It is a kind of spontaneous that I suddenly remember a situation when I was studying abroad. The situation was very hard and became a sort of barrier. It was all about my difficulty in participating in the class discussion in the early three months of studying, because of both language aspect and cultural/behavioral aspect. As the class activities were mostly dominated by such a class discussion which seriously demanded the students participation, the situation was felt to be more and more serious to me.
At the beginning of the study, I frankly speaking admired most of my western classmates who are generally very speak-up in almost all the class discussions. The one that I admired was the way they conveyed their ideas and thoughts which were so elaborative and thorough. This had made me curious on searching the answer of why that kind of skills were owned by almost all the western (just to be specific: American) classmates. In my belief, there should be one reason why they could do so.
In the following months, I had a good chance to interract with an American family who was happened to be my neighbour. At the time I thought that it's a time to find out the answer of my hiden question. Indeed, this family fortunately was so helpful, and was more than happy to give me a chance for any discussion, and even to talk with their kids. One important point that I got was that proper approach in early-step education had played a critical role for developing both cognitive and psychomotoric skills, including speaking skills. Besides, the habit of involving children in a house-level discussion was also another contributor.
A good example of how children are taught with speaking skills is the routine assignment given to students to make-up a story during their week-end. The story should be a real one, and describe their week-end activities. Then, in every first day of the week, the student should tell the story to the rest of class. This is of course a kind of interesting task for the kids, and making them not being haunted by a serious-like task. The assignment is indeed felt as something fun. But, for sure this sort of easy and simple assignment has gradually formed a skill of good public speaking. Of course, in further development, they start learning the logics and arguments in every story they made.
I will not say that speaking skills is enough, but at least speaking skill is part of the competency that need to be mastered by our kids. Substance for no doubt needs to be given attention also, and even it's much more important. However, both speaking skill and substance should be developed proportionally so that a Speak-Up Generation can be reached. Ha.. ha.... why I write about this ya....? Hopefully benefit can be taken from it. Thanks. (Thohir Afandi)
Jakarta, 16/11/2007
At the beginning of the study, I frankly speaking admired most of my western classmates who are generally very speak-up in almost all the class discussions. The one that I admired was the way they conveyed their ideas and thoughts which were so elaborative and thorough. This had made me curious on searching the answer of why that kind of skills were owned by almost all the western (just to be specific: American) classmates. In my belief, there should be one reason why they could do so.
In the following months, I had a good chance to interract with an American family who was happened to be my neighbour. At the time I thought that it's a time to find out the answer of my hiden question. Indeed, this family fortunately was so helpful, and was more than happy to give me a chance for any discussion, and even to talk with their kids. One important point that I got was that proper approach in early-step education had played a critical role for developing both cognitive and psychomotoric skills, including speaking skills. Besides, the habit of involving children in a house-level discussion was also another contributor.
A good example of how children are taught with speaking skills is the routine assignment given to students to make-up a story during their week-end. The story should be a real one, and describe their week-end activities. Then, in every first day of the week, the student should tell the story to the rest of class. This is of course a kind of interesting task for the kids, and making them not being haunted by a serious-like task. The assignment is indeed felt as something fun. But, for sure this sort of easy and simple assignment has gradually formed a skill of good public speaking. Of course, in further development, they start learning the logics and arguments in every story they made.
I will not say that speaking skills is enough, but at least speaking skill is part of the competency that need to be mastered by our kids. Substance for no doubt needs to be given attention also, and even it's much more important. However, both speaking skill and substance should be developed proportionally so that a Speak-Up Generation can be reached. Ha.. ha.... why I write about this ya....? Hopefully benefit can be taken from it. Thanks. (Thohir Afandi)
Jakarta, 16/11/2007
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