FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION

SEMESTER JANUARY 2015

OUMH1303
ENGLISH FOR ORAL COMMUNICATION

MATRICULATION NO :

691221125522002

INDENTITY CARD NO :

691221125522

TELEPHONE NO

0198615714

E-MAIL

222777@oum.edu.my

LEARNING CENTRE

SANDAKAN LEARNING CENTRE

SPEECH OUTLINE

Name: Theresa Anong @ Theresa Ano

1. Introduction
General purpose: to inform
Specific purpose: to inform my audience about the low academic achievement of students
particularly in Science, Mathematics and English Language as well as suggesting some action
to be done in solving the problem.
A. Attention get-er :
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world
-Nelson Mandela
1.What brings us here ladies and gentlemen? How many of you are aware of your children
performance in school please raise your hand.
2.Those who raised their hand can anyone of you tell me the grades of your children in
Science, Mathematics and English in the recent test?
B. Reasons to listen: Parents should listen to the speech because it is involve their children
achievement in school. It helps them to assist their children in study as well as giving them
the opportunity to understand their children better and guide them to be supportive parent.
C. Thesis statement: Low quality of education affect the human capital development.
D. Credibility statement:
1. Before writing this speech, I have done some research through the Internet on the impact
we as an association can give to the children in school
2. Research and based on my personal experience form or suggests solution to help the
children as well as the school.
E. Preview of main points:

1. First, I will speak about low achievement in academics of our children in school notably in
the subjects such as English Language, Mathematics and Science.
2. Second, I will talk about what actions which can be performed by the members of our
association to curb this problem
3. Finally, I would like to share some suggestion of solution in order to solve these problem.
4. The school now is facing the problem of low academic achievement by its students mainly
in critical subjects such as Mathematics, Science and English Language. This problem is one
of the main factor causing the performance of the school deteriorate recently. As an
organisation built to provide a structure through which the parents or guardians of children
attending this school can work together for the best possible education and welfare of their
children, it is our obligation to find the cause why the students not doing well academically as
well as suggesting resolution to prevail over this matter.

2. Body
1.Deficits in specific capabilities
A. Learning disabilities are neurologically- based processing problems. These processing
problems can interfere with learning basic skills such as reading, writing or mathematics.
They can also interfere with higher level skills such as organisation, time planning, abstract
reasoning, long and short term memory as well as attention.
B. Children with specific learning disabilities such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD), Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, Dyslexia
and Perceptual/ Visual Motor Deficit frequently found to have the most severely deviant
childhood behavioural adjustments. Since difficulties with reading, writing and mathematics
are recognisable problems during school years, the signs and symptoms of learning
disabilities are most often diagnosed during that time.
C. However , individuals with learning disabilities may never receive an evaluation and go
through life as normal schoolchildren due to cultural restriction. Perception of local
community might make the family feel doubtful to seek helps from the professional for their

children. Furthermore, parents with specific learning disability kids feel ashamed and think
they are lack of parenting skills and they do not know how to teach their children, these
situation makes them feel alienated and insecure , then they decide to create a gap between
them and the school community.
2. Parental socioeconomic status
A. Low socioeconomic status of a parent presents a chronic stress for children and families
that may interfere with successful adjustment to developmental tasks, including school
achievement. Children raised by low income families are at risk for academic problem, which
can in turn undermine educational achievement. Poverty cause children to skip kindergarten
and pre-school education because parent cannot afford the fees, these can have long-lasting
consequences. For example, readiness for school on entry to kindergarten sets the trajectory
for future success.
B. Developmental or school readiness is important to later academic achievement because
differences on school entry have long-term consequences. According to Lee and
Burkam(2003), most American students who start school significantly behind their peers can
never close the readiness gap. Rather, the gap tends to widen as they move through school.
School readiness has been shown to be predictive of virtually every educational benchmark
such as achievement test scores, grade retention, special education placement and dropout.
Lack of developmental readiness are increased likelihood of truancy, dropout, and unhealthy
or delinquent behaviours.
C. Direct effects of poverty on children are influenced by families behaviour. For example,
low-income families often have limited education, reducing their ability to provide
responsive stimulating environment for their children. They use command and simple
structure rather than by explanations and elaboration with an increased use of negative
comments made.
3. Lack of emotional freedom to learn
A. Boigon in her recent research hypothesized that children with too high anxiety level are
unable to attend to the learning process. She cites a number of case studies where emotional
attitudes blocked the entire learning process. Three attitudes common among poor achievers
were that other individuals have more innate ability to learn; that they are not required to

struggle for knowledge and that they are not responsible for their inability to learn; they are
also belittling for them to demonstrate ignorance.
B. Nicoladou and Philippou (2003) showed that negative attitudes are the result of frequent
and repeated failures or problems when dealing with the subject particularly in Mathematics
and these negative attitudes may become relatively permanent. Factors which can explain the
low attitudes of student towards Mathematics such as the pressure to perform well, over
demanding tasks and uninteresting lesson.
C. Moreover, Akeys (2006) work showed that several aspects of school context such as
teacher support, student-to-student interaction, and the academic and behaviour expectations
of the teacher were significantly related to student attitudes and behaviours, when the
learning environment of learning Mathematics with supportive teacher, student will have
positive attitudes towards mathematics.
4. Lack of motivation
A. A highly motivated person puts in the maximum effort in his or her job. Demotivated
students always cause lateness to school and absenteeism. As an effect from this, the material
taught in school become difficult if studied on ones own. Regularly missing class will
resulted to poor academic achievement. These problem might because of the student did not
enjoy the lesson in their classroom.
B. Teachers teaching strategies also impact the students motivation in learning the subject.
Monotonous and repeated strategies which already expected by the students make them feel
bored and not interested in the subject.
C. Inadequate teaching-learning material causes low motivation among teachers and students
in teaching and learning the subject because they cannot vary their skills.
5. Actions to be done by PTA members to help out
A. Organise fund raising
PTA members can organise fund raising event such as carnivals and carnivals to contributes
for academic enrichment and extracurricular support such as to buy more books or literacy
camp with experienced teachers to help the students with poor performances in academic.
B. Volunteering

PTA members can volunteer to help teachers in school. For example, cooking food and drinks
for the students during extra class at school to ease the burden of parents with low economic
status so that they do not have to give extra money for their children if they have to stay back
late at school.
C. Tutoring
A. PTA members who are interested and have free time can get involve by tutoring the
subject which they are expert in. For example, an engineer can help by doing tutoring in
Science subject of his or her expertise, so that the students can learn in new environment and
it can make the students feel excited and eager to learn more.
6. Recommendations for school
School communities such as the administrators and teachers must support parent involvement
in their children development academically as well as non-academically activities in school.
A. It can be done by making parent involvement a priority, for example during schools sports
day, parents can be invited to become a jury or participate as a volunteer in order to make the
programmes run well. Barriers of parent involvement such as school policies should be
recognised and revised so that parent can help to make their children be more motivated in
school and supervise their children regularly. In addition, school administration can share
decision-making power with parents and community member to make sure the decision made
will ensure the parent to understand better of school policy and they will be less problem of
miscommunication in the future between teachers and parents. It is also to help school
communities to understand class and cultural differences.

B. Regular meetings and gatherings among the PTA members should be organised within the
Parent Teacher Association to inform parents about the value of education to children. This
would be a way to let them active in the PTA as well as the activities in school. Parent
involvement would make them aware of the problems and issues affecting the students, these
also strengthen the parent and teacher rapport . The good relationship of teachers and parents
can lead to a successful students and better academic achievement.
C. Community organizing gets results and engaging community members,
businesses, and organizations as partners in childrens education can improve
the learning community in many ways. For example, community partners may be

able to provide expanded learning opportunities, build broad-based support for

increased school funding and provide quality after-school programs.

7. Recommendations for parents

A. Parents should speaking up for children protects and promotes their success.
Children whose parents are advocates for them at school are more confident at
school and take on and achieve more. The more families advocate for their
children and support their childrens progress, the longer their children stay in
school and the better their children do. Families should become knowledgeable
about the operations of schools and the laws that govern those operations, be
confident about their ability to work with schools and expect only the best from
their children and for their children.
B. All families can contribute to their childrens success. Family involvement
improves student success, regardless of race/ethnicity, class, or parents level of
education. For involvement to happen, however, principals, teachers, and
parents themselves must believe that all parents can contribute to their
childrens success in school. Parents can promote their childrens academic
success by teaching their children the importance of education, finding out what
their children are expected to know and to be able to do and reinforcing lessons
at home, sending their children to school ready to learn every day.

C. Parents play an important role in helping to make sure their children and all children get
the education they need and deserve. Students need support in learning, not only they need
support in terms of money, they also need attention from their parents. Parents should
involved in their children educational activities which focusing in students learning
improvisation. Activities where their parents can join such as family nights on Mathematics
or English literacy subject or family workshops on planning for college. Programmes which
involves the parent in school is believed to improve students achievement because students
are motivated doing the activities with their parents around.

Conclusion

A. As a conclusion, poor achievement in academic of one students can be cause by factors

inside and outside school such as parenting involvement, school environment, peer pressure
and teaching-learning obstacle such as lack of material use for teaching and learning
programs.
B. The school administration should take steps which is more useful and make the students
need meet the requirement needed by the school. Parent needs to play their role firmly by
supporting their children and motivate them by giving them attention they need and be with
them as much as possible if we have time. Since lack of students motivation and engagement
in academic works is an issue of concern amongst teachers.
C. We believe that developing strategies in educational contexts, to improve teacher support
and student involvement could be the most important in improving not only attitudes but also
language, science and mathematical performances among the students in this school.
(2002 words)

References
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