ASSIGNMENT QUESTION

You are the president of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) at an urban school. At the last
association meeting, many parents expressed their concern about the poor performance of
their children, particularly in Mathematics, Science and the English Language. They felt that
the school should work harder towards improving the teaching and learning of these subjects.
The PTA could assist but the association does not have enough funds (money) to carry out its
projects for the school. You wish to speak about this problem and suggest some solutions at
the forthcoming meeting.
(a) Which of the following speech types will best describe your speech: informative,
persuasive, negotiation, or argumentative speech? Give reasons for your answer.
(4 marks)
Answer (a):
The best of speech type is persuasive speech. Persuasive speech can influence listeners
beliefs, attitude or value as we compare with other types of speeches likes informative,
negotiation and argumentative. Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) is playing an important
role to interact with the parents and be sensitive to their needs and emotions. Persuasive
speech will encourage and facilitate contact between parents and teachers for improving poor
performance of the student.

(b) Briefly outline the problem that the PTA needs to address. What actions can the members
of the association take?
(4 marks)
Answer (b):
The main problem for Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) is does not have enough funds to
carry out the projects for the school. The PTA needs co-operation and understanding from the
parents and any suggestion from parent in raise more fund for the association. There are few
ideas suggest by members of the association to raise fund for carry out the project.
Jogathon
Campaign for collecting old newspaper & aluminum cans
Rental income
Donation or sponsorship
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(c) What form of oral communication will your intended PTA speech be? Briefly describe the
model of communication that clearly explains how your public speech could work most
effectively.
(6 marks)
Answer (c):
The form of oral communication is public communication. The communication will involve
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) as a speaker and the parents as an audience. The PTA will
aim to persuade the parent to act and think towards same objective, i.e. raise more fund for
the PTA to carry out the project for improve student performance.
The model of communication in this persuasive speech will be transactional model. This
model will take both parties view into consideration; both persons can be a speaker and a
listener, can be simultaneously sending and receiving messages. With the above ideas shared
by member of the association, the PTA needs to have 2 ways communications by sharing
each party viewpoint and experience to have mutual understanding to carrying the project.

(d) What is the social context of your speech and who are the participants?
Assuming that your audience will be multicultural, analyse its needs so that
these can be addressed in the speech.
(6 marks)

Answer (d):
I will start the speech by greeting to all the parents and members of association. Assuming
that the audience will be multicultural, in the speech we must have to avoid topic or issues
which are personal and sensitive, like religious issues, ones health problems and politics in
general. It is important to keep the doors open and welcome parents to share in the goals of
education students. The speech will cover the following points:

Parents warm welcome

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Bearing in mind we have different social and cultural practices. Be sensitive to the
feelings of parents throughout the speech.

Sharing concern on students poor performance

Making suggestions and recommendation for upcoming projects

Express thankful and appreciation for the parent attendance

(e) Prepare an outline of your speech (see e.g. Topic 8.4.4, p. 174) keeping in mind the
purpose of your speech (Topic 9). Use complete sentences to express your main points
and supporting statements in the Introduction, Body, and Conclusion or any other
content structure that may be appropriate. E.g. Monroes Motivated Sequence (Google this to
find out more). Indicate in the outline what audio/visual aids and supporting evidence you
may use to make your speech more effective.
(15 marks)

Answer (e):

As the Speaker of the PTA, on behalf of all the parent of students and the school PTA
Committee, we would like to express our highest appreciation to thank all the parents to
coming here. I would like to extend a warm welcome to all parents who have taken time from
your busy schedules to attend this meeting. Your presence here show a unity between Parents,
Teachers and PTA will forge a stronger bond in developing your childs education and
knowledge. With involvement of PTA, especially in the financial aspect, curriculum, school
infrastructure and school discipline very helpful in improving school success.
Parents and Teachers,
We are here to discuss and find solution about the poor performance for our children in
mathematics, science and English language. Our issue here is how we are going to raise a
fund to carry out the projects in order to improve the childrens performance. Secondly what
the projects we going to do?
There are few ideas that PTA intends to organize to raise fund, likes
1. Joghaton
-

This is the fastest way for association to raise the fund and currently also one of
the popular fundraising method used by others schools.

2. Campaign for collecting old newspaper & aluminium cans

-

We have campaign to ask student to collecting old newspaper and aluminium

cans. At the same time to promote environmental protection. Giving student
knowledge of think green think environment to safe earth.

3. Rental Income
-

School can rent additional space for book shop, beverage slot machine, etc.
School also can rent the field & auditorium for occasional event to earn extra
income

4. Donation or sponsorship
-

We can ask sponsorship from companies involved in the supply of goods to

school.
We seek donation fund from parents who is financial capable and also collection
through donations from dignitaries, company and firms.

With full co-operation from all parties, we believe all the above can be successfully to raise
enough fund for our coming projects to improve students performance. When we have
enough fund now we can do a next step planning. With enough resources we can run
activities for student and lets see whether it is workable.
Parents and Teachers,
We can run the following activities for improving student performance and learning.
1. Mentor Mentee
- Each student (mentee) will assign to a mentor (teacher), mentor will be
responsible for 10-20 students lecturer ratio: a student course. Mentor and mentees
are expected to meet regular basis. Student will be gain more understanding,
advices and guidance from time to time. They are giving opportunity to meet
mentor to solve any problem in studies.

2. Additional class
- Additional class may hold after school hour for those not involved from
extracurricular activities. This will give them more time to learn and understand
for those subjects they are weak.
3. Learning from newspaper (ADAP)
- Teaching and learning methods use newspaper Utusan Malaysia / Education
Utusan Malaysia. Not only in the classroom but also outside the classroom can use
anytime, anywhere.

4. Upgrade school facilities

- Add materials such as reference books in various fields to place in the library.
- Access Centre as students who use the Internet to find reference materials and
information.
With the above projects carry out, we believe we can improve poor performance of the
student in Mathematics, Science and the English Language. PTA plays a vital role in ensuring
that students achieve their fullest potential and excel in the various fields. But we need cooperation from each party plays an essential role in student success. Adequate resources help
students thrive and give teachers an environment in which they can do their best work. For
parents, we hope that the parents should actively involve not only in monitoring the children
academic progress and also their behaviours.
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Lets work together, win together to carry out the above projects and activities. We are
looking forward a good start and good success by end of this year.

Reference:

1.

The Mentor-Mentee System

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The purposes of the Faculty's mentor-mentee system are to provide ... Appointments
for meetings between mentor and mentee are usually arranged for a time ...
www.fmhs.unimas.my/index.php?option=com_content
2.

Science in School
http://www.scienceinschool.org

3.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For example, Definition of Jogathon
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jog-A-Tho

4.

OUM text book - ENGLISH FOR ORAL COMMUNICATION