Facial Expression

When I was in Daejeon, I always visited an orphanage there. Just wanted to play with those wonderful kids. The first time I went there, I met a guy from Latin America who came to Korea as an English teacher. David for me is one of the nicest guys I have ever met. I think now he is back in Canada.

We had to teach the kids some English words. It was my first time, I did not know what to do. So i just sat there watching Dave playing with those kids whilst making them saying some words.

Last week I decided to share with Tae Won and Tae Hyun the same words. They are facial expressions or feelings. Here are some of them:

1. Anger
2. Concentration
3. Confusion
4. Contempt
5. Desire
6. Disgust
7. Excitement
8. Fear
9. Frustration
10. Glare
11. Happiness
12. Sadness
13. Snarl
14. Surprise

I also added some other simple words: happy, sad, excited, okay, sick, busy, sleepy, tired, exhausted, free and hungry.

I think, these are some easy words for us to understand and use in our daily life. Especially when people ask; How are you today?

I'll have to hand in two assignments in two weeks. One is for my major subject which may be my final research area and the other one is for an optional subject. It is some kind of research plan.

1. Children and Television: Parentage and Creativity Development among elementary school children in Korea.

2. Malaysian By Elections: The role of online news websites in gaining voters attention to political issues.

What do you think?

Teaching English To Children

I had the opportunity to teach two kids last Monday. Tae Hyun and Tae Won, brothers aged 11 and 12. We will spend every Monday from 3pm for 1 and a half hour.

Last week I chose to share with with them a song by Louis Armstrong. I think the song is very good that kids like them could easily learn and understand what those beautiful lyric means. Their English ability is quite good for elementary school children. As you might guess, here is the song

What A Wonderful World
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
^And I think to myself, What a wonderful world
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
^And I think to myself, What a wonderful world
The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people passing by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
^And I think to myself, What a wonderful world

I asked them to write down the lyric while I read it aloud. It was fun. Also talked about their ambitions and asked them to put it down in their own words so that we can talk about it this week.

Tomorrow I plan to talk about 5 W's and 1 H.

My name is Azman and I like to know more about Children and Television.

Who Communicates What To Whom By What Medium, Under What Conditions, And With What Effects?

In 1942, Douglas Waples wrote an article in the American Journal of Sociology with the same title I use in this post. Harold Lasswell made quite a similar remark in 1948 by asking "Who says what in which channel to whom with what effects?"

I guess the later is simpler and easier to understand. However as put forward by Jennings Bryant and Susan Thompson in 2002, Lasswell missed Waples "under what conditions" phrase.

Answers to these two almost similar questions would give explanations to the role of mediated communication in shaping social change in today's world and would also enable us to expect the changes due this media.

These scholars, perhaps can be regarded as the pioneers and standard setters in the field of Media Effects. On the other hand, the names such as Albert Bandura and Miguel Sabido are the prominent theorists and practitioners of Media Effects' branch which is Entertainment Education. The fact that Sabino was so involved in the making of soap operas in Latin America he was in a way able to influence Mexicans in deciding about family planning and literacy policy.

In Malaysia, The CFO of TM stated in the half year performance of 2009 that TM will launch IPTV next year. It has been a few 'next years' since the last CEO talked about IPTV as a new mean for the company to rejuvenate or win back fix line subscribers lost to mobile operators. Everyone is anxiously waiting for this much talked about new technology or rather an industry on it's own.

Next, I would like to talk about Media Economic in relation to IPTV in Malaysia.