Becoming a Woman by Hilary Tham

            "Becoming a Woman" a poem by Hilary Tham. This poem talks about the changes in the life of a girl when she reaches puberty and is believed to be the writer own experience.

        Personally, I don't think this poem is suitable to use as literary text in secondary school in Malaysia. First, the text only target on girl's puberty only. This will probably make the girls feel embarrass in front of other boys in their class. Even though the boys already knew this before reading this poem, they still will make fun about it. Second, if male teacher is conducting this lesson, it will challenge him to deliver the text in a proper way too.

            However, I do agree if this poem is used at home from a mother to her daughter. Mother can use this poem to teach her daughter about the changes that she will face. It also tells how to overcome the menstruation problems with ease. With the help of this poem parents could tell their daughters about the changes that they will have when they reached puberty easily.

Reflection: Always look from other angles

           I have chosen the 'QWERTYUIOP' by Vivien Alcock as my position paper topic.

         This short story is about a young graduate named Lucy Beck who has just finished her 'O' levels at Belmont Secretarial College. Being a slow learner herself, she has no confidence that she will find a job. Fortunately, she is offered a job by Mr. Ross, the Manager of Ross and Bannister’s. During her first day, she encounters many peculiar incidents. Later, she finds out that there is a spirit lingering around the office who is adamant in holding on to her position as the company’s secretary. Towards the end of the story, Lucy tries to get rid of the spirit that has been haunting that place for many years by putting the spirit at peace.

         After reading this short story, I began to think what people will think after reading this short story. Prejudice? Brave? Super natural? Well, a position paper is not what generally people know. That is basically what I learned after the face to face. So, I tried to read again and again the story. Finally, I have found different view about this story and it is arguable.

          By learning to get position, I have learned that every matter can be viewed from different angle. For example, almost every teacher in Malaysia blames that the new KSSR curriculum is a burden to teachers. It provides a lot of paper works to teachers. Some even said that the changes in the textbooks is not suitable to our students. But, after I start to do my position paper, I found that actually teachers is used to the life and teaching methods they have been used for ages. They do not dare to change, so they give excuses. For me, the new textbook is better than the old textbook. It provides more opportunities to our students to think, speak and do rather than teacher who only spoon feed the students and using the boring talk and chalk method. Our society has changed, so education must also change to be better and better.

             Always look from other angles. What have you seen from the picture below?

You will see two old folks' head. But, if you look carefully, you will see a man is playing guitar and the women is listening. For sure, you still can see a big vase between them.

A Useful Fable

 

            All most everyone like to be flattered. "The Fox and the Crow" is a really good fable that we can let our children learn the consequences if they trust flatterers easily.

         Some more, from this fable, we can tell our children that taking others people belonging without permission is consider stealing and definitely wrong. Our children should learn to be hardworking in order to get things they want.

            Furthermore, we can let our students share their thought about the fox and bring out that cunning is  a bad attitude that everyone must avoid and give examples of the consequences of being cunning.

            Besides moral value, this fable is short and simple which also can be use as a listening material. We can let our students listen to this fable and retell the fable in their own words. Other than these, they can have a text completion exercise as below too.