Exploring the effectiveness of using big books in teaching primary English in Malaysian classrooms

There are many benefits of using stories for language and literacy development particularly in the areas of vocabulary(Cameron, 2001; Elley, 1989; Penno, Wilkinson & Moore 2002;Hargrave & Senechal, 2000) and reading comprehension. Yet, much is still unknown in second language (L2) contexts. This paper investigates the use of Big Books in primary English in Malaysia where English is taught as an official second language. It draws on transcript data from one teacher from one primary school to illustrate how students’ active participation and interest in language learning emerged as the teacher introduced Big Books instead of the textbook. Our data shows that practice with Big Books changes the interaction patterns and learning opportunities. Students were actively involved and they contributed to the discussions and made spontaneous comments about the stories. Most importantly,the teacher’s elicitation skill is essential in enhancing students’ learning. The Ministry of Education’s hopes to provide more active engagement and to increase students’ interests and motivation through stories were achieved

A new model for procuring e-books

This paper draws on a recent ground-breaking tender for e-books for higher education libraries in the UK. The strategy for the tender was informed by standard procurement practice and by the experience of acquiring other e-resources, particularly journals under the so-called big deal. Both are examined as background to the discussion of e-books in general and the tender in particular

Book Review: How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics

If you think about it, mathematics is really just one big analogy. For one example, the very concept of the number three is an drawing an analogy between a pile with three rocks, a collection of three books, and a plate with three carrots on it. For another, the idea of a group is drawing an analogy between adding real numbers, multiplying matrices, and many other mathematical structures. So much of what we do as mathematicians involves abstracting concrete things, and what is abstraction other than a big analogy? [excerpt

Perusing the Stacks: Cataloging Music

This week and last I have been learning about some of the basics of cataloging. While the cataloging of books is often fairly straight forward, such is not case with music. There are some extra, important bits of information that make a big difference in cataloging and finding musical works. [excerpt

Book review: the books that inspired Harry Goulbourne: “Fanon’s black skin, white masks suggested that I attended to the question of who I was”

Harry Goulbourne has written many books on race relations and ethnicity and identity. Harry talks us through his fragmented school days in South London, how his engagement in student politics drove his interest in American History, and how the work of Frantz Fanon had a big impact on how he thought about himself

Big Books: Big, Bold, and Beautiful with Impacts

Some Indonesian elementary schools include English as a local content subject. However, one aspect that is often missing in the process of teaching and learning is supporting teaching media. This is often found in schools based in remote areas, including the one at SD Negeri 6 Tambak Ukir, which is included in this study. The teaching and learning at this school is not fully accommodated because of the unavailability of teaching media. The students are not fortunate enough to afford commercial learning media. The problems worsen with the fact that the teachers have never been professionally prepared and trained to teach English. Such problems lead to meaningless learning. Concerning the issues, we developed five big books to be used by English teachers and students of SD Negeri 6 Tambak Ukir with the aim to provide supplementary learning media for the students, particularly in learning English vocabulary. The research adopted the development model proposed by Gall, Gall, and Borg (2003). There are four simplified stages in this development process: problem analysis, product development, product trials, and product revisions. In the first stage, the researchers planned to develop 10 books, but because of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, only five books (including a manual user) could be developed. The topic covers numbers, colours, alphabets, animals, and the human body. The provision of the books helped the teachers in delivering the topics. The books could also create a new learning experience for the students. Besides, the students also felt that they could get closer to their friends because they could learn together and felt extra motivated. In other words, having been validated and tried out, the books were proven to be valid, effective, and practical. They were valid as they were developed based on strong theories, effective as they can fulfil students’ needs, and practical as they can facilitate both teachers and students during the teaching and learning process. Briefly, the big book can describe itself well. It is big, bold, and beautiful with impacts. Keywords: big book, English teaching medium, research and development, SD Negeri 6 Tambak Uki

The Official Student Newspaper of UAS

Editorial / Whalesong Staff -- Campus safety, the RedZone, and bystander intervention -- UAS In Brief -- UAS Student Government Campaign Week -- Study Away: Monterey Bay, California -- Students get involved at 2017 Campus Kickoff -- Anti Harassment Statement / Notice of Nondiscrimination -- Meet your UAS Wellness Team -- Balancing books and babies -- Big changes in the Lakeside Store -- What does it mean to survive? -- Comics/Off and On Campus Calendar

Health Fetishism Among The Nacirema: A Fugue On Jenny Reardon’s The Postgenomic Condition: Ethics, Justice, and Knowledge After The Genome (Chicago University Press, 2017) And Isabelle Stengers’ Another Science Is Possible: A Manifesto For Slow Science (Polity Press, 2018)

Personalized medicine has become a goal of genomics and of health policy makers. This article reviews two recent books that are highly critical of this approach, finding their arguments very thoughtful and important. According to Stengers, biology’s rush to become a science of genome sequences has made it part of the “speculative economy of promise.” Reardon claims that the postgenomic condition is the attempt to find meaning in all the troves of data that have been generated. The current paper attempts to extend these arguments by showing that scientific alternatives such as ecological developmental biology and the tissue organization field theory of cancer provide evidence demonstrating that genomic data alone is not sufficient to explain the origins of common disease. What does need to be explained is the intransience of medical scientists to recognize other explanatory models beside the “-omics” approaches based on computational algorithms. To this end, various notions of commodity and religious fetishism are used. This is not to say that there is no place for Big Data and genomics. Rather, these methodologies should have a definite place among others. These books suggest that Big Data genomics is like the cancer it is supposed to conquer. It has expanded unregulated and threatens to kill the body in which it arose

Using Big Books to Promote the Elementary School Students' Participation in English Classes

Maintaining the students' participation in the classroom is one of the greatest challenges faced by the English teachers especially those dealing with young learners’. This research aims to find out how well big books can improve the participation of fifth-grade students of SDN Pejagan 1 Bangkalan. Classroom action research was used as the research design. This research consisted of two cycles each of which was conducted in six meetings. The data was obtained from the observation and acting steps then analyzed descriptively. The researcher collaborated with the English teacher to conduct the research. To know the students' opinions towards the use of big books, the questionnaires were given at the end of each cycle. The interview was also done to some students and the English teacher related to the use of Big Book. This research revealed that big book which was big enough so it could be seen by the whole class; has interesting story and character and has eye-catching pictures could effectively encourage the students to participate actively in the English classes. Using big books in the classroom created a non-threatening atmosphere so that the students could express their opinion and disagreement freel

Big Book in a Small Pond: An Investigation of Preschool Teachers’ Use of Emergent Literacy Strategies When Reading Big and Typical-Sized Picture Books Aloud

The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency with which preschool teachers use a variety of instructional strategies to promote students’ emergent literacy skills during group read-aloud time. These strategies included print-referencing, dialogic reading techniques, and Shared Book Experience practices. More specifically, the researcher compared the teachers’ use of these strategies when reading typical-sized books versus big books. A total of eight preschool teachers participated in this study. The researcher filmed each participant reading two children’s books aloud—one big and one typical-sized, and the videos were transcribed and coded for read- aloud behaviors. The teachers’ use of emergent literacy reading strategies did not differ as a function of book size. Additionally, the teachers’ use of read-aloud strategies was infrequent in general. These findings suggest that big books are not inherently helpful in improving teachers’ use of these strategies, and that further read-aloud training may be necessary in order to elicit a higher frequency of these behaviors in teachers