La la la

"there's a hero .. if you look inside your heart. You don't have to be afraid of what you are ..."
That's Hero by Mariah Carey, my bestest company when I was hiking Gunung Ledang back in 1999. or..is it 1998 ? Ntahlaa. Lupa dah. No, am not going to talk about the hiking stuffs. Too old for that LOL! I'm talking about how songs influenced me, and finally, being a teacher for me to improve my English. Thanks to Serie, Eena, and Ameen who influenced me to listen to loads of English songs back then. Ahh.. I really miss you guys!

Actually, before 1996, I didn't listen to english songs at home, or in school (radios are banned, walkman is okay, but I'm not rich). The only english song that I knew when I was in school is Tonight by NKOTB. And that was because we need to practise dancing for an event in Aspuri (hahaha...lalalalalala...tonite!!). So, when I was made to listen to english radio station during my tertiary level, I always end up with serious headache. The only song that I can 'layan' at that time was Celine Dion's. I can't get a word the deejay was saying (was starting to panic that I might get hearing problem..haha). But, later ... a few months later ... I fell in love with English songs. And I do learn a lot of vocabs from them.


So, I thought that if I use songs in my English lesson, I would attract students to like the language, hence improve their proficiency in it. But, after doing so, I didn't feel the 'love' for the language from my students. However, since I've made the requirement for them to present on a song for their 'school-based oral evaluation', we'll have to proceed with it. Let's hope that some songs will turn out to be their favourites and they'll get use to listening to the songs and grab some new vocab from them.

Oh, btw, I just want to share this. I hate the idea of having to bring my laptop to class just to play the song, or finding the radio/hi-fi to do so (because I don't have one pon..;)). Hence, I browsed for portable speakers on the intenet. Lucky me (or is it because I'm being the katak dibawah tempurung...very jakun about the portable speaker thingy??), there's quite a number of choices. But, when I arrived at sony outlet in JJ, there's only one type available. And it costs more than 100 ringgit. I hate it when I don't get to choose ... well, at least, when I'm about to spend a lot of money on that thing (same price as a pair of crocs tu.. ). So, I wander to another store, and voila! There're two types of unbranded portable speakers available at one third of the original SE's speaker's price. So, tested it ... and brought one home. ;)

But, another problem arise. Students said that the volume of the song is quite slow. So, through google, I found this software , MP3GAIN (and what's interesting about it is, you can freely download it). Add another 10dB to each songs .. and, we can finally hear the song. But, bear in mind, the noise in the song is amplified as well. So, do re-check after you've add the gain. Maybe you cannot add too much to it's default value.

So, english songs anyone??