What makes you beautiful...

After the performance task for English, I was browsing through One Direction's songs and came across this song. The song is What makes you beautiful. The title of the song made me to ponder what makes someone beautiful and is being accepted really means that someone is beautiful.

I really think that being accepted means that someone is beautiful. Being beautiful does not mean the literal meaning. For example, someone may not be very pleasant to look but he/she helps the society and the less priviledged which will portray the person as beautiful as she has a beautiful heart and the quality of kindness to help others.

That brings me to the point on what makes someone beautiful. The factors I would consider that will make a person beautiful would be the quality of the person and their contributions and reflective nature of themselves.

The quality of a person:

For example, a person with brains and heart will be definitely favoured over someone with beauty and brains. That does not definitely mean that different personalities are bad. So, for the people to be favoured by a society , they must keep enriching themselves and desire to achieve the best combination of heart,brains and beauty.

Contributions:

Contributions thereby means contributions to the society. For example, a person contributes a huge sum of money to the charity and he will definitely be remembered and that was what makes him beautiful. But contributions does not only need to be in the form of money, but service. So, everyone who contributes will definitely appear beautiful to the beneficiaries and the society.

Reflective Nature:

Reflecting constantly seeks improvements to be made. A person who improves consistently will definitely seeks for the best eventually and definitely be beautiful. But, that does not mean that a perfect person is the most favoured one. A person who constantly improves himself will be beautiful as he improves and upgardes himself and will benefit the society.

So, explore yourself and find What makes you beautiful.... Thank you.

Link to the complimentary page of EL PT 2012

Due to some techincal difficults and limitations, we could not post our resources in this blog. So, we set up a resource database and the link to the english performance task complimentary page which is alos the resource database is as follows:

English PT

Thank you.

Results of the survey that we conducted

Analysis of the results collected:

Question 1
Firstly, to know the audience's views on acceptance, we asked this question. From the results, we could see that the society has varied opinions on acceptance. From this, we could see that acceptance is always not being accepted by people, which the whole group agreed on, but also accepting our own self. Moreover, this caused us to work with a neutral mindset.

Question 2
We phrased it in such a way not to let them know that they are telling us their own views, instead of a generalised one. From this question, we learnt to phrase questions differently but still get the same answer we intended to get.

Question 3
This question was mainly intended to see if people agree to a person's view which may differ from their opinion. So, we got to see varied responses which showed us that all opinions does matter and should be taken into consideration.


Question 4
This question was the main topic of our research. From this, we got to know that there is a balanced number of people supporting it in both sides and this caused us and helped us to take informed choices.

These are the 21st technology that we used.
• Laptops( internet)
• Iphones( audio program and camera)
• Powerpoint slides( pie charts)


Most importantly, we covered all aspects of English and we had a rich experience and a different way of learning it to.
1. Oral presentation
2. Investigative Journalism
3. Arm-chair research
4. Interviews

Post activity reflection

These are our learning points
What we feel that we have done well in:

• We have worked well together and helped each other when in need.
• We delegated tasks and made sure everybody did equal amount of work.
• We gave each other constant reminders and encouraged one another.
• We persevered throughout although there were many things to do.
• We covered all aspects of English and we had at least 3-4 different sources.
• We learnt to understand each other better and we were glad that we had a chance to work with each other as well.
• We managed to use various IT tools: our blog, our complimentary webpage, graphs and charts by Microsoft Office and recordings of audio and video interviews. This has enriched our IT knowledge and made us learn new IT-related things along the way.

What could be improved to make our English performance task better:

• We could have managed our time better so that we would not have to rush so much at the end.
• We had difficulty finding time to meet up with our partners to discuss our speeches.
• We could have probably included more socratic questions in our debate.

Opposition's views: Adaptation of the proposition side if even I agree to the opposition side

For our PT Debate , everyone of us made our stand on that outer appearance does not reflect the inner self. However, Megan Lim and Mallika offered to be on the proposition side. So, we decided to interview them on how they adapted to the proposition even if they support the opposition's views. This way, we got to look at the both perspectives of the topic. So, I am going to provide elaboration from my side of views and on the proposition's points.

Firstly, the points that was discussed by the proposition would be:
1. It is the facial expression and the aura in the eyes that determines and reflect your inner self. Your smile and the liveness on your face can tell that you are very full of yourself and proud to be who you are.
2. One's looks affects their confidence level and their inner self as well. She said that if people especially celebrities did not care about how they look, why is plastic surgery needed? They do not feel confident of their original looks and this shows that the person is inferior.Their main purpose is to look prettier and hopefully gain more popularity and fame which brings us to our topic of Acceptance.


1. It can definitely be a point as the aura present in the eyes will create a pleasant surroundings and will definitely attract people 's attention.

This point can be further improved and elaborated by saying that feelings are expressed through the means of outer appearance. For example, if someone needs help, we will only know if they are distressed or sad or depressed. If they are not showing the emotion on their face, no one will know the fact that she needs help. Moreover, the outer appearance will seek recognition and will definitely help to be accepted. Furthermore, acceptance being defined as being accepted for who they are, will support the point that outer appearance reflects the inner slef and is definitely part of 'who they are'.

2. Outer appearance reflects and boost the level of confidence. Outer appearance 's modifications is to gain popularity and fame so thus being accepted.

This point can be further improved and elaborated by explaining the fact why people go till the extremes to improve their looks. From this, we can infer that outer appearance is important and it is essential as it plays a part on reflecting your personality. Outer appearance can say about the personality as a person who takes great care about their outer appearance will be seen as someone who knows how to present themselves to the society. We are not saying that , for the sake for good looks, we can cross our boundaries. It is wrong to just depend on our looks for recognition and acceptance as an all-rounder will be definitely favoured over someone who is not developed all-round. So, both outer appearance and inner beauty balances out each aspect and are important.

From this analysis, I get to develop the points on the proposition 's side and to change my perspectives for once. This will definitely improve my decision-making skills and skills as a debator.

Summary of the debate

Basically the motion of this debate is ‘does your outer appearance(looks) affect your inner self?’. There were 2 people on the proposition side and 4 on the opposition side. The people are as follows:

Proposition (YES):  Mallika, Megan Lim

Opposition (NO): Megan Ashley, Sheryl Tan, Cheryl Leow , Priyadharshini Suresh

The centre  point of the debate was on whether outer appearance is more important to a person, rather than their inner selves.

These are the main points of what the proposition party discussed on:

- Mallika said that it is the facial expression and the aura in the eyes that determines and reflect your inner self. Your smile and the liveness on your face can tell that you are very full of yourself and proud to be who you are.
- Megan Lim said that how one person look affects their confidence level and their inner self as well. She said that if people especially celebrities did not care about how they look, why is plastic surgery needed? They do not feel confident of their original looks and this shows that the person is inferior.Their main purpose is to look prettier and hopefully gain more popularity and fame which brings us to our topic of Acceptance.
The main stand of the  case on self-confidence being portrayed by the outer appearance and that people could read the a person’s personality by looking at their eyes. Moreover, the case used the example of celebrities gaining popularity by their looks.


These are the main points of what the opposition party discussed.

- Sheryl: Judging a person by their looks is a wrong perspective as looks could be deceiving.
-  Megan Ashley: People don’t have the rights to judge other people as not we see is not they are.You may be pretty on the outside but what you are on the inside is greatly unexpected.Therefore, looks does not affect your inner self
- Cheryl : Use of make-up has greatly altered a person’s looks and features. So, it is not accurate to judge people by their looks as it could be untrue.
- Priya: For the most renowned people like scientists, their looks are not important as they have wisdom and knowledge which are praised by the people , rather than their looks which plays a lesser important role.
- The main stand of the case is that looks could be deceiving and not reliable as it would be an artificial one and what you see is not what they are. Furthermore, looks are of a lesser priority when compared to your wisdom and knowledge. Most importantly, do not judge a book by its cover.

Socratic Questions we asked:


Sheryl: 
When someone gets plastic surgery or wears heavy makeup, does it mean that their personality and who they are on the inside changes?


However, is it fair, that we are judged by our looks?


Although I agree that the outward appearance does give give a person higher self esteem, does it necessarily mean that it changes their personality to one worthy of their outer appearance?


This, then is my question to you, if we have to change what we look like to “fit” into your group of friends, then are they considered to be TRUE friends?


Megan Lim:
I know that it is impossible to reach perfection but honestly everybody wants to look the best they can be, right?


Doesn’t how you look give you the confidence?


Don’t you think that looks affect something inside of you?


How would you feel?


Do you agree?


Firstly, I agree with you that looks can be very deceiving at times and you may wonder does their personality concur with how they look as well?


If not, why do people especially celebrities choose to go for plastic surgery? 


Why do majority of the people who can afford choose to put braces to straighten their teeths?


What about make up? 


Why is it necessary?


Mallika: 
But is there another way to look at this situation?



Does this not reflect that that person is a weak-hearted and unconfident person?


According to you, who would seem to be a more approachable person, A or B?


Does this not mean that our outer beauty does reflect our inner self?


Megan Ashley:  
If people can go to large extends to undergo plastic surgery to get their pretty face, why can’t they do it on their eyes?


Are we perfect enough to make fun of how others look, and start to mark them according to their looks? 


Some people might look shy, reserved and quiet, but who knows?


Who knows that they actually have the brightest personality in class/company/clique? 


Some people look fierce, scary and might even seem like a bully, but, in actual fact they wouldn’t even hurt a fly?


If people can go to large extends to undergo plastic surgery to get their pretty face, why can’t they do it on their eyes?


Priya:
However, is it fair and justified to be judged by the looks?




Overall, the debate was a well-discussed one as by using socratic questioning, we were able to rebut each other’s opinions and it was a well explored topic.


The link to the whole debate is as follows:
English Debate