Has it ended already?!?

Time passes so fast and the module has ended with our presentations going at full blast. Of the whole module, I would say presentation has been the most interesting of all. Having to sit through presentations (almost everyone's, apologies to those whose presentations I missed!) of our project and learning about so many different things, it has really taught me how each and everyone's understanding of speech events and language use can be so different in so many ways! I have definitely learnt alot about cultural differences and definitely feel that the more understanding we achieve about each other's language due to the influence by various cultures, the more we would definitely live in harmony with one another's differences.

Last of all, I would like to thank Dr Deng for setting up this module and also my apologies for not attending some classes due to my weak body and accidents! (So much things happening for a year!) Bidding for this module was definitely quite hair raising! I saw there was only so little slots available and the points just kept going up and up. I was hoping to get it and I did! I'm glad the module was fun and enjoyable and unlike all others I have taken. In any case, I'm still happy that I took this module and am actually quite sad that its over so fast! Though I'm happy yet again the assignment deadlines are gone.

And also, I'll like to thank Christine and Ghafur for putting up with my incessant troubles and worries. You guys have been a great team to work with! My apologies for all the troubles I gave you all!

To all my other classmates, hope you all enjoy the module as much as I did and hope we keep and apply what we learnt about each other's cultural differences and be tolerant towards each other! To people like Say Wee and Eileen, remember to say Hi to me if we meet each other again at ADM! Ha! Good luck for all the coming examinations and I wish everyone good luck and all the best!

Signing off One Last Time
Alan Lim Binghong

I need to get a job!!!

Having done this topic individually like E-learning week, I really do have difficulty trying to link up all the stuff I read in the powerpoint slides, the notes and the tutorial questions. But nevertheless, I willl still try my best here!

The CARS model is actually quite interesting to look at. In fact, I feel that this topic should have been placed right at the start of the module. Letting us understand how a research article is done and the different parts involved with it. In fact, looking at the different parts that we need to write on and elaborate upon, it somehow gives me a feeling that we all should have known it quite obviously from the start. The more you write and read on other articles, I think these would have naturally come around as we make reference to other articles to write. But for someone who has a quite poor grasp of the English Language (having got myself a C6 and taking the English class during my first year), I feel this would have been a good guide for me to write any future articles. Though as much as my friends can tell me how I should write an article, I'm still at a loss at starting and going on always. This is still a good guide for me. I'm glad this came along though I should have read up more about such things earlier in my life.

About Letters of Application, it is yet another lesson of the various cultural influences that bring upon the different discourse encountered throughout life. Like in the Arabic letters, there is this line "I supplicate Allah, the Glorious..." which truly shows how huge the impact of the religion has upon the region that even in an official letter towards an educational instituition, religion can be used as a form of persuasion towards the recipient. However, in the English letters, the writer expresses his great interest to the job by asking for a response by providing his phone number and telling the recipient that he is eager to contribute positively to the company. I am, yet again, still very much amazed by how all these cultural differences lead to the world we have today. All the different views and ideas about life and the world's events. All these make me wonder if people would really start to understand how language can be used in so many different ways, both good and bad. Understanding each other's language is really just one step closer to harmony between everyone.