Expository Essay

My Dog, Romeo

My dog, Romeo, is the best pet anyone could have. He is beautiful and easy to care for.Playing with him is lots of fun. He always takes care of me. There isn't a better pet anywhere.

Romeo is a beautiful tricolor Sheltie. He is mostly black with white and a bit of brown. Caring for him is easy because I simply have to make sure he has fresh water and food every day. I exercise him by throwing his toys. Romeo is a good pet because he is nice looking and doesn't require much care.

Romeo is lots of fun to play with. He loves to play catch. He follows me around the house with a toy and drops it on my foot so I will kick it. He can catch just about anything, but his favorite is chasing a Frisbee. I really have fun playing with Romeo.

Romeo takes care of me. He always follows me when I leave a room. When I am sitting on the couch he plops down right beside me. When we are outside in the woods he always makes sure that I keep up with the rest of the family. He always watches out for me.

As you can see, Romeo is a great pet. I am proud of him and he doesn't require much care. Playing with him is always enjoyable. He watches over me and keeps me safe. Romeo is absolutely the best pet anyone could even have!

Persuasive Essay

Animal Testing
Animal testing has benefited human health. People do not contract polio anymore because of a vaccine tested on animals. Advances in antibiotics, insulin, and other drugs have been made possible through research done on animals. Animal testing should continue to benefit medical research.
In order for scientists to create new drugs, they have to be able to test them. Scientists have found that many animals have similar physical processes to humans. Watching how a new drug affects an animal makes it possible to find out how new drugs might affect the human body.
The cost of animal testing makes it an affordable option. Laboratory animals are in abundance. It is easy to breed rats and other animals and to keep them in labs.
Animal testing saves human lives. It would be wrong to test new drugs on humans. How many people would die because doctors could not administer medication before compiling all the information about a new drug? When surveyed, 99% of all active doctors in the United States stated that animal research has paved the way to many medical advancements. An impressive 97% of doctors support the continuous use of animals for research.
Animal testing should be continued for medical research. It provides a safe method for drug testing that is inexpensive and easy to maintain. Doctors endorse the usage of animals for testing. It is possible that the cure for AIDS could come about through animal testing.

= Claim

Fast Food Argumentative Essay

By ilovelucy, Oak Lawn, IL

Everyone should think twice before deciding to eat fast food. There are many health risks when it comes to eating food that’s made within a matter of seconds. The food is not properly taken care of, which leads all the way back to where the food is originally produced. Even if it is easy to buy and cheap, the health risks outweigh the five minutes of satisfaction that fast food brings. One should carefully think before they eat fast food. 

The health risks that come from eating so much fast food are life-threatening. Obesity can come from eating fast food that’s bought often. Fast food is made from a lot of high saturated fats and calories if it isn’t work off, then you can grow to become obese. “Even a small quantity of fast food contains high calories. People are fooled by the quantity and they tend to eat more. Thus, without knowing, they consume a lot of calories” (How). This is a prime example on how people can consume so many calories, and without even knowing. Obesity isn’t the only risk, because heart disease is also a prime factor. “What you eat can affect your heart’s health and your chances of developing life-threatening heart disease” (Robin). When you eat all of the fats, sugars, and salts, your heart can grow weak and it will endanger you. There is no safe risk for your body when it comes to eating fast food. 

Food-borne illnesses can come from out fast food. What most people don’t know is the conditions the animals are living in before they’re killed. Cows are being hung upside, pigs and chickens are cramped in enclosed spaces. “Inside the facility, the animals are beaten once more to be herded into place. In one case, a man is seen punching, kicking and kneeing a pig, then striking it with a steel stunning tong at least 20 times, as the animal screams” (Gutierrez). What can come from those living conditions? Different bacteria that enters our food. “A recent study has revealed that a full 48% of soda fountains at fast food restaurants contain coliform bacteria – which grows in feces. 11% containted E. Coli, too” (Merchant). It’s extremely sickening to see that even our soft drinks are now infected by food-borne illnesses that usually derive from meat. 

However, fast food is one of the easiest and cheapest ways of eating. It saves a lot of time and money, especially for people who are coming home from work. “As illustrated by the success of fast food, being more convenient than the alternative will almost always give you a significant advantage in the marketplace” (Myers). It’s obvious that there is no quicker or better way to satisfy your rumbling stomach. But then again, what exactly is the price to pay once you’ve had your fill, and now you have new illnesses from eating at fast food restaurants? “In the United States, food-borne diseases have been estimated to cause 6 million to 81 million illnesses and up to 9,000 deaths each year” (Mead). Anyone one of these numbers can be from someone’s family. Most of this bacteria is found in the food you eat from your local fast food joint. Eating at one of these places can cost thousands of dollars in hospital bills, all because of a diseased burger.

Everyone should think twice before deciding to eat fast food. The health risks aren’t worth your life, and animals that live in slaughter houses aren’t treated properly or hygienically before their death, which can cause many food-borne illnesses to inhabit food. Although it is easy to buy and cheap, risking a life for something that isn’t good for any person in the first place could cost thousands of dollars in hospital bills. It is important to eat healthy and make good choices when deciding what to put in your body. Don’t be lazy and pick up fast food on your way home from work. Make the right choice and eat some vegetables.

LESS0N PLAN

LESS0N PLAN

SMP/MTs           : Baturompe

Subject              : English language

Class/Semester : VII (Seven) / 1

Text types          : Transactional / Interpersonal

Theme               : Personal Life

Skill                    : Listening

Time allotment  : 2 x 40 minutes

Competency Standard : 1. To understand the meaning of transactional

and interpersonal dialogues to interact with the closest envirounment.

Basic Competencies : 1.1. To response the meaning in the transactional

( to get things done) and interpersonal dialogue which is used in the

simple oral communication accurately, fluently, understandable to

interact with the closest envirounment that involves: greeting people/

friends, self introduction, others, ordering and forbidding somebody.to ask

and to forbid.

Greeting strangers / familiar people

Introducing selves and other people

Ordering / forbidding

Indicators for Achievement :

The students are able to:

a. response the expression of hello from the strangers

b. response the expression of self introduction.

c. response the expressions of other people’s introductions.

d. response the comment expression.

e. response forbid expression.

f. response the expression of hello from the familiar people

Purpose :

Through modelling and interactive activities, students can conduct simple

communication in the transactional and interpersonal dialogues.

Learning Materials:

Dialogues that uses the following expressions :

1. A : Good morning. How are you ?

    B : Good morning. Fine thank you.

2. A : Hello, I’m Nina. Nice to meet you

    B : Hello, I’m Renny. Nice to meet you, too

3. A : Don’t do that !

    B : No, I won’t. Don’t worry

4. A : Stop it !

    B : Ok

Vocabularies related to text-type and theme

e.g : name, live, address, etc.

Verbs : live, meet, do, stop, have

To be : is, am, are

Personal Pronouns : I, you, we, they, he, she, it

Standard expression :

- Good morning

- Don’t worry

- Thanks

- Nice to meet you

- OK

- How are you ?

g. Teaching method/ Strategy : Three-phase technique

A. Pre- activities

- Question and answer about things related to students’ life

- Students answer the questions of personnal identity

B. Whilst activities

1. To discuss new vocabulary of the texts

2. To listen some sentences of teachers models

3. To guess the meaning and function of sentences produced by

teachers

4. To immitate some sentences of teachers’ pornounciation

5. To listen to the dialogue of introductions

6. To answer the question of the content of the dialogue.

7. To response to the expressions of greeting, introduction, command,

and prohibition.

8. To act out the teacher’s commands.

C. Post-activities

1. To ask the students’ difficulties in learning activities.

2. To summarize the learning materials.

3. To give students some tasks of using expressions in the real situation

Learning Resources

- The relevant text book : ... ( title, author, publisher, year, page )

- Script of dialogues or dialogue recording

- The relevant pictures

- Technique : Ressponding to the expressions / questions orally and

                        written .

- Forms         : oral questions

- Test Items    :

Part I : Listen to the expressions and give your response orally

􀂾 Good morning. How are you?

………………………………………………………………..

􀂾 Hi, I’m Reno and you are?

………………………………………………………………..

􀂾 Are you Anisa?

………………………………………………………………..

􀂾 Hello, it’s nice to meet you

………………………………………………………………..

􀂾 Who is that girl?

………………………………………………………………..

Part II : Listen to the expressions and choose the best response, a, b, c or d.

1. A: Hello, how are you ?

    B : …

    a. Fine, thanks         b. I’m Renny

    c. Thank you                        d. Don’t worry

2. A: Is that your sister, Anna ?

    B : …

    a. Yes, it is                b. No, she’s not here

    c. I don’t know        d. Very well, thanks.

3. A: Budi, this is my friend, Susan.

     B : Hi, Susan …

     a. Fine, thanks.       b. It’s Ok

     c. Nice to see you d. I’m alright

4. A: Open the door !

    B : …

    a. OK           b. Fine

    c. Good       d. Really

5. A: Don’t be late to school.

    B : …

    a. Yes, Sir     b. No, Sir          c. Ok, Sir          d. Fine, Sir

Scoring guide:

1. For part I, each correct item is scored 3

2. For part II, each correct item is scored 2

3. Total Score Part I : 5 x 3 = 15

Part II : 5 x 2 = 10

TOTAL : 25

4. Maximal score = 10

5. Students’ score=        SkorMaksimal            x10

                                         SkorPerolehan

Rubrics for Part I:

No.                       Uraian                                                                     Skor

I           Content and grammar are correct                                         3

The content is correct, grammar is wrong                               2

Content and grammar are not correct                                   1

No answer                                                                                 0

                                                                                   

II             For every correct answer                                                        2

               For every wrong answer/ no answer                                      0

Acknowledged by  :                                        Tasikmalaya, January 31th 2013

       Prinsipal                                                          Subject Teacher

……………….                                                    Adi Demi Nugraha

NIP…………..                                                        NIP.102122128

The Relationship Between Language and Cognition and The Role of Formal Teaching of Language Acquisition

Language is a human system of communication that uses arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols.language is used as a communication tool for sharing information with others.

Cognition is a term referring to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension. These processes include thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, and problem-solving. These are higher-level functions of the brain and encompass language, imagination, perception, and planning. Actually there are two views of experts on the relationship between language and cognition. Piaget argued that a child's knowledge and observations lead to the emergence of a language development. without cognition, there will be no one language. in other words, language is a reflection of the development of cognition. Different views of Vygotsky about the importance of cultural and social environment by learning the language. although the strength is very important cognition, language that would affect child cognition. With language, children will make interpretation on the surrounding environment. Language which triggers the interpretation that would then encourage children to think. Language and cognition influence each other, without either language or cognition will not be developed.

Language Acquisition or How people learn language is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words to communicate.

There are two types of language learning, naturalistic and formal learning. The first naturalistic, is natural and unconsciously. It occurs in the environment of society and started from the beginning (when a child has not mastered any language) and the development of language acquisition is in line with the physical and psychological development.

Second language acquisition is not same with the first language acquisition. Here students had to master their first language well and the development of second language acquisition is not in line with the physical and psychological development. It conducted formally and the motivation of students in general is not too high because a second language is not used for everyday communication in their community.

Generally the role of formal teaching of second language acquisition is designed for achieve the goals that students masters their second language, suffice the sub skills as speaking, listening, reading, and writing even they could appreciate the literature works for every needs. 

Classroom as a place for teaching and learning process, is really important especially for the beginner who have not more input from their informal environment. So it means that classroom should provide the activities that give more inputs for the students progress.

A teacher needs to understand the true purpose of the teaching of second language, to master the various strategies for different purposes, has the capability required the development of teaching materials, and has the ability to choose or develop evaluation tools and techniques as appropriate.

The student is a central element in teaching. All materials and learning activities also evaluation should be designed and implemented in accordance with the conditions and needs of students. The success of the second language held a large part determined by the student. There are several factors that influence; student motivation, ability, attitude, self concept, strong responsibility, and learning styles. Student is not the teaching object but a subject, who thinks solve problems, operate, and make decisions, and so on.

In teaching should be appropriate to the students needs, students' abilities, and students interests to the material to be delivered.

Sources:

http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/languageterm.htm

http://psychology.about.com/od/cindex/g/def_cognition.htm

http://endro.staff.umy.ac.id/?p=126  http://endro.staff.umy.ac.id/?p=124

http://addi-muhaemin.blogspot.com/2012/03/scope-of-psycholinguistics-studies-and.html

THE SCOPE OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS STUDIES and THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING

The Scope of Psycholinguistics Studies

Psycholinguistics is a branch of study which combines the disciplines of psychology and linguistics. It is concerned with the relationship between the human mind and the language as it examines the processes that occur in brain while producing and perceiving both written and spoken discourse. What is more, it is interested in the ways of storing lexical items and syntactic rules in mind, as well as the processes of memory involved in perception and interpretation of texts. Also, the processes of speaking and listening are analyzed, along with language acquisition and language disorders.

Generally, Psycholinguistics, covers three main points (Clark & Clark, 1977; Tanenhaus, 1989):

1. Comprehension: How people understand spoken and written language

a. Imitation

Imitation in language acquisition occurs when children imitate language patterns and vocabulary of those significant to them.

b. Conditioning

B.FSkinner proposed mechanisms of conditioning or habituation to the child's speech is heard and to be associated with objects or events that occur. Therefore the initial vocabulary is owned by the child is a noun.

c. Social cognition

Children gain an understanding of words (semantics) because he understood the purpose of one's cognition to produce a phoneme through a mechanism of joint attention.

2. Speech production: How people produce language

Speech production is the process by which spoken words are selected to be produced, have their phonetics formulated and then finally are articulated by the motor system in the vocal apparatus. Speech production can be spontaneous such as when a person creates the words of a conversation, reaction such as when they name a picture or read aloud a written word, or a vocal imitation such as in speech repetition.

3. Language Acquisition: How people learn language

Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words to communicate.

The Significance of Psycholinguistics for Language Teaching and Learning

Learning the language is so that students should not only master the language as a mere stand-alone systems, to arrive at what is called the level of mastery of language skills to manipulate it.

Communication training should be given as early as possible, if necessary in conjunction with the exercise of language to make a correct sentence

Psycholinguistics is the detailed study of the psychology of language. It helps to study the psychological and neurobiological factors That make it possible to assimilate and apply the languages ​​we identify with.

Learning a language takes the cooperation of various parties to realize a concrete outcome that may be far less the consideration of psycholinguistics as a science that teaches how to use the language in actual communication.

Psycholinguistics as a field of science that focuses on the application of the actual language and communication should be realized. Obviously with the support of various parties, because in learning a foreign language should be given the assumption that learning a foreign language is easy. And we have to do is to apply various methods and approaches that allow students to easily understand it. One that we can not deny that language is a form of habit.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_production

http://hendrawisesa.multiply.com/journal/item/2?&show_interstitial=1&u=%2Fjournal%2Fitem