1. The Scene…

Daniel is studying taxonomy and plant identification as part of the Landscape Design & Horticulture diploma.  He and his team mates have spent time in the wooded ambience of Clementi Woods Park, gathering data and information relating to the  identification, use, origin and scultural requirements of trees and shrubs.  Daniel scans the park environment and sights a Tembusu tree.  Excited, he whips out his iPhone, launches the Plants@NP app, takes photos of the tree from various angles, takes some observational notes, geo-tags the entry and uploads to the Plants@NP database. Nifty.  Back in campus, another team accesses Daniel’s micro-blog entry, peer reviews the content and contributes additional information relating to the Tembusu’s optimal growing conditions based on their observations and research.  

Sue is a nursing student: passionate about advocating healthy eating and healthy lifestyles; passionate about providing patients with knowledge so they can make informed and realistic choices; passionate about helping people make sustainable behavioral changes; and passionate about mobile technologies meeting nursing practice needs.  As part of Clinical Attachment, Sue frequently needs to apply mathematical formulae, mainly when administering drugs.  Sue launches the medical calculator app on her iPod Touch to accurately compute the dosage, volume and rates of drug administration.  To unwind after a tough shift at the hospital, she indulges in a session of the wacky Hospital Havoc time management sim game whereby she assumes the role of a budding doctor by admitting, diagnosing, and treating some of the most whacky patients ever encountered.

2. Ubiquitous Mobility

Mobile learning has become a ubiquitous and integral element of campus life at Ngee Ann Polytehcnic (NP), whereby our students are living increasingly media-saturated, digital and co-located lives.  Embracing handheld technologies and apps is thus a natural extension for the polytechnic given the proliferation of converged mobile media devices and tech savvy students demanding access to info and instantaneous communication on portable devices such as smartphones and media tablets.  When considering mobile learning, it is important to frame our approach with handheld devices and apps, not as the ‘next big thing’ but as ubiquitous learning tools meaningfully integrated into teaching and learning.  

3. Replacement, Augment or Part of the Blend?

At a broad level, mobile learning could be defined as any educational interaction delivered via mobile technology and accessed anytime, anywhere, on location. Here at Ngee Ann polytechnic, definitions of mobile learning are evolving, as we come to grasp the rapid emergence of new mobile technologies and begin to gain a deeper understanding of mobility.  So, the transition from desktop to laptop was in itself a significant move toward mobile learning.  However, a key area of focus for the Future MeL section in the Teaching and Leaning Centre, going forward, will be on the transformative capabilities of mobile learning with highly mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to augment the laptop.

It is important not to think of smartphones and tablets as a replacement for the notebook (which has been a mainstay of NP’s MeL since the year 2000), but rather, as a new form factor that augments what our students are doing with their notebooks, opening up new areas where computing-based learning was just impractical before.  

As mobile and tablet touch-points proliferate and smartphone ownership continues to rise amongst our student population, it is highly conceivable that students at NP could be owning and bringing multiple devices (say a tablet and a laptop) to campus and leveraging each device for its unique learning affordance.  The degree of a specific device’s mobility will largely determine the ways it is best used in learning.  

So, in a ‘device-plus’ scenario, students such as Daniel and Sue will still use their laptops for extensive data entry such as report writing and spreadsheet creation, whilst tablets such as the iPad and Motorola Xoom could be used for consuming, interacting and exploring information, allowing navigation with taps, finger swipes and pinch zooms, not feasible on a typical laptop, and finally, using smartphones for geo-locative experiences (e.g. check-ins) and live blogging during field trips, given its great on- the-move portability, unobtrusiveness, and sheer instant usability.  

4. It’s All About Learning with the App

Beyond snazzy hardware, it’s also about the mobile applications (or apps for short) designed specifically for learning purposes.  Mobile technology will no doubt continue to follow Moore’s law, but the real innovation, the stuff that will change students’ lives in the future, now lies with app software and interfaces.

In the age of the app, a quick browse of Apple’s iTunes AppStore as well as Google’s Android Market will reveal a host of education-related apps, ranging from study aids, reference guides, calculators, translators to immersive game-based learning apps.  

So, whilst apps are undoubtedly cool, it is imperative to peel back the covers on the hype and take a serious look at why, when and how we should approach the mobile app strategy here in Ngee Ann Polytechnic.  Our primary focus has been on developing a cohesive app development strategy that clearly identifies the case and role for apps for teaching and learning, whereby hyper mobility is pitched as a new platform for learning.  

It is this very platform that will help bring learning to life by enabling our students to go to various kinds of places and do the kinds of things that weren’t even imaginable with the laptop, transcending the boundaries of structured lecture and tutorial-style learning environments and associated confined modes of communication.

Case Study 1

SkelePracti App: Immersive, Interactive Learning via Multi-Touch & Motion Sensing

Sue browses the reference section to learn about the bone groups (learning by exploring), having hands-on practice by assembling each bone group from constituent bones using the iPod Touch’s multitouch capability, then naming them and testing herself on correct joint movements using the 3-axis accelerometer and gyroscope (learning by doing).  As an added impetus for learning, Sue gains bragging rights amongst her peers on the leaderboard for correctly joining the bones to form a bone group as well as executing the correct movement of the various joints.  

SkelePracti is an app conceived and developed for use by students in the Diploma in Health Sciences (Nursing) program.  It is an educational tool that helps students refresh knowledge on the human anatomy and the skeletal system – serving as both a reference and a self-assessment tool for skeletal bones and joint movements.  In terms of learning experience and change value, through allowing students to manipulate and ‘touch’ the various elements of the skeletal system in a fun, engaging way, the app has helped students to more intuitively grasp and understand the skeletal system, including the classification of bone types and divisions of the skeletal system, how they function and, how they are linked.   With this app as the first gesture-based learning app prototype in NP, there is rich potential for NP’s future app development projects to incorporate similarly intuitive gestural interactions for students to tangibly interact with content via mobile devices. It’s early days for SkelePracti and we are looking forward to further testing to determine the effectiveness for learning.

Case Study 2

Plants@NP App: Bringing Learning to Life

Daniel comes across an Acacia tree at Clementi Woods Park and needs further information on its care and propagation methods.  He launches the Plants@NP app,  scrolls through the plant categories and queries the networked plant database and learns that the tree requires full sun and moderate watering.  Real-time performance support, in-context, just-in-time learning in Clementi Woods Park! Beyond just passive acquisition of information, Daniel is also an active constructor of knowledge whereby he records and shares his personal reflections on the Acacia’s propagation methods of seed and stem cutting, participating within a community of practice.  

One of the key custom iOS apps developed by the iMedia CEntre is Plants@NP – a plant directory-cum-micro blogging app that combines a desktop wiki environment with a companion mobile app.  

Ngee Ann Polytechnic previously piloted the use of PDAs for location-based content delivery via HP’s MediaScape Authoring Toolkit in 2008, following the adoption of Clementi Woods Park as a learning park. Going beyond mere content delivery and access, this latest iteration of the project incorporates features that empower students to collect, organise, and curate plant data in authentic learning contexts. Through using the app, the field work experience of students from the Diploma in Landscape Design & Horticulture are enhanced and enriched, whereby they can refer to, contribute to, and update the plant directory, while on the go, on location in a park or nature environment.  

In terms of pedagogical value, the hyper-mobility afforded by the iPhone/iPod Touch offers rich potential to embed context in learning, whereby students don’t just merely consume, but are engaged as co-creators of plant info in authentic contexts, collectively building and peer-reviewing contributions.   

As part of a project, students were engaged to work in groups to gather data on plant species from an allocated zone in Clementi Woods Park.  Each group was tasked to gather information and data for a minimum of 20 plant species, encompassing a combination of flowering plants, palms and other categories.  All entries were to be submitted to the Plants@NP database, peer reviewed and fine-tuned by group members.  

Through this learner-centred activity of learning by exploring, collaborating and reflecting, students engage with plant taxonomy and identification in a way that transforms their interactions and modes of exploration, thus deriving a richer learning experience overall.  Above all, students have developed a deeper understanding of the basis of classification of plant groups and the association of species in natural vegetation based on features of flowers, fruits and leaves used for taxonomic purposes.   

Cheng Yingwei, a second year student from the Diploma in Landscape Design & Horticulture shares how the Plants@NP app has enhanced her field-based learning experience

“… the app has helped me a lot by letting me know what kinds of plants are suitable to grow at particular areas, and also, where the plants are exactly located.  This info can be used for almost all our course modules, thus if we had an iPhone/iPod Touch and did not bring our laptops, we can use the mobile platform to research on plant species that we would like to know.   Going one step further, I hope useful apps such as this will benefit students from our very own junior  batch from Dip Landscape Design & Horticulture as well as supporting students from other courses to explore the flora in our parks.”

5. Developing App-titude for Future Work, Learning and Life

As part of Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s efforts to hone students’ mobile media literacies for future work, learning and life, we have been actively engaging and mentoring students in various app development projects.  Through this initiative, students are transformed from mere consumers to creators of apps designed to meet their campus needs.  

To support the burgeoning interest, app development workshops are regularly organised, focusing on both the business perspectives (app idea research, IP protection, app marketing, understanding the AppStore etc.) as well as the basics of objective C programming (XCode).

Following completion of these introductory workshops, students then embark on implementing their app ideas.  Through app projects, students not only get the opportunity to hone their app development skills, but, more significantly, are empowered to participate in and shape their campus experience – developing apps that benefit their peers and the wider campus community.  

To date, there are over 25 student-initiated and developed apps on the iTunes App Store.  Apps developed include a campus food review app (Hungry@NP) and an app to check out the latest schedules and pickup points of the polytechnic’s shuttle bus service (NP Shuttle Service). The apps are all free and available for download on iTunes at www.itunes.com/apps/ngeeannpolytechnic. (You need to have a Ngee Ann Polytechnic name and password to access most of the apps.)

The QR code on the right will take you there.

One of the student-developed apps is ‘NP Courses’, developed by Alson Toh, a 2nd year BIT student in collaboration with the Corporate Communications Office.  The personality quiz app enables prospective students to check out the many diploma courses that NP has to offer. It is targeted at students who have multiple interests and are still not sure which diploma they should pick. Through the quiz, users are able to find out which courses are likely to suit his/her interests.

6. What’s Next?

So, as the mobile learning revolution gathers pace, what’s next? From the utility of learning the human skeletal system to the geo-locative experiences of gathering and sharing plant information on-the-go, it seems as time goes on there will be an app for just about everything. But in the minds of the most students, this is merely the first generation of handheld technologies that we will wonder how we ever lived without. So what do apps of the future look like?

Could an app advise if you should avoid the bag of chips or that chocolate bar?  

Sue envisions that the future of mobile technology in healthcare will somehow combine a person’s DNA and genomics information coupled with his/her personal health record within an app, whereby the smartphone is then used to scan against ‘barcode’ labels of food products to determine which foods are best or detrimental to one’s nutritional needs.

Could there be an app that will help in the promotion of eco-efficiency and environmental awareness? Are random park visitors capable of forming a network of ‘automatic intelligent mobile sensors?  Daniel envisions the use of a smart, location-aware, ambient mobile app that integrates dynamic real-time environmental data automatically collected by park visitors with central environmental databases to help develop innovative eco-solutions.    

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the subject matter contribution and assistance given by  our colleagues, Dr Myat Maw Tun (Dip HSN) together with the HS next-gen mobile learning  team and Mr Gregory Chow (Dip LDH) and Mr Phang Chee Boon in the design and  development of the SkelePracti and Plants@NP apps respectively.

Author

Lim Ee-Lon, Manager, T&L Infrastructure Teaching and Learning Centre, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Author Subrata Chanda, from the School of Engineering, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, describes in this article that…

Effective learning is possible only when the adopted method suits both the learners and the teacher best.

Subrata calls it “Win and Teach-for-learning” or “WaT”.

Read the full article:

» Be the Best Teacher that You Can Be: Use the WaT Approach

(PDF, 103kb, 21 pages. Used with permission.)

Author

Subrata Chanda, Director-Designate Centre of Innovation (MOT), Ngee Ann Polytechnic

There is a very handy tool that not only helps you keep track of your sources, but also automatically creates the bibliography for you. It can also keep a local copy of Web pages for later reference.

Zotero is a Firefox add-on that makes the task of citing our sources easier. As Zotero needs Firefox, we’ll first download this browser.

Installing Firefox

If you don’t already have Firefox on your computer, go to http://mozilla.org and download Firefox Browser.

(The Zotero team is currently working on a standalone version which won’t require Firefox. At the time of writing, this is still in beta.)

Installing Zotero

Next, using the Firefox browser, we will go to http://zotero.org and install the Zotero add-on. You will have to restart the Firefox browser to activate Zotero.

Using Zotero to save web pages

Zotero is activated by a small “Zotero” icon on the bottom bar of the Firefox browser.

Once you click on the “Z” icon, you will see three distinct areas. The Collections on the left, Item lists in the middle and Item details on the right.

It is a good practice to create a Collection (a Collection is similar to a Folder) to save related resources. You may be working on several projects at the same time. Use Collections to organize your research.

>

To add a web page to Zotero, just navigate to the page, activate Zotero by clicking on the “Z” icon in the bottom bar and then click on the “Add Current Page” button.

Zotero will save the page in its database. You will see the item added to the column in the middle. Click on the name of the item to see its details on the right column.

One other advantage of Zotero is that it saves the webpage locally. This means that you can view the webpage even if you are not connected to the internet.

Zotero can also recognize some special items such as books, Wikipedia pages and YouTube videos. In such cases it will store additional information about that item.

Such special items are indicated with a small icon on the URL field in the browser.

Creating Bibliography

Once you have a few items, you can create a bibliography. Just right click on an ollection and select “Create Bibliography From Collection”

Zotero will let you select the citation style and output format. Usually, your assignment will specify what format the citations needs to be in. If you are not sure just use APA (American Psychology Association). Under output format choose “Copy to Clipboard”.

Paste this citation on your research document. For example my citation looks like this when I paste it on Word or any other text editor.

As Sudan Prepares to Split, Border Tensions Rise in Abyei. (2011, January 9). Time. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2041445,00.html

Here is an example bibliography from a collection:

As Sudan Prepares to Split, Border Tensions Rise in Abyei. (2011, January 9). Time. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2041445,00.html

Johnson, D. H. (2002). The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars. James Currey, UK.

Stoves, D. (2010). Taxis in Khartoum. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/darfurstoves/5240735290/

Sudan 101: Could Sudan’s oil resources solve its problems? – CSMonitor.com. (n.d.). . Retrieved May 4, 2011, from http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2010/0426/Sudan-101-Could-Sudan-solve-its-problems

The Kush Empire. (2008). . Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86XE3TbXg0

Video Resource

This video describes Zotero and shows you how to use it.

Author

Preetam Rai, Educational technologist, Teaching and Learning Centre, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

A recent research report indicates that Singapore is the third in the world when it comes to per-capita smartphone ownership. This trend is also reflected in the the student community where smartphone use continues to increase by leaps and bounds. The popularity of apps, internet access, social media platforms combined with competitive data plans from telcos (and not to mention – peer pressure) are encouraging students to upgrade to smart phones.

This provides educators with many new opportunities for enhancing learning.

Smart phone popularity has increased dramatically

Let us look at some of the many ways educators can create and distribute media for their students.

E-books

The larger and sharper screens of smartphones makes reading on mobile devices more comfortable. The most popular ebook format on the current breed of smartphones is the epub format. (See more on epub.)

These are popular epub reading apps

• IPhone, iPod Touch and iPad – Apple’s own iBook app and Stanza app
• Android Phones and Tablets – Aldiko app

Converting your notes (in Word/PDF) to epub format

The simplest way to convert your notes to epub format is to use the Stanza application from Lexcycle. Stanza allows you to import your materials from popular document formats such as Microsoft Word and convert it to epub.

• Download Stanza for Mac
• Download Stanza for Windows

Video

Smartphones are able to shoot decent video

Smartphones allow you to create learning videos on the go. More importantly, you can get your students involved too.

If privacy of the content is not an issue, the best way to publish videos is direct publishing to YouTube, which is possible with most current smartphones. YouTube will take care of the conversion and storage and gives you limitless storage. The students can also watch these videos on the go on their smartphones.

Presentations

To provide presentations for your students to consume on their smartphones, just create an account on slideshare.net and post your presentation. Send the link to your students and they can view them on their smartphones. Your presentation would become public and can be viewed by anyone on the web. (Before doing this, you may need to consider who owns the copyright on the presentation.)

See:

• Slideshare on mobile devices

Audio

Set up a free account on SoundCloud and get your students to do the same. The students can download the free iPhone or Android app and use the app to record and publish their audio. Using the app (or SoundCloud’s site), they can comment on each other’s audio clips.

• SoundCloud Website
• SoundCloud apps for iPhone and Android

Other interesting learning activities with smartphones

Digital archiving with Evernote

Evernote is an online archiving solution that gives you generous storage even on a free account. Evernote’s app is available on most smartphone platforms. Using Evernote, you can get your students to collect text, audio and images for a project. Evernote’s app can then sync this date from the student’s phone to a common private storage folder on the web. (The teacher will need to have a paid Evernote account to create this common folder but the students can use free accounts.)

• Desktop and mobile download for Evernote

Mobile discovery tours with QR codes

QR or “quick response” codes are becoming more popular with people using smartphones.

QR codes are rectangular codes that anyone can generate using URL shortening services such as Goo.gl or Bit.ly. We can find a good web resource (an YouTube video or a Wikipedia page) for a physical object – a tree, a machine etc. and generate a QR code for it. Print this code out and attach it to the object. When the students snap a picture of the code using a free QR code reading app, they will be directed to the web resource.

• QR code for education and training

Real-time Q&A in conferences – and in class

Here’s an interesting possibility for engaging students in class, especially in large lectures. Pigeonhole live (currently under development in Singapore) could help to make lectures more interactive.

Participants enter a PigeonHole “live” session and can post their questions – or vote on existing ones so the “best” questions rise to the top – using their smartphone.

Author

Preetam Rai, Educational technologist, Teaching and Learning Centre, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Background

Students taking Law modules offered at the School of Business & Accountancy are required to prepare and present answers to various legal problems during their 2-hour tutorial classes. The answers are discussed and amended during the class, and are archived for shared access for revision purposes.

The students bring their notebook computers to class and use them throughout the lesson.

Before Google Docs…

Before I started using Google Docs, the students developed and  presented their answers using Microsoft Office (mostly Word and Powerpoint).

I faced the following challenges, each of which reduced opportunities for learning:

1. I wanted everyone to see the student’s answer plus other resources at the same time

When a particular student’s answer was being discussed by the class, I needed all students to be able to view that student’s answer, and they also needed to see helpful resources (such as online legislation and case law, videos, news, corporate and other websites).

It was impossible to allow all students in a class to view both the student answer and a resource such as Statutes Online at the same time, since the only shared viewing space (the screen) was occupied by the projection from one computer.

Students could access other resources on their own laptop computers, but could not quickly and easily share what they were reading or watching with others in the class.

The tutor or students leading the discussion could not direct the entire class to other resources without first switching away from the student answer, thereby disrupting the focus of the discussion.

This caused some confusion and it was hard for students to follow.

2. I wanted all students to be able to conveniently make immediate amendments to, and comments on, the answer in discussion.

With Microsoft Office, amendments to the student answer could only be made from one computer, since that answer was usually only stored on that computer. Files could be sent from computer to computer, but not shared simultaneously.

This situation reduced the opportunities for collaboration between students.

3. I wanted to enable easy reversal of any unwanted changes.

"Versioning" (or the saving of multiple versions of a document for easy reversal of unwanted changes) all the way back to inception, was not available in Microsoft Office. Changes could be tracked, and the Undo function allows the reversal of unwanted changes before saving, but once changes are accepted or rejected, and once the file is saved and closed, only that latest saved version is subsequently available to the user.

4. Allow all students quick and easy access to the final version of the answer after the class.

This was accomplished by uploading the Microsoft Office file to a common password-protected repository (File Exchange in Blackboard). It was necessary for students to log in to Blackboard, download and then open the file to view its contents.

I felt these challenges reduced the learning outcomes, since what we were doing was neither efficient nor convenient.

A Revolutionary Idea? “Wiki-fy” the process

Google Docs is essentially a Wiki. Access to a Google Document is available via the Internet to any user with appropriate access privileges. A Google Doc is stored “in the cloud” (that is, on a networked server, not solely on one computer) and access is therefore available to more people than the one author. Wikis are almost as old as the World Wide Web but have only recently become popular.

The following features of Google Docs proved helpful in solving my challenges.

1. Google Docs was designed as a wiki…

Students in the class can all view the same Google Doc on their laptops as long as they have access to the Internet. This enables a "double-whiteboard" learning approach – one resource (e.g. the tutorial answer guide) can be viewed by the whole class as a projected image from one computer, while another resource, typically the student’s Google Doc answer under consideration, is available for viewing at all times on students’ laptops. Essentially, two shared viewing spaces are available. The entire class can view other resources, without first having to remove the student answer from their field of vision.

This has proven to be very effective from a learning point of view, since there is less distraction because of logistics.

Students use Google Docs in class

2. … and a wiki has simultaneous edit power

Up to 10 users can concurrently edit the same page on Google Docs. Changes are effected nearly simultaneously. Google auto-saves and almost immediately updates all changes in a Google document for viewing by all users.

Concurrent edit power makes Google Docs a practical solution for collaborative work where students must complete their work together in a physical classroom within a tight time-frame. Most other wikis, by contrast, are designed for asynchronous collaboration where users are expected to take turns and edits must be saved for updating one at a time. Such wikis are not suitable for a classroom scenario such as mine.

3. Changes can be reversed…

Like other Wikis, Google Docs implements versioning, or saving older versions of documents for later retrieval. Changes can be reversed even after saving, all the way back to inception. The ability to "rewind" a document may be helpful not just to erase errors but also to trace the chain of reasoning leading to the final answer. It can also be beneficial for assessment purposes, to ascertain what individual students contributed.

4. … and everything is always available, right after the class.

Students can view the final and all preceding versions of every tutorial answer, on the Web at any time, via any computer with internet access. Students do not even need to remember to save the document before the end of the class as Google Docs auto-saves changes. No uploading to an online repository is necessary since the document was already available online to all in the class at inception.

With these advantages, learning was enhanced since the technology became less intrusive.

Apart from learning their law lessons, my students also developed the ability to synchronously collaborate online, a skill that will become more important during the 21st century.

Slideshare explanation

This Slideshare presentation may give you a better idea of how the Google Docs lessons worked.

Student Feedback: Survey Results

I conducted a survey of the 8 tutorial classes who experienced law discussions using Google Docs. Over 90% responded positively when asked how they felt about using Google Docs for collaboration. When asked what they liked most about using Google Docs, the factors students cited most were:

1. Anybody can edit the answer and share the results quickly (74%)
2. Can access the document from any computer (66%)
3. Can share one document on screen and another on the laptop at the same time (60%)

(Students could respond to more than one answer.)

Qualitative feedback from the survey was generally positive, although some students had valid reservations over network lag and the limit of 10 concurrent editors. Some of the student comments included:

• "Helps in discussion better"
• "Need not be in front of the class to present (I’m shy )
• "Good to have for reference as sometimes the teacher may go too fast in class"

Conclusion

Google Docs is an example of a tool intended primarily for remote collaboration, and it has been successfully applied to enable collaboration in a physical, face-to-face classroom setting. The tool adds value to in-class instruction primarily because of its "view same document anywhere" and real-time "concurrent edits" features. Google Docs is an ideal tool to achieve the aim of a 21st century education to inculcate skills in communication and collaboration.

Two years after Google Docs was introduced in the School of Business and Accountancy, I find that students still consider the entire concept of working collaboratively on Wikis to be novel, especially when any change made by one student is viewed immediately by the rest of the class. Some students continue to express amazement at not having to share documents by emailing them back and forth. This insight is vital preparation for future online collaboration.

Moving forward, the introduction of competing web-based collaborative work tools by various vendors such as Microsoft’s Office Live and Sharepoint (both of which allow users to easily work collaboratively by saving documents in the cloud) opens up many interesting possibilities. Security of document contents is often cited as a reason to avoid cloud-based systems, but as long as the service provider is reliable, and files are encrypted during transfer and kept behind passwords, they are as secure as files kept within intranets.

My students found the experience of synchronous virtual teamwork to be quite valuable. Good synchronous virtual teamwork skills will be beneficial to our students when they enter the cost-saving, time-efficient and environmentally-conscious 21st-century professional or business workplace.

Author

Paul Ng Jin Meng, Lecturer, School of Business and Accountancy, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

When I was young, my parents encouraged me to keep a diary. My sister, who was 5 years older, had already been keeping one for a couple of years and, like most pesky younger brothers, I would have walked through poison ivy to have a peek into that book.

Privacy. Exclusivity. Secrets.

I wanted it too.

So I started my diary but in the end, it only documented three-and-a-half days of my life as an eleven year old.

My question then – and still is today – was “why write it if no one was ever going to read it?”

Self-reflection, some might say.

Catharsis, exclaim others.

Sense of achievement. Writing practice. Documentary proof.

The list goes on – but what was the point?

Writing For An Audience

One of the major discussions (or arguments) I have with students in my Storytelling Techniques class has been based around this simple question:

If you wrote a story and no one read it, would it still be a story?

For me, the answer is a plain and simple, no.

I think that any form of art is defined by the audience’s reaction to it. The Greek philospher and poet Aristotle said that a proper tragedy invokes both pity and fear in the audience. The audience relates to the story through pitying the characters and fearing their situation.

Notice how Aristotle never said you need an audience for a story. Why? Because it’s understood – the audience is always there and you are always writing for an audience.

So when I was writing my diary, who was going to pity me and fear my situation?

An Audience Of One

When I started teaching the Storytelling Techniques module in the Digital Visual Effects course and then for the Film, Sound & Video course, I found myself confronted by journaling once more.

The Journal Assignment was one I “inherited”, along with the module, from the previous module leader. Students were required to keep journals of their progression in the art of storytelling. These journals consisted of writing exercises as well as their own weekly reflections on the things they learned and how it was applied. They were compiled in folders and done on paper, handed in at the end of the semester.

An example of the paper-based journal entries I was receiving.

The first time I read the journals, I realized most of the entries were written for my benefit, as the students knew I would be marking it.

Being a writer myself, I was acutely aware that a writer’s greatest reward is the response you get from people when they read your work. Currently, these students were getting a response from a grand audience total of one – me.

Essentially, I was their audience.

Just me. One person.

No wonder they didn’t care.

A Perfect Fit

As the new semester drew near, I discussed this issue of lack of an audience with another lecturer who had been co-teaching the module with me. This was where the idea of a blog emerged. As it turns out, he had been exploring the option of using a blog as a journaling tool.

The blog, as defined by Dictionary.com, is “a Web site on which an individual or group of users produces an ongoing narrative”.

We had a group of users (students) and we needed them to produce an ongoing narrative (stories).

It was a perfect fit.

Getting Heard

The introduction of blogs at the beginning presented some challenges. I had two weeks before the start of semester to become an expert on blogging and I hadn’t even blogged before! But, like most things we have to do, I did it and at the end of the two weeks, I became some sort of a blogging guru, writing posts, putting up pages, changing themes and embedding video at the touch of a button. I started to write weekly posts, because I thought that if I expected my students to blog regularly, I would have to lead by example and do it myself.

When I introduced blogging in the first class, I received collective moans and groans – an almost immediate resistance. At first I was taken aback – had I made a wrong (or worse – uncool) decision? In spite of this, I persevered, instructing them on how to start a blog, how to create pages and how to post. Then I told them how their writing exercises and weekly reflections would be posted.

My students need to check my blog weekly to get their assignments and they then need to complete such exercises using their own blogs. I then read their blog entries and mark them while giving comments. In addition to the weekly exercises, they also have to write a post – I call it a reflection but I don’t limit the subject matter, as long as it’s not objectionable (vulgar, discriminatory, overtly sexual, etc.)

Screen shot of one of the first long posts I received after making the paper-to-blog transition.

Surprisingly, as the weeks went by, the groans and moans I heard in the first class never resurfaced. The students got into the habit of writing and I was getting reflections that were five times as long as I did when I used paper journals.

They were still acutely aware that I was reading and marking their work but they were also conscious of the fact that their classmates were also reading what they wrote. I think it was because of this awareness that made them more meticulous and insightful in their own writing; I began to see a marked change in the quality of the reflections as well as the work submitted.

Then the comments started.

It wasn’t a flood of comments but just one or two, here and there, on some of the blogs, from people they didn’t know. Some students panicked and told me that strange people were reading and commenting on their writing.

To them, it was inconceivable that someone would read what they wrote, who didn’t have to.

As word got around the class that certain people were getting external comments, I found the general standard of work in the class as a whole getting better. At first I couldn’t understand why this was happening. Then it hit me. The ones who had no comments were trying to get comments to their work while the ones who had comments wanted to get more.

They were finally writing for an audience.

Getting Better

One of the questions people always ask me is, “Does blogging improve writing?” As someone who used to write for a living and now teaches it, I’ll always say this: writing improves writing.

There’s no better way to improve your writing than to write and get it out there; essentially, blogging is writing. Getting students to blog is, in a way, getting them to write without them realizing that they are learning how to write and that’s the beauty of it!

Just look at this first entry from a student a few years ago.

Now compare that to his entry just two weeks after.

[See post]

Of course, my first thought was … plagiarism! But after speaking to him, he told me that when he realized people were reading it (albeit from his class), he wanted to make the best impression he could. So he had to improve his writing. Amazing.

Here’s another example of a student who was surprised at having received comments. She confessed to me that she never thought her writing was good, much less good enough to incite any sort of comment or discussion.

A good reflective piece about facing one’s past… and the six comments she received. [See post]

4 Blogs, 67 Posts, 43 Comments and 12 Pages Later …

A funny piece on pre-National Service jitters. [See post]

A student’s blog which is now his award-winning photo blog.

It’s been about 3 years since I started my first blog and sometimes I still surf idly into my old students’ blogs.

Obviously, in the fast-paced world that our students live in today, the number who maintain their blogs after my class finishes is low, but whenever I chance upon a new post from an ex-student I will always take the time to leave a comment. Whenever I see that I’m no longer the only one who’s commenting on their work, it always brings a smile to my face.

As for me, I now have 4 blogs, which I try to keep updated on a regular basis. Obviously, there are the ones for school but there’s also one I have devoted to my experiences riding a Vespa, another on my obsession with Mickey Mouse and also a personal one I like to call my “dumping ground”.

Blogging has helped me tremendously in my Storytelling class and I highly recommend it.

In this age of blogs (and now micro-blogs, for example Twitter), journaling has taken on a completely different meaning. The lines between what’s public and what’s private are blurring and although much can be argued on those grounds, you can’t argue the fact that the Internet is a ready audience for anyone who wants to be heard.

As one of my professors in university once said, “There’s no better way to learn to write, than to write to learn.”

Seek me out at Redpants and while you’re there, please visit some of my students’ blogs (you’ll see the links in my Blogroll on the right of the page) – they need all the audience they can get.

Excerpts from student blogs

These excerpts demonstrate some of the student writing output for the story-telling module.

The first one is an example of a 50-word story.

She Who Loves Strawberries

A girl who loves strawberries recently transferred to my school. She eats them all the time. Since she’s pretty, boys woo her with gifts to do with strawberries, until one day, she tells her best friend, “I never thought the day would come when I would be tormented by strawberries.”

[Nadiyah: 50 word stories]

Students have shared not only stories, but personal frustrations and triumphs, as in:

People seem to think that if they just enjoy and play they’ll be happy, but the truth is, it’s the accomplishment of what’s important to you that gives you real joy. And that’s what I’m feeling right now.

[ClareCheon: I’m writing this now because I’m bored…]

There’s even a Polerick (which is “less intellectually challenging than a poem and more fun than a limerick”):

The Nintendo Polerick goes something like this
Its starts on a sunny day with Mario and his Miss
Princess Peach is pregnant– her bellies so fat
Mario’s so happy as he shakes his red hat
“I love you Peach!” he says with a smile
The Princess just grins and laughs for a while.

[Theodorex: The Nintendo Polerick for round 4]

Author

Leslie Tan Wee Boon, lecturer, School of Film & Media Studies, Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Background

As a communication teacher, I have had the chance to hear over three thousand student presentations and read hundreds of written assignments. In that time, I have observed many students struggling to clearly express themselves using ‘proper’ English. In some cases, they have difficulty forming a complete sentence while other students cannot seem to find the right word in English to express what they are thinking in their native tongue.

I am in a fairly unique position as an American with knowledge of both Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia/Malay, lecturing in the School of Business and Accountancy at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. This has helped me to better understand my students’ struggles and it has made it easier for me to help them.

For example, in the April 2010 semester, a couple of my second year students were working on a project, and could not figure out how to translate a word. They called me over, and asked me what word they should use for “”(zhùzhòng). I took a look at the report, and immediately knew they were looking for ‘to emphasize’, and they agreed.

This little incident highlights a common struggle – students are trying to write reports about everything from marketing principles to finance, but they often have trouble with simple, everyday language. It is hard to pinpoint an exact cause of this – some attribute it to the lack of spoken English at home – but whatever the cause, it is clear the issue needs to be addressed if we want our students to be able to become global citizens.

English is a problem for many

The more I taught, the more I realized how difficult speaking and writing English was for many of my students. This is not surprising, especially since many Singaporeans do not speak English at home. According to the Singapore government statistics, 39% of the Indian population speaks English at home, and for Chinese and Malay families, it is 28.7% and 13% respectively (illustrated below). Considering these data, it is not all that surprising that many students struggle to communicate using English.

Resident population aged 5 years and over by language spoken most frequently at home and ethnic group (2005 data). [Data source]

While I was able to understand their situation better after a few months of teaching, true empathy did not come until June 2010 when I was preparing for the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT, a demanding examination that tests logical reasoning and analytical skills, and is used to determine whether a candidate should be admitted.) During the examination, I noticed several instances where I would struggle to simply understand what the question or answer choice was trying to convey. This was frustrating because it added a new layer of complexity to an already challenging exam.

That experience, albeit not very extensive, is not all that different from what some of my students have to deal with on a daily basis. On several occasions I have had students tell me they understand the material from their various modules, but sometimes do not do well on their exams because they have trouble expressing themselves in English.

The author (with flower) with satisfied students.

The Importance of Communicating Effectively in English

The inability to communicate effectively or accurately is something that should be emphasized as Ngee Ann Polytechnic aims to prepare students for a future workplace which will become increasingly globalized.

This seems especially important in the School of Business and Accountancy. The school has intelligent, hard-working students that are being taught by dedicated teachers that have a lot of experience. Students are prepared for careers in local businesses and Multi-National Corporations (MNCs), or for many, further education in a University.

Yet, despite the knowledge gained in certain areas of business, many students still seem to struggle with their English skills. Whether written or oral, a great number of our students are not speaking and writing at the level they should.

As a communication teacher, I have observed several common language issues and I would like to propose some solutions to address these concerns. In the following section, I will discuss four items:

1. Grammar;
2. English differences;
3. Difficulties with professional writing; and
4. Presentation, thinking, and discussion skills.

Four Communication Difficulties

Problem #1 – Grammar

One of the first challenges I encountered in my first semester took place during our lesson on writing skills. I noticed that outside of ‘noun’, ‘verb’ and ‘adjective’, my students did not have a strong understanding of grammatical concepts. As a result, it was very difficult for me to explain important writing ideas, for example, tenses, voice, and subject-verb agreement.

Obviously, if students do not understand such concepts, it will be impossible for them to incorporate the rules into their writing. To get a better sense of this challenge, I have included a few examples below.

A. Active and Passive Voice

For one of the major projects in the second year Business Communication class, the students have to write a long report based on their own research (and some secondary research if they choose). In the report, we tell them to use active verbs throughout, and especially when they are writing their purpose statements.

In my first semester, however, I did not really spend a lot of time discussing active verbs, nor did I draw a distinction between active and passive writing. The distinction, while crucial, is something that I had simply grown accustomed to after several years of active writing in University.

I quickly recognized that my students lacked an understanding of this concept, so I tried to come up with new ways and methods to teach them. For a small minority of students, it made sense for me to point out the difference between active and passive voice in Mandarin. For example:

Literally: "This man BY dog bite."

That is, “This man was bitten (by a dog).”
[Source]

In the above example, the character in bold (bei) makes the sentence passive. Of course, not all students will find this type of example helpful, but it only takes a minute to explain, which I feel is worth it for those few students who will understand. This is one of a few cases where I will try to translate an idea or sentence for the students.

B. Subject-Verb Agreement

One place where students struggle is subject-verb agreement, which is one of the reasons we teach it in the first year module. One of the challenges teaching proper subject-verb agreement is that many of the students are not familiar with the terminology. Here is a typical explanation of subject-verb agreement:

A verb must agree with its subject in person and number.

Many of my students have no idea what it means. They might recognize ‘verb’ and possibly ‘subject’, but they usually do not know ‘person’ and ‘number’. In some cases this is because they were never taught, and in other cases they simply forgot.

The trick then is to provide several examples so they can see what it means to have your subject agree with your verb. After showing a few sentences, we have several slides with blanks so that the students can test their understanding of the concept. There are a few other exercises that will be discussed in a later section.

Helping students to improve their grammar

A. Drills and Tests

Drilling and testing is probably the most obvious method to get students to learn better grammar. From experience, it is easy to tailor a test to the specific difficulties our students are having. From our own observations, as well as those from second and third year teachers, we can focus our lessons and tests on those common mistakes. In class, this process usually occurs in three steps: in-class discussion with mini-drills, a worksheet or two, and then an online, ungraded test for e-learning week.

Despite making common mistakes in everyday language, our students tend to do quite well when they are tested. The thought is they will eventually be tested and drilled enough to remember without having to think about it too much.

In the April 2010 semester, I noticed that students were not only making fewer mistakes, but they better understood the mistakes when I pointed them out. For example, in one case a student used ‘advice’ instead of ‘advise’. As soon as I marked it, the student quickly knew how to make the change. I’ve witnessed this with several other issues, such as tense and sentence structure.

To illustrate some of these ‘common problems’, here is a list of words that our students frequently use incorrectly. The underlying grammatical problem is improper use of count and non-count nouns.

B. Making Sure Students Understand the Basic Concepts

Due to the difficult and complex nature of English grammar, it is important that students understand basic terminology before they can be taught about things like voice, tense, etc. In addition, many of our students have not had a lot of formal English grammar instruction, so they do not have a solid foundation.

For example, to show the active voice, we could say “James hit the ball”, which is active because James is the subject, and he acted (hit) the object (ball). Conversely, for passive voice, we would say “the ball was hit by James”. These simple examples help the students see the different parts of the sentence.

C. The Need to Write

Writing is a skill, and like any skill, practice is needed in order to improve. In the first year communication module, our students are expected to write several practice reports before their in-class writing test worth 30% of their grade. Part of the reason we have them practice so much is to make sure they understand how to write reports using the proper format, but it is also to help them improve their writing.

At the end of the semester, one student noted that the reports “helped me to improve my sentence structure so as to construct a proper and clear report to the readers”. Another student added that she “learnt to be consistent in tenses”, which was a key concept that I was trying to teach them during the semester.

Finally, writing several practice business reports helps students see and get a feel for organization and its importance. Since so many of our students are writing short messages to friends or blog posts on the web, they often lack the skills to organize a long report into a coherent piece. By teaching our students some basic report structures (in the first year we teach them three different styles), they are able to get an idea of how professional writing can be organized. Indeed, one student told me at the end of the semester that these exercises helped her write reports better.

The Business Communication module is a great place for these lessons to take place, but I think we cannot eliminate the emphasis on writing in other modules as well. Each assignment should have a small section in the assessment criteria for writing, which will ensure the students are getting experience expressing different concepts through writing. I distinctly remember one of our external examiners mentioning he was impressed with out students’ responses, but noted that they did not express their ideas very clearly.

Problem #2 – What English Are You Speaking?

Another challenge I encountered when I started teaching communication at Ngee Ann Polytechnic was the difference between Singaporean, British, and American English. On several instances my students were confused because the words I used to describe certain concepts were not the same as those they had been exposed to in the past.

The first issue occurred when I was teaching my students how to properly cite sources using APA Style Citations. I explained they needed to ‘put the source in parentheses just before the period’. After my instructions, most of the students stared at me with looks of confusion. I later learned that this would have actually been understood had I said ‘put the source in brackets just before the full-stop’.

In addition to punctuation, there are other subtle language differences that can cause confusion. Take the words ‘practice’ and ‘practise’ as an example. In British English, the former is a noun, but the latter is a verb. It is very similar to ‘advice’ and ‘advise’, with one key difference: Americans only use ‘practice’, regardless of whether it is a verb or a noun.

Since most of the teachers at Ngee Ann have had more exposure to British English, this distinction is of little concern. However, it does speak to an important aspect of communication, which is ensuring that your audience and you are always on the same page, and are using the same words to describe the same concepts.

In communication, we often regard jargon as an example of ineffective communication. For example, if you are a scientist speaking to an audience full of business students, you’re not likely to be effective if your presentation is filled with science terms.

Helping students speak the “same English”

Although the differences between British English and American English are quite minor, it is still important to try and understand the differences. For example, the English use ‘boot’ while in the US we say ‘trunk’ to refer to the storage space at the rear of a car.

As we get accustomed to language and concepts, we sometimes forget the people around us may not know what it is that we are referring to. In other words, we often fill our writing and presentations with jargon, which can serve as a major barrier to communication. Whether we are talking about sports or engineering, it is essential to consider if our audience will understand all of our vocabulary and acronyms.

Taylor contemplating a fine point of grammar

Problem #3 – Difficulties with Business and Academic Writing

A common issue I observe with my students is they have trouble finding the right tone for business reports, letters, memos, etc. Sometimes their writing is too informal, while at other times it is far too formal.

A. The Informal Problem

Our students spend so much time on Facebook, Twitter, MSN, and other social media sites, that I believe it is adversely affecting the way they write. In some cases they are simply violating basic principles like the avoidance of contractions (they should use “do not” instead of “don’t”, for example). In other cases, they are constructing sentences that closely resemble the Singlish they speak with their friends.

Although I do believe that Singlish is an important and significant part of the Singaporean culture, I think that it can be quite problematic when it interferes with students’ abilities to communicate with a world-wide audience. Since Singapore is a major international hub it means future bosses and colleagues are going to expect high quality written work. If our students cannot switch to proper English, it could damage their job prospects.

When students do have some Singlish influence in their writing, it is usually a grammatical issue. Singlish tends to violate grammatical rules because it borrows patterns and structures from Mandarin, other dialects and Malay, which are different from “standard” English.

B. The Formal Problem

Many students recognize the need to speak and write properly, but they often take it a little too far. For example, many of them will use Microsoft Word’s built-in thesaurus to change their words into bigger ones. When they do this, it is not only painfully obvious, but often incorrect as well. Instead of searching for big words and writing convoluted sentences, they should strive for clarity and conciseness. As George Orwell stated, “Never use a long word where a short one will do”.

Of course we want to sound intelligent, but with business, it is much more important to be understood. Thus, the simplest and most direct way is often the best. As noted in the Economist Style Guide, clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. (Economist, 2006, p.1).

I tell my students to think what they want to say, then say it as simply as possible. When students are trying to sound ‘smarter’, they often write longer and more convoluted sentences, which actually has the opposite effect.

Helping students with the formal/informal problem

First, I encouraged my students to use e-mail as a way to practice their communication skills. Instead of skipping the greeting and filling the message with excessive exclamation marks and smiley faces, I encouraged them to write proper emails. (I debated whether to make this a ‘policy’, but decided against it because I did not want to discourage questions and email communication.) The hope was that they would take an extra moment to construct proper sentences, and get in the habit of writing in a more formal way.

Next, I crafted a set of submission guidelines for my students to follow. After a couple semesters of receiving practice assessments riddled with grammatical and spelling errors, I decided it was necessary in order to get them to spend a few extra minutes on their work. The instructions were quite simple, and included things like running the spell checker, avoiding the use of contractions, and ensuring all the formatting was consistent and appropriate.

These were just two little ideas that I thought would help get my students to spend a bit more time refining their work. The results were fairly mixed. I did see more proper emails, but I would say a majority were akin to what they would send their friends. If I had another semester, I would push the idea a bit more, because I do think it is a quick and easy way to help our students improve. As for the submission guidelines, I did see improvement over the course of the semester. I was getting fewer reports with spelling and grammatical errors, which was a nice change.

I would tell students there is no need to try and incorporate new vocabulary words into a report they are struggling to complete. Similarly, there is no need to treat oral presentations as if they were being given at some official ceremony.

I think that I have been the most successful in conveying this oral presentation concept. At the start of the semester, many of the students looked like robots reading from a script. By the end of the term, several of them realized they could have a bit more freedom, and that something like a conversational tone was often more effective than a rigid, serious tone. This is not a new concept. The best presenters of our day (e.g. Steve Jobs) try to connect with the audience in a simple way. More ideas about presentation skills will be discussed in the next section.

Taylor shares a light moment with his BA students

Problem #4 – Presentation, Discussion, and Thinking Skills

I think our Business and Accountancy students are actually quite strong in their presentation skills – as long as they have time to prepare. The first year communication module gives them many chances to present in front of the class, and they always show improvement over the course of the semester.

However, when they do not have as much time to prepare, they tend to struggle a bit more (who doesn’t?). In my second year module, students are required to give two impromptu speeches during the semester. During this time, many communication difficulties emerge, especially for those who are not as strong in English. Below are two major problems I observe: the use of filler words, and the lack of organization.

A. Filler Words

This is something that many of us struggle with, regardless of our language ability. When we cannot find the words to express our thoughts, we connect sentences with a string of meaningless words. These words are filler words, and the most common are: ah, um, like, lor, la, uh, huh, yeah, so, basically, and actually. Of course many of those words are fine if used properly, but when they are used superfluously, they become fillers.

B. Organization

In an impromptu situation, most of my students have a hard time constructing organized speeches in their first few attempts. By ‘organized’, I am referring to a basic introduction, body, and conclusion.

This skill, which applies to oral and written communication, is crucial for clear communication, and shows that the speaker is a clear thinker. The problem is that students are often so focused on the words they fail to really pay attention to the structure of their presentation.

Helping students with presentations, discussion, and thinking skills

After sitting through over three thousand presentations, these are the three areas that I think should be the main focus for improvement in presentations. Once these three are accomplished, then students can move on to focusing on other areas.

A. Focus on the Structure

I focused a lot on structure, because it seemed that those without solid organization tended to be weaker in all other areas (especially for impromptu speeches). Without a clear structure, the mind tends to wander around, and it makes it difficult to remember key skills like hand gestures and effective eye contact. Thus, during my lessons and in my feedback, I made sure to place a lot of emphasis on the actual structure of the speech, and was really impressed with the outcome.

When I started teaching at Ngee Ann, I immediately remembered an old saying that I first heard from my Speech and Debate coach back in secondary school:

“Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.”

This is the basic advice I give students before equipping them with some tools to help find a structure that works for them.

In my own experience, learning how to structure a speech is an extremely useful tool. Not only does it help me communicate more efficiently, but it can also help me to think more clearly. Once you have that structure, you can simply plug in your content and deliver your speech. For those who struggle with English, a basic outline can really help to shift the focus from content to speaking or writing properly.

I tell the students the best way to imagine the structure of a speech is to think of a roadmap and sign posts. In this case, the road map is used to tell he audience where you are going, and the sign posts are used to tell them when you get there. For example:

Typically, the number of points (sign posts) should be limited to only two or three per speech, but there can be as many sub-points and examples.

Once the basic structure is in place, the presentation can start to get a little more specific. For example, the speech can be organized by time (past, present, and future), or order of importance. While inevitably similar, each student will have their own style, which is fine as long as it is organized.

By the end of the semester, I was fairly impressed with this aspect of the presentations, and thought it contributed to an improvement in the overall delivery. Not only did I notice this, but the students did as well. The most common feedback I got from students had something to do with how they improved their presentation skills.

B. Fluency

This is probably the biggest difficulty for students that are weaker in English, especially in impromptu situations. In the struggle to find words, these students add lots of unnecessary filler words (ah, um, like, lor, la, etc), which really hurts the overall presentation.

There are a couple of ways to get rid of filler words and speak more fluently. The first is for the speaker to be aware of the word or words that are continually repeated. For students with this problem, I keep a count of all the times they say a certain word, then gently point it out to them and have them think about it before the next presentation. For example, in the April 2010 semester I had a student that said ‘basically’ almost every other word. After he finished, I took a big piece of paper, wrote ‘basically’ on it, and told him to think about it before the next presentation. Sure enough, by simply being aware of the word, and a little hard work, the student did not use ‘basically’ a single time in the following week’s presentation. (In this case, I’m considering ‘basically’ a filler word because in the context of his speech it did not serve any real purpose.)

Outside of the classroom, visual or physical reminders can also help students speak more fluently. One example I suggested for the former suggestion was to have a friend raise their hand every time they heard the presenter use a filler word. For the latter, students could get some harmless object (like a small crumbled sheet of paper), and have a classmate toss it at them each time they uttered that word.

With a combination of good structure and fluent speech, the overall presentation improves and it is easier to concentrate on other issues like hand gestures and eye contact. Of course, both components require a great deal of practice.

C. Practice

It is really hard to gain confidence and improve speaking skills without practice. One of the great things about the communication program that I taught is the fact that students have a chance to give so many presentations in class. Still, a lot of students wait until the last minute, and thus are not adequately prepared.

Preparing for a presentation should be thought of more like a practice along the journey of becoming an excellent speaker. One of the most important aspects for all students is that practice can help boost confidence. The more students are in front of a group, the more comfortable they will feel.

Conclusion

For many students, English can seem like a difficult and frustrating barrier. Not only do they have to grasp technical words and concepts, but they are expected to write about those ideas in clear, accurate English. However, by focusing on key problem areas, and encouraging practice, students can make remarkable progress in their communication skills.

References

Chapter 2: Education and Language. (n.d.). Welcome to Statistics Singapore. Retrieved September 3, 2010, from http://www.singstat.gov.sg/

The Economist (2005). The Economist Style Guide: 9th Edition. London: Profile Books.

Orwell, G. (n.d.). George Orwell – Politics and the English Language – Essay. George Orwell – Complete works, Biography, Quotes, Essays. Retrieved September 3, 2010, from http://www.george-orwell.org/Politics_and_the_Engl

Voice (grammar) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.).Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved September 3, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice

Resources

Books

1. Strunk, Jr., William, White, E.B., Angell, R. (1999). The Elements of Style. Longman.
2. Murray, H., Whichelow, C. (2007). It’s Not Rocket Science: and Other Irritating Modern Clichés. London: Portrait.
3. Ross-Larson, B. (1995). Edit Yourself: A Manual for Everyone Who Works With Words. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
4. The Economist (2005). The Economist Style Guide: 9th Edition. London: Profile Books.

Websites

1. The Grammar Girl This is an excellent site, with lots of good tips to help you improve your writing. If you want to learn more about a specific concept (passive voice, prepositions, etc), I suggest searching this site. Another great thing about the ‘Grammar Girl’ is that she also hosts a podcast. The podcast is free of charge, and quite short.
2. The Owl at Purdue This website is run by the Writing Center at Purdue University. It has a lot of useful information, but I find it especially helpful for APA style citations.
3. English as it is Broken English in Singapore! This is an interesting and informative site by the Straits Times’ Stomp.
4. The Economist Style Guide The Economist is one of the most respected publications in the world.

Author

Taylor Michael Maltz, International Fellow (2009/10), School of Business and Accountancy, Ngee Ann Polytechnic