First Movie: Akeelah and The Bee

In becoming teacher, there are many things I ought to learn. One of the effective ways to learn is through movies. There are many movies that show the characteristics of a good teacher. The movie “Akeelah and The Bee” is one of the movies that show how to be a great teacher.

When we are talking about entertainment value, of course movies are made to entertain people. “Akeelah and The Bee” has the sense of entertainment. When I was watching the movies, there were scenes that capture my interest. For example, I am impressed with Akeelah’s instructor as he used methods that are not normal in memorizing words; there is a scene when he asked Akeelah to memorize words through skipping. However, I can say that “Akeelah and The Bee” gives more than just entertainment to me. It gives me a good lesson in becoming a teacher.

 The movie really affects me as a B.Ed.Tesl student. “Akeelah and The Bee” shows me the determination of a teacher in preparing his student for a competition. As a teacher, I cannot easily give up my students. If I fail, I ought to find another way to make my lesson successful.

Dr.Larabee in the movie reminds me of my teacher when I was in lower secondary school. The name of the teacher is Miss Sabrina. I salute her because she never gives up in teaching us students of the rural area. We were not proficient in English but that did not stop her from giving all her best in making us to understand English language. Just like Dr.Larabee, she always came up with interesting lesson. Her lesson is so interesting that it made us more profound to learn English. And right now, I am learning to be an English teacher.

One lesson that really touches my heart from the movie “Akeelah and The Bee” is that students have potential in themselves that we teachers always overlook. In the movie, Dr.Larabee initiates the true potential of Akeelah as a great spelling bee competitor. For that, he used many ways in preparing Akeelah for the national championship. For me, Dr.Larabee is my inspiration. When I become teacher, I will not underestimate my students’ potential even they are students from rural or poor area. I will try my best in order to produce great students. 

Tutorial 1 : My favourite bedtime story is...

For this tutorial, our task is to come up with our favorite bedtime story and present it in front of the class.  So, I choose my most favorite story: The Little Red Riding Hood. It is a story about a naive little girl who wears red hood. One day, she wants to visit her grandmother. On her journey, she bumps into wolf and tells the wolf where her grandmother lives. Before she arrives, the wolf has eat the grandmother and wish to eat her also. Luckily, a woodchopper comes to chase the wolf away. Before the wolf goes to the forest, he vomits the grandmother. Thus, both Little Red Riding Hood and the grandmother live happily.

When I was a child, I don’t have the luxury of my mother telling me English stories. Only stories like Pak Pandir and Mat Jenin. Thus, I choose story that captured my heart when I first come across with English stories for children. Not only that, I like this story because it has a happy ending; an ending that every human being in this world deserve to get.

One of the interesting elements in this story is the portrayal of the moral values. From this story, we can see that whenever we go, we must not talk to strangers. In the story, Little Red Riding Hood has spoken of going to her grandmother’s house and ended up nearly eaten by the wolf. Another moral value from my opinion is we must not let our child goes out alone. Nowadays, it is very dangerous if a child goes out alone as there are many kidnappers and rapers.

The protagonist of this story is Little Red Riding Hood. She is naïve as she told the wolf where she wants to go although her mom has told her not to talk to strangers. Her tendency to talk and trust anyone she sees nearly makes her a dinner for a wolf. The antagonist of this story is the wolf. As we can see, the wolf is very cunning as he plans to eat Little Red Riding Hood by disguise as the grandmother. The wolf is also portrayed as fierce as he has big teeth, big ears and big eyes.

For me, this story is suitable as children story. The elements of moral value and the portrayal of the characters can teach children. Thus, I really recommended this story as children story.

First and foremost, I present to you...

Edwina the emu

     As I grew up in rural area, didn’t know much about children stories. Only when I become teenager, I only knew common children stories such as The Rabbit and The Tortoise, Jack and the beanstalk and others. The first class with Dr. Jaya, he introduces an interesting story which is Edwina the Emu. This story tells us about a female emu named Edwina has just lays 10 eggs. As the male emu named Edward wants to stay and guard the eggs, Edwina goes to find various jobs ending with failure. In the end, Edwina realizes that the most important thing is to be by the side of her eggs. Thus, born 10 little emus.

     As the story goes, we can clearly see that the value that the author wants to emphasize is responsibility. Responsibility is portraying by Edwina as she goes out to find jobs to support her family. However, Dr. Jaya explains that this story has another meaning. If we look closely, the story teaches us about sex education in a positive way: how a male and female mingle in intimate relation and how babies are made. I totally agree with this as many parents would stun when their children ask where babies come from.

     For me, this story is suitable for children. There are many values that can be seen in the story. I recommended for parents to read Edwina the Emu to their children. It’s not just to teach them the value of responsibility but also the discreet meaning of how babies are born into this world. Furthermore, this story has a lot of colourful and interesting illustration that can catch children’s attention.

The Gruffalo

     This is the second story that Dr.Jaya reads to us. The title Gruffalo really makes me wander as there are no animals named Gruffalo. The only animal that close to the pronunciation of Gruffalo is buffalo which I assume is very different.

     This story starts when a mouse goes to the forest. On the journey to the forest, the mouse meets with fox, owl and snake which try to eat him. In order to save himself, the mouse creates a story of a monster called Gruffalo that loves to eat fox, owl and snake. When the mouse arrives at the forest, the real Gruffalo appears. Afraid that he will be the Gruffalo’s meal, he tells the Gruffalo that the entire animal in the forest afraid of him and the mouse proves it by taking the Gruffalo to see the fox, owl and snake. As the fox, owl and snake see the Gruffalo, they run away. The Gruffalo believes that the mouse is powerful and thus run away too. In the end, the mouse eats nuts happily.

     This story shows us that in order to get out from problems, we have to use our intelligence. The mouse shows that he is smart and cunning as he creates story about a Gruffalo. Although we can say that the mouse tells lie, it is more to teach children that using brain is important to solve problems.

     I recommended this story as it is very interesting a bedtime story. Although it tells about a monster called Gruffalo, it focuses more on the brilliant mouse. Children would be motivated to be the mouse: small but smart. Just like Edwina the Emu, The Gruffalo comes with colourful illustrations that can invoke children’s interest in reading.