two heads are better than one?

We have been given a pair work where we have to work on Microsoft Office Publisher. There are four tasks to be done individually which are pamphlet, book cover, business card and poster. Newsletter we have to do it in group of six. This is another Microsoft office that I am not yet fully discover it’s used. At first, it seems difficult to use it as I am not familiar with it. But then, after knowing its function, I begin to like it. At least it helps me moving a step ahead fulfilling my dream (just a dream…) where I can promote my product and business via business card, poster, pamphlet and book cover. It feels good preparing all these as I start to imagine my business in the future (pray it will come true…amen..).Besides, this task also develops cooperation among my friends and me as we help each other in the process of learning this tool. It is a great feeling sharing our dreams with each other and planning for our own organization.
One more important thing that I learn is that it is not easy to organize an organization. For example, during completing the newsletter, I feel it was quite tough. We should come out with creative ideas because this newsletter is going to be used to attract other people who read it. It should be something new and eye captured. Then, I realized, that is the used of group work. “Two heads are better than one” right?. How about many heads? It is absolute right. When many heads join together, there will be a lot of, a bundle of, a stack of…ideas…brilliant ideas…fantastic ideas…extravagant ideas…yup. Then, the difficult work can be handled. Group work is good.:)

working with a course book :)

This week we were being explained about the distributions of marks for every assignment. It is very important as we could know what is expected from us. It seems a lot more to do….
Later we had group presentation. My group presented on the topic “Working with a Course book”. I just knew that there were two other groups that did the same topic as my group. So, basically the input was most the same.
“Working with a course book” is a good topic to be discussed as this is the aid that teachers really need in assisting their teaching. Yet, teachers should not put full reliant on this assistant as it make turn the class stiff. What I am trying to say here is that teachers should be flexible. It is not wrong getting an assistant as teachers have a stock of work to do. Course book might help in giving ideas of activities to be done. Thus, teachers need not crack their head thinking what activities to be done. Course book usually serve activities that can be done with pupils. But then, using course book alone without putting ‘life’ to it make the class even robotic. Therefore, teachers should be creative in the sense adapting and adopting the activities prepared in the course book and make it realistic to pupils. For instance, in the course book the activities might require pupils to read in pair these sentences:
Pupil 1: What is your name?
Pupil 2: My name is Ahmad
Pupil 1: What is your age?
Pupil 2: I am 9 years old.
Instead, teacher may make this activity realistic. For instance, teacher asks all pupils to mix around and ask their friends a few listed questions. Such activity requires pupils to move around and find friends instead of just sit and read from the book.
Furthermore, before choosing any course book, teachers should consider a few things such as the coverage of topic, suitability of activities, pupils’ interest and also prices. These factors help in contributing to the effectiveness of the course book to certain target group of pupils.
Last but not least, I would like to stress that course book actually do help teachers a lot as teachers sometime might face ‘thinking block’ due to lot of work. Course book can be a good best friend as long as teachers know how to manipulate it wisely.