do now is to train them to work on their own. We should train them to be handy with recent technology. They should know how to search for relevant information, edit and present it in the most fashionable way. Once the students are used to what they are required to do, it will become part of their style.

I had many times found students who ask what is this and that. Most of them had not taken the pleasure of finding it out through various means. For instance, a student had asked what arable farming is. He should be more proactive by finding it out on his own from the dictionary or browsing the webs. This is not uncommon among students in advanced countries like Japan, Korea and USA. They prefer to venture into reading and searching for relevant information.

For Example:

Wikipedia English - The Free Encyclopedia

Arable relates to the growing of crops:

Arable farming or agronomy, the cultivation of field crops

Arable land, land upon which crops are cultivated

Arable crops program, a consolidated support system operated under the EU Common Agricultural Policy.

The good thing about using word processor is, there is not even a single handwriting needed or cracking your head to define the words.