THE BOOK REVIEW OF “MATHEMATICS 1 FOR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL YEAR VII”

Increase your English with Learning Mathematics

A.    The Identity of The Book

Title of the book               : MATHEMATICS 1 for Junior High School

Author                               : DR. Marsigit, M.A

Publisher                           : Yudistira

Mathematics Editor          : Rahmani Dwi Fajarsih and Dewi Noviyanti Sari

Translator                          : DR. Marsigit, M.A

English Editor                   : Mokhamad Irfan and Rina Dwi Indriastuty

Content Designer              : Dadi Wiyono and Iman Rohman

Cover Designer                 : M. Nurhadi

Copyright of the book      : November 2009

Price of the book               : -

Number of pages               : viii + 334 pages

Size of the book                : 20,5 cm x 27,5 cm

Reviewer                           : Nuraisyah Meitasiwi Pratiwi

B.     Description of The Book

Education is very important. Through quality education can get an excellent generation that boasted for Indonesia. Therefore, to get it we must to take effort and hard work, so demand the students to learn, understand, and master all aspects of education. One of the aspects of education which play an important role is Mathematics, because mathematics is the basic of the other sciences. 

The book is organized to support the achievement of learning the students in Junior High School specifically for years VII, namely to improve the knowledge, skill, ability, intelligence and personality and so they are able to continue to the higher levels of education. The book is organized based on the KTSP 2006, so expect the existence of this book can support or improve the ability of mathematics for Junior High School students. This book is also compiled based on the study of the subject education essence,teachers role, the characteristic and essence of mathematics at school, and contextual learning approach through the content standards-oriented learning process.

This book contains important material that should be mastered by student of years VII in Junior High School. The materials is presented in three main units, in one unit there are several chapters that are interconnected. On the Unit I ( Numbers ) there are two Chapters namely Integers and Fractions. On the Unit II ( Algebra ) there are five Chapters namely Algebra and application, Linier Equations with One Variable, Linier Inequalities with One Variable, Proportions, and Sets. And the last unit or Unit III ( Geometry ) there are two Chapters namely Lines and Angles, and Planes. In this book there are some examples and the answers and also some practice questions.

C.     Excess and Deficiencies of The Book

In this book besides study mathematics, students are also able to learn English well, because in this book comes with two languages namely English and Indonesian. So this book can increase our knowledge in mathematics and also our skill and ability in English vocab or speaking because it is necessary to improve our skill and ability in English to support our work in the future. The author invites the students to understand mathematics easily and lightly so as to minimize the perception that mathematics is difficult.  In this book also be equipped with map on content so it can be make easier to read an learn the book. In explaining the subject matter presented clearly and provided an example which accompanied the explanation in detail. In the selection of colors and images very interesting that make the students interested to open and study the book, so it will provided the motivation for students. 

However, in this book does not equipped with any discussion or answer keys so that for students who have been working on the matter of exercise not knowing whether their job right or wrong if it is not discussed by his/her teachers. In my opinion, in the book's publication can be equipped with an answer keys sheet or can be a VCD that describes a discussion or explanation visually. However, although there were still some deficiencies in the implementation of this book . These deficiencies can be covered with excess that is presented in the book.

D.    Conclusion

In the book “MATHEMATICS 1” for Junior High School Years VII aimed at students who want to improve mathematics skills as well as proficiency in speaking English. This book is highly recommended to be a companion book because of the material contained in the book are simple and easy to understand. In addition, in the selection of colors and images very well so it can raise the interest of students in learning mathematics. So, we will feel happy if ever read this book.

Increase Our Ability to be a Great MC

How to be a great MC? Being a great MC or Master of Ceremony not easy. Until we should consider some points.

1.      First about Preparation

Preparation is very important. Before we do everything not only for being master of ceremony, but for doing everything, so preparation is everything. He even say that preparation is everything. Why ? Because it is such kind of “kodrat, takdir, or sunatullah”. Being a human life, that life is something moving a process and circeling moving from the past, present, and future. So, the past is a preparation for present and the present time is a preparation for the future. So, in order that, we are able to perform the best in the present or also we do the best preparation in the past in order that we do able to perform the best in the future. We should do the best preparation in the present. So preparation is very important. What should we do to prepare a preparation in there are many aspect. First our psychology, our emotion, and then our personality and our attitude and behaviour, thats very important. In order we have good attitude, good behaviour, personality, so we should be aware of everything related to aim, the purpose that we will do and we order should to understand about the knowledge, understand about the people, understand about even, understand about the program. And we have contextually experience involving in the activity, because our involvment in the activity will make us good understanding and then will make us to feel confident. Our confident is very important. So we also should understand about the relationship among the peolpe, position of the people, and the assignment from the people, and the structure of the community, the structure of institution the time and the program. It is about preparation.

2.      Second about Simulation

The next step in a preparation is doing simulation to simulate a commonly people said as “gladi resik”. “Gladi kotor and gladi resik” doing simulation can be conducted by individual people or by a group of people or by a whole community. We our self as a master of ceremony and conduct a simulation in our room but is whole all member of community can conduct together in the same time, in the same place to simulate what will happen next day or tomorrow when the even start to begin. Simulation is very important.

3.      The Third about Skill and Experience

And then the next thing is getting skill and experience. After you try to prepare to simulatated and then we try to get our skill. Skill in influencing peoples, skill in introducing something, skill in sharing information etc. So to get our skill and our competence we need a basic competence. Basic competence a cover for example pronounciation, good pronounciation, loud but not too loud, soft but not too soft so. Experience, doing experience , so in order to get experience you need to get a skill and we need to get a understanding. We can learn from everywhere anytime, whatever of resource, now we can browse internet to look for, to find out, the reference related to our plan activity. As we here all this morning that some of us have similar resources, no problem. But, because language need skill, need to repeat and repeat again. So, sometimes we just need to copy, to copy other people in talking, in presenting, in posting something in front of audience.

So. Let’s try! ^_^

How to be a Good Master of Ceremony

Until we should consider some points. First about preparation,  preparation is very-very important. Before we do everything not only for being master of ceremony, but for doing everything, so preparation is everything. He even say that preparation is everything. Why ? Because it is such kind of “kodrat, takdir, or sunatullah”. Being a human life, that life is something moving a process and circeling moving from the past, present, and future. So, the past is a preparation for present and the present time is a preparation for the future. So, in order that, we are able to perform the best in the present or also we do the best preparation in the past in order that we do able to perform the best in the future. We should do the best preparation in the present. So preparation is very important. What should we do to prepare a preparation in there are many aspect. First our psychology, our emotion, and then our personality and our attitude and behaviour, thats very important. In order we have good attitude, good behaviour, personality, so we should be aware of everything related to aim, the purpose that we will do and we order should to understand about the knowledge, understand about the people, understand about even, understand about the program. And we have contextually experience involving in the activity, because our involvment in the activity will make us good understanding and then will make us to feel confident. Our confident is very important. So we also should understand about the relationship among the peolpe, position of the people, and the assignment from the people, and the structure of the community, the structure of institution the time and the program. It is about preparation. The next step in a preparation is doing simulation to simulate a commonly people said as “gladi resik”. “Gladi kotor and gladi resik” doing simulation can be conducted by individual people or by a group of people or by a whole community. We our self as a master of ceremony and conduct a simulation in our room but is whole all member of community can conduct together in the same time, in the same place to simulate what will happen next day or tomorrow when the even start to begin. Simulation is very important. And then the next thing is getting skill and experience. After you try to prepare to simulatated and then we try to get our skill. Skill in influencing peoples, skill in introducing something, skill in sharing information etc. So to get our skill and our competence we need a basic competence. Basic competence a cover for example pronounciation, good pronounciation, loud but not too loud, soft but not too soft so.

Experience, doing experience , so in order to get experience you need to get a skill and we need to get a understanding. We can learn from everywhere anytime, whatever of resource, now we can browse internet to look for, to find out, the reference related to our plan activity. As we here all this morning that some of us have similar resources, no problem. But, because language need skill, need to repeat and repeat again. So, sometimes we just need to copy, to copy other people in talking, in presenting, in posting something in front of audience. I think that’s all about the first part that’s all about being master of ceremony because in the next here probably we will involve in such kind of event because our departement, our faculty sometimes conducting national seminar and international seminar of mathematics and mathematics education. In which involving many students as commitee, possibly some of we choosen as a master of ceremony. Secondly, in here he would like to remind we and to remember we about continue our reading my posting by making a comment again, please write our english in standard english. The longer the better, the longer our sentences is better, to get more experiences in writing english and for somebody for we that we feel  not good achievement in here, we should work hard to collect our point. Collecting number of comment. Shouldly, he wish to talk about developing english for mathematics. He also would like to remember we that, please read his junior text book for grade 1,2,and 3. Because he will take some material from the text book to be final examination. So, if we can learn from the meeting between us and him, there are some remark here. The first, he assume that we are an adult people, the characteristic of adult people is that we can take we own responsibility, we learn. Number two, his philosophy of teaching for him to teach is to facilitate we all in order that we are able to learn english individually and colaborativly. Number three, his philosophy of learning. Learning is constructing, we can learn something if we learn the concept of A. So, really for him we try to construct the concept of A, so learning is to construct. In general learning is to construct  our  life, learning is to construct our english. So, he like we to have a different achievement of english. So, the kind and the type of english depend on our activity.So, as the adult learner we have a responsibility to actively construct our own english. Constructing our own english by reading, by writing, by speaking, by translating, by discussing, etc. Number four, the philosophy of learing resources. The learning resources, he developes is that we can learn from everything that lives in surrounding us can be use as learning resources. So, we can learn english from the books, television, newspaper, internet, or direct communication with native speaker. The next is about examination or evaluation. How can he evaluate we or how can he evaluate our competence and our english? So, he use portofolio, he use documentation contain our achievement. So, at the end of this semester i will close my blog, maybe we can still open my blog, but we can’t access and we can’t give a comment. Possibly we can give a comment, but our comment cannot deliver to my email at the end of this month. So please use the time effectively to improve our comment. And then he will combine the result and the comment also, but speaking here is a highly score and also the comment also has a high score.  And a examination only small portion. Expecially in a spesific translation about mathematics and written mathematics in english, he thinks it is very easy because most of mathematics written in symbolic language. So, if we have experiences in communication in general he think we can also have experiences, a good competents in explaining elaborating mathematics in english.

Thank you ^-^