Confidence vs Competence vs Proficient

Watch and tell me which one do she possessed....Language Proficiency, Language Competence, or Language Confidence?

Better English but lack of confidence.

This was on The Star dated 19 Sept 2011.  Interesting to find that our fresh graduates are showing better grasp of English  but at the same time lack of self-confidence. Something must have gone right with our education system that the level of English Language has improved over the years. Perhaps due to the emphasis (sometimes overemphasis by schools, parents, employers, etc) for students to master the English language. It seems that the message was loud and clear that be proficient in English or loose in the job market.  Unfortunately, language proficiency alone will not guarantee that the student will be candidate of choice to fill up job vacancies.  What we are not "teaching" our students is that competence, among others is also a critical qualities to be successful in securing a job offer.

In my days as HR practitioner, specifically playing the role of a recruiter I was more interested to assess candidate language competence rather than English proficiency. English proficiency can be detected during the job application process in their cover letter or resume. Of probably thousands of applications I received and reviewed, only a handful could be considered having good English proficiency. What would you make out a candidate who wrote "I'm graduated from U_____." or "I was graduated from U_____"?  Given the cut and paste, template-driven culture, this grammatical mistakes often times appeared in applications from candidates of the same University! Enough of this as I do not intend to give an English Language lesson. I'm more interested to talk about language competence.

By "language competence" I mean the ability to use language for communication purposes. Someone with language competence would appear to have better self-confidence when communicating, Or is it the other way around that someone need self-confidence to portray better language competence. Chicken and egg situation? Not really.  I'd seen candidates with high self-confidence portraying low language competence as well as candidates with high language competence displaying low self-confidence.  Language competence do contribute to high self-confidence but at the same time being competence in the subject matter would influence better self-confidence.

So what should be our focus? Should we focus on language proficiency or language competence?  I'd say both.  unfortunately the focus of our schools is on proficiency and not competency. A student with grade-A for English means he/she is proficient in English not necessarily competence in English. Very much the same for other subjects - mathematics, science, geography, history, etc....what our children learn at school is make them more proficient in the subject but not necessarily competence.  To be competence in the subject matter, one must be able to use one proficiency in the subject matter. I conclude that there is a need to develop subject competence. If schools failed or not designed to do it, then another development avenue is required to ensure our children develop their self-confidence by being both proficient and competence.

Communicative challenges of Special Children

This posting is a follow up to my earlier posting titled "AQUA KASEH and Social Competence". Halberstadt, Denham, and Dunsmore in their paper titled Affective Social Competence (in Social Development, 10, 1, 2001, Blackwell Publisher Ltd. 2001) discussed on the need to conduct their research to understand Special Children social competence deficits. I had extracted from their paper the communicative issues faced by the nonnormative populations namely Autism, Behavior Disorder, and Maltreatment. These issues posed communicative challenges to the special children in their social competence development.

Autism

·         Less able to imitate others’ emotions (Hertzig, Snow, & Sherman, 1989)

·         Often facial expressions are incongruent to situation (McGee, Feldman, & Chernin, 1991)

·         Do not attend to social messages (Dawson, Meltzoff, Osterling, Rinaldi, & Brown, 1998; Osterling & Dawson, 1994)

·         Delayed understanding of basic, unequivocal emotional situation (not immediately show excitement); show deficit in comprehension of emotions caused by beliefs (Baron-Cohen, 1991)

·         Spend less time looking at distressed or fearful adults and focus on objects instead (Sigman, Kasari, Kwon, & Yirmiya, 1992)

·         Similar physiological experiences of the emotion event but more ambiguous facial expressions (Steinhilber, Jones, and Dunsmore, 1999)

·         Rarely engage in joint attention (Dawson, et al.,1998; Lewy & Dawson, 1992; Osterling & Dawson, 1994; Steinhilber, et al., 199)

Behavior disorder

• Send emotional messages that are proportionally more negative (American Psychiatric Association, 1987)
• Showed more extreme responses to a negative mood induction (Cole, Zahn-Waxler, Fox, Usher, & Welsh, 1996; Cole, Zahn-Waxler, & Smith, 1994)
• Deficits in ability to receive others’ emotional messages (Casey & Schlosser, 1994; Cook, Greenberg, & Kusche, 1994; Nowicki & Duke, 1994; Russell, Stokes, Jones, Czogalik, & Rohleder, 1993; but see Cole, Usher & Cargo, 1993)
• Spend less time scanning the social environment and, consequently, recall fewer details of emotional stimuli (Casey & Schlosser, 1994)
• More often attribute hostile intentionality to others (Casey & Schlosser, 1994; Dodge & Frame, 1982; Dodge, Murphy, & Buchsbaum, 1984; Dodge & Somberg, 1987)
• Less awareness of their own affective experience, and they clearly have more difficulty identifying and understanding their own feelings (Casey & Schlosser, 1994; Cook et al., 1994)
• Diminished abilities to constructively manage and regulate their emotions, may express emotions impulsively as they are felt (Greenberg, Kusche, & Speltz, 1991)
• Displaying anger at inappropriate times (Cole, et al., 1994);
• May show brittle control or denial of negative emotion (Cole, et al. 1994)
• Less well able to integrate nonverbal skills (Russell et al., 1993)

Maltreatment

·         Less likely to use internal state words; will do so in restricted manner (Beeghly & Cicchetti, 1994)

·         Less able to recognize photographs of child and adult expressions (During & McMahon, 1991)

·         Less able to recognize ‘pure’ and ‘masked’ emotions (Camras, Ribordy, & Hill, 1988; Cassidy et al., 1992)

·         Do not habituate to interadult hostility involving their mothers; they become aroused and aggressive themselves, attempting to help or comfort their mothers, or intervene in the conflict on their mother’s behalf (Cummings, Hennessey, Rabideau, & Cicchetti, 1994)

·         Show deficits on self-reported empathy measures (Straker & Jacobson, 1981)

·         Show more inappropriate responses (such as anger, aggression, or withdrawal to their peers’ distress (Howes & Eldredge, 1985; Klimes-Dougan & Kistner, 1990; Main & George, 1985)

·         Show more despressed/dysthymic and anxious affect (Toth, Manly & Cicchetti, 1992)

·         Show more anger and more situational inappropriate and inflexible emotions (Erickson, Egeland & Pianta, 1989; Shields, Cicchetti & Ryan, 1994)

AQUA KASEH and Social Competence

I read with interest a research paper titled Affective Social Competence by Amy G. Halberstadt (North Carolina State University), Susanne A. Denham (George Mason University) and Julie C. Dunsmore (Hamilton College) published in Social Development, 10, 1, 2001 (Blackwell Publisher Ltd. 2001). What's interesting about this paper is the way it explains the process of emotional exchanges in social interactions, especially among children. But what compelled me to share this paper is when the writers explained how their research is relevant with "nonnormative populations". What they referred to as nonnormative populations is populations that have conditions such as Autism, Diagnosed Behavior disorder, and Maltreatment which caused them to have social competence deficits. Children with the above conditions progressed in their social competence development slower than the normal populations. Therefore, their ability to blend with the general  population or society is less compared to their normally developed  peers.

It gives me some sense of the challenges faced by teachers, parents and caregivers of Special Children to ensure that these children are prepared face "normal" life i.e. to blend in, to gain acceptance in society. I use quotes for the term normal  because to the special children their world is normal, as much as we view our world as normal.  We called them Special Children because to our normal standards they need special care and attention just to survive in our so called normal world. Nonetheless, society is becoming more aware of the needs to provide special education and development program for this segment of society.

When I designed Aqua Kaseh my intention was to provide an opportunity for Special Children to acquire one survival skills i.e. swimming (or more accurately Aquatic Competence), so that they are at least one skill closer to the their normally developed peers. By acquiring the Aquatic Competence, they will also be one step ahead most of the normal population as not many of us have Aquatic Competence.  The program equipped them with skills to be as normal as any person,  in the water the water that is.

Safir-Whorf Hypothesis in Interpersonal Communication

Interesting academic video that explains the Safir-Whorf Hypothesis. The Hypothesis explains development of language and the linguistic influence to the way culture are shaped. Also applicable to interpersonal communication especially when dealing with person from a different linguistic culture. Enjoy and would like to hear your comments.

Should English be the default language?

 This was on The Star (20th October 2011) pg 54.

The views of this writer had aroused me to write my perspective of the issue.  In my earlier blog postings, I questioned whether English should be the default language for Commerce and Knowledge (Academic & Intellectual interactions). I proposed that the language of the trading partner that have the upper hand in the trading transaction will be the language of commerce (at least in the transactions involving the two parties). I also proposed that the language of Knowledge is the language use to create, transfer/share and apply the knowledge.

While one can insist on English to be the language of commerce if and when one has an upper hand in trading or both parties agrees to do so, I find it wrong for one to insist on English to be the language of knowledge. To help me with this argument, I invite you to watch this video from TED.com. The speaker talk about how insisting on English will limit knowledge and in fact cause lost of knowledge. Enjoy the video.

Is English the language of knowledge by default?

 This was on The Star (20th October 2011) pg 54.

The views of this writer had aroused me to write my perspective of the issue.  In my earlier blog posting, I shared my views about language of commerce. I proposed that the language of the trading partner that have the upper hand in the trading transaction will be the language of commerce (at least in the transactions involving the two parties).

Before I share my views on language of knowledge (for education and intellectual interactions), i would like to reiterate that I do not support or oppose the views of the above writer. I only felt that additional point of views need to be shared so that you could make an informed conclusion on your own. In fact, I could accept the fact that "a scientist from MIT would never understand a physics research paper and mathematical lemmas written in Malay...." especially if that particular scientist do not know any other language besides English.  MIT is in an English speaking country (USA). However, if you go their library, I bet you will find scholarly literature in other languages (especially Latin) and obviously a lot of English translated version of scholarly literature written in other languages. The issue is not what language is used to capture the knowledge but how relevant the knowledge is.

I can understand someone who would only refer to literature written in a specific language, most likely in the language they could understand. But to limit the literature review to only language we understand means to limit our knowledge. Knowledge is first captured in the language it was created. During transfer/sharing process, it will be captured in other languages (translation) so that it could be applied universally. It just so happened that today most scholarly literature is written in English or has been translated to English. However, we cannot deny that there are new knowledge being created and captured in other languages.

Before English, the language of Knowledge was Latin and before that it was Arabic. Why? The language used by scholars is the official language for the center of Knowledge creation (used to be Arabic and then Latin, as it is now English).

As in my last post, I do not want to bored you with History lesson. Look it up and you'll discover your own how Knowledge being translated into Arabic from other languages so that scholars in the Islamic world could study and create new knowledge. History repeats itself for Latin and then English.

I propose that language of Knowledge is the language use to create, transfer/share and apply the knowledge. It can be any Language. What's important is the Knowledge, not the language used to capture, transfer/share and apply the knowledge.  Language is only the tool to communicate the knowledge. And yes, we can use sign language or pictorials to share knowledge.

I believe that no specific language can claim sole rights to be the language of knowledge. To do so is to claim that knowledge cannot be created and written in other languages. To do so is to deny knowledge to people who could not speak that language. To do so is to invalidate all knowledge that had been written in other languages. I can't imagine that since half of science knowledge was created in Arabic, translated to Latin then translated to English. There would be no Mathematics as we know it today since the numeral system we use today originated from Arabic, the other choice we have is Roman, or Chinese....what's an English numeral system anyway?

Programs for School Holidays

Dear Loving Parents,


Pro Mind Resources in collaboration with Dolphin Swimming Academy, proudly present to you an opportunity to equip your children with survival skills. The year end School Holiday incredible Programs (SHiP) are designed for school children to spend their year-end school holidays productively. 


Our Aquatic competence module offers opportunity for the children to develop their Aquatic Competence. They will be certified by the Academy but more importantly they will know how to survive in water. 

• Aqua Kids (age group: 7-12 yo)
• Aqua Teens (age group: 13-19 yo)

Class available daily during school holidays Monday to Thursday starting 21st November 2011.
Sessions available: Morning session (9am - 12noon) & Afternoon session (2pm - 5pm)


Top-up the Aquatic Competence module with our Motivation and Character building modules to provide a balanced personal development of your children. This will equip them with survival skills in water as well as in society. 

• Aqua Kids Camp (age group: 7 -12 yo)
• Aqua Teens Camp (age group: 13 - 19 yo)

Camps available every weekends during school holidays starting 25th November 2011.
Aqua Kids Camp: 25th - 27th November & 9th - 11th December 
Aqua Teens Camp: 2nd - 4th December & 16th - 18 December


No minimum swimming experience is required to join the programs but children certified for Aquatic Competence are not allowed into this program. Instead we recommend further further development of their skills with Dolphin Swimming Academy 


We ensure effectiveness of our programs by maintaining our Instructors to participants ratio in each program. Register today or you'll missed out on the opportunity to develop aquatic competence for you children. 


Check out the SHiP blogpage for program details. Visit Dolphin Swimming Academy on facebook for details of other Aquatic programs available (especially for your Aquatic Competent children). 


YOUR DECISION TO PROVIDE YOUR CHILD WITH AN AQUATIC EXPERIENCE IS A GIFT THAT WILL HAVE INFINITE REWARDS

Let's make a difference, prevent our children from drowning.

To register/inquiry contact
promindresources@gmail.com
019-2421229 (Sam)
013-6408681 (Aziz)

Is English the language of commerce by default?

 This was on The Star (20th October 2011) pg 54.

The views of this writer had aroused me to write my perspective of the issue.  Firstly, let me try to summarize, from my understanding of what the writer was trying to convey.  I sensed the writer was upset over the PPSMI ("Pengajaran & Pembelajaran Sains & Matematik dalam Bahasa Inggeris" = Teaching & Learning of Science and Mathematics in English). The writer when to great extend to argue the importance of English and urge everyone, especially the government not to ignore the importance. Finally, the writer called for action to "refurbish English prowess among Malaysians and repeal the scrapping of PPSMI.

Before I share my views on the subject, allow me to make my stand clear that I am not opposing or supporting the writer's view. I respect the writer's point of view and can see some merit to his arguments.  At the same time, I feel that other point of views to the same arguments.

The writer point out that English is the language for commerce, education and intellectual interactions. At present time that is undeniable.  But then again, Malay used to be the Lingua-franca in this region. Latin and Arabic used to be the language for education and intellectual interactions. If we look up history of the world, we would conclude that any language can the language for commerce, education and intellectual interactions.

Malay was the lingua-franca back then because it was the "official language" for the Melaka Sultanate, which rule commerce in the region and pretty much the same reason for English to be the language of world commerce because the English Speaking world (led by USA) rule world commerce. Despite that, you would find knowledge of local language useful when conducting commerce with certain economic powers like Japan, China, Germany, France, Korea, just to name a few. One might argue that even these economic powers use English as the language for their International Commerce. So my respond is...rewind 3 sentences and read again. I propose that the language for commerce is the language of the trading partner with the upper hand. If we "need" something from our trading partner, we'll communicate in their language.

We cannot insist on our trading partner to speak our language if we are the one in need. But for mutual benefits i.e when both do not have an upper hand, both parties might agree to use a common language comfortable to both; in the present world, English is the commonly acceptable language. But do you know that the United Nations has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish, thus one cannot reject the use of these languages in any international forum/transactions? I let you figure out how these languages became the official languages of the UN. In doing so, you will see my point about having the upper hand makes the language of the trader the language of commerce.

In a similar fashion, Arabic and then Latin was the education and intellectual interaction. I propose that the language of education and intellectual interaction depends on the language that capture and transfer knowledge.  I will write to explain about this in another post....watch out for it.

Memories of English Camp 2011

I created this slideshow to recall memories from the SKPU3 English Camp 2011.

The song is "That's what friends are for" by Dionne Warwick and friends.  Lyrics in the slides is for this song as well as "One moment in time" by Whitney Houston.

The Aqua Kaseh Idea

My brother runs the Dolphin Swimming Academy (www.dolphinacademy.blogspot.com) which started as a center to teach people to survive in water....yes, not just to swim. He is a qualified Life Saver and had decided to open the academy after receiving requests from parents to teach their children to swim.  Why come to my brother and not to other swimming instructors? Well, you see as a Life Saver his teaching approach is quite revolutionary (yes...he was recognised for that: refer to his blogspot above). I saw the method worked on my children.  Within a day of instructions, they could start floating properly....I mean this is important as the whole idea to learn to swim is to stay afloat in water, right?  On the second day, the kids were lapping the pool (as part of their aqua endurance training).  They couldn't swim a couple of days before!!! After a 2 weeks of training session, their Aqua Competence is apparent.  Since then, I stop worrying about them going to the deep end of a swimming pool.
Now what does the above have to do with the Aqua Kaseh project I'm embarking.  Amazed by the training approach (i.e learn to survive before learning to swim), I asked my brother if he would train people with disabilities? To my surprise, he said he had tried with Special Children (Down syndrome and Autistic).  On request from parents of the Special Students of SMK Bukit Kepayang, he accepted the challenge to teach the children aquatic survival skills (which at that point, no other swimming instructor/centre in town willing to take them in).  We're not talking about children with physical disabilities. These children are physically fit only thing is that their brain development is slower than so called normal child. The results? All of the students could now swim (or in my brother's term: Aquatic Competent). Since then, parents with special child had approached him for help. On case by case basis, he accepted these children selectively.

Inspired by his success, I asked him if I could start a project to organise a program to help Special Children to learn to survive in water.  So born the Aqua Kaseh idea.

Post UPSR Activity @ SKPU 3

Event: Year 6 Motivation

Participants: 160 Year 6 students of SPKU3

Date: 5 October 2011

I got an opportunity to have a reunion with participants of our English Camp 2011 when the school invited me to facilitate a motivation session for Year 6 students after their UPSR exam. Organised 4 games for them.  The most challenging for all the teams was the single track game

As expected, kid at this age group would have a Win thinking.  Unfortunately for them, to "win" this game, both teams must cooperate.




The reflection for this game, as I shared with the students is that to win, you must allow others to win as well. I drilled to them the concept of 'abundance mentality'.

The most mind boggling for the kids was the newspaper game. The challenge given to them was to cut one piece of newspaper in such a way that it form a ring which all team members (10 of them) can fit in.  

No breaks allowed.

Use of sticky tapes draws penalty points.

They were asked to plan first.

Experiment on a smaller piece of paper.


Of the 16 teams, only 3 managed to complete the task without help.

The rest need some tips and even demonstration.

A couple of team failed to complete the task.

Lesson learn is that nothing is impossible.  The trick to this trick is the way the newspaper is cut.  If done with proper technique, the ring can fit up to 30 people!!!

Seriously.




Then it's time to reflect on the games and also to give a bit of motivation to the kids.

 I showed a couple of inspirational video clips.




And finally, having fun with some of the kids that attended the English camp.  Most of these kids knew me as Uncle Sam.

We first met during a motivation session I did for their Motation and Leadership workshop organised by the school before the English Camp.




Then off course during the English Camp.








Last but not least, credits to the two gentlemen that had help me with this event.  Athar and Ali....best buddies (BFF?) The way they handle the kids and the way the kids respond to them were just amazing.

English Camp 2009 SKPU3

Event: English Camp (Sponsored by PruBSN)
Participants: 80 Year 6 Students from SPKU3
Date: 3 days 2 night in June 2009
Venue: D'Ark Resort, Janda Baik
A team of volunteers from PruBSN facilitated this event

Objective: To help build confidence among the student in facing UPSR especially for their English paper.

Activities includes

1. Motivation sessions (including one given by PruBSN CEO at that time - ED)

2. Treasure hunt along the way to the venue.

3. Team building games (indoor/outdoor)

4. Language games (Word spelling / Sentence struture / Composition)

Outcome: it was reported that participants has shown improved participation during English class and increased self confidence. They are no longer shy to use English as the communicative language.

English Camp 2011 SKPU3

Event: English camp

Participant: 80 pax Year 6 student @ SK Puchong Utama 3

Date: 22 - 24 April

Venue: Nur Lembah Pangsun, Hulu Langat

This event was faciliated by me and my team (Athar, Ali, Ariff aka Ashraff, Ismail aka Batez), 

Program objective

1. Building confidence in using English language.

2. Encourage usage of English in daily activity.

3. Preparing participants to face UPSR especially English paper.

Activities include (among others)

1. Motivation and counselling session

2. Team building games (indoor/outdoor)

3. Language games (word/spelling, sentence structure, composition)

4. Confidence building activity (Presentation, Night walk)

Outcome: It was reported that there were positive behavioral changes, improved English language competency and increased self-confidence in most participants.