Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Reflection of English Journey


Throughout the whole semester studied of the English module, ES1102, I had learned the writing and speaking skills from Mr. Brad. As a student from NUS, leaning proper English become an important issue for me. As I came from a Chinese-speaking family, learning proper English became a difficult task for me. Compare with when I first get into NUS, I could felt my English get improved slowly throughout the whole semester.

Why I have such feeling of my English get improved? This is because after finished every assignments, Mr Brad would ask us review and evaluate each other works and provide some comments to each other. Through this, I can learn from my friend’s comments and make some improvements from their comments. From the overall of the assignments that assigned by Brad, I was pleased with the writing of the globalization essay on expending to the aspect of globalization. After few drafts done by us, Brad arranged few conferences for us to have a small discussion on our works.

After finished the essay writing, Brad also provided us a chance for us to present our essay in front of the class. This presentation would be the first presentation in my university life, as a student from Faculty of Engineering, there will be a rarely of chance to practice the presentation skill. This is because most of my school time would be focus on practical skills and report writings. Before the presentation, Brad had taught us some tips for us to prepare our presentation. After the presentation, Brad also provided us a chance to let the class identify our strength and weakness and then provide some feedbacks and suggestions of improvement to each other.

In conclusion, I believe what I had learned from this module would be useful not only in my university life, but also would be useful in my entire of life. I really appreciate I could be one of the Brad’s students, as he really different from my entire previous English teachers and I really learned a lot from him. After studied this module, I will continue my English learning journey by writing and speaking more in my future life.

Feedback on Presentaion


I do agree with the presentation should add as an official grading component in ES1102. As I am a student from Faculty of Engineering, there will be rarely of chance for me to practice my presentation skill, because most of my course times would be focusing on practical skills and report writings.

  In Brad’s class, he taught us several tips to prepare our presentation. During the presentation, Brad would ask us listen to our classmates’ presentation and learn from each other. After the presentation, Brad also provided us a chance to let our classmates to identify our strength and weakness then provide some feedbacks and suggestions of improvement to each other.

  I really appreciate I could be one of the Brad’s students, he really different from my entire previous English teachers and I really learned a lot from him.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Essay Draft 4


Lee Keng Hwa (A0112509N), Group A03

  In Goldin’s TED talk (2009), he mentions that climate change is one of the factors that had resulted from rapid globalization. Climate change is the result of global warming that is caused by greenhouse gases (GHGs), which are emitted from the human activities that are used to build the modern lives. The majority of these GHGs were emitted from the buildings around us and the fossil fuels used in transportation, industries and electricity generators. These GHGs have the ability to trap heat around the atmosphere, which has induced the glaciers in the North and South Poles to melt and sea levels to rise. As Singapore is a small and low-lying island that is surrounded by the sea, the rise in sea level will have major effects on Singapore. According to National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) (2012), there has been an average increase of 3mm of sea level per year over the past 15 years. While the Singapore government is encouraging the reduction of the emission of GHGs to reduce global warming by settling up some policies within the transportation and building sectors, there are still a number of people who refuse to follow the policies.

  Singapore government has been focusing on reducing the emission of GHGs from the transportation throughout the years. According to the data of Singapore’s GHGs Emissions from NCCS (n.d.), there are about 19% of CO2 emissions were contributed from transport in year 2005. In order to reduce the emission of CO2, LTA had set up some policies to encourage people to take public transport. First of all, LTA has been manages the vehicle usage and traffic congestion by implementing the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) and Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) to discourage people from purchase a car. LTA also has been improve and promote the public transport in order to make the public transport be the first choice of mode of transport for every people. Through these solutions, LTA had reduced the CO2 emission from the fossil fuels in transportation in an indirect way and the NCCS is expecting to reduce the CO2 to 14.5% by 2020. Although the Singapore government manages to reduce the CO2 by providing an efficient transport system, there are still a number of people who refuse to use the public transport due to the reason of overcrowd on the MRT during peak hours. In my opinion, LTA can try to shorten the current waiting time of the train from about average 2miniutes to 30 seconds by increasing the frequency of the train during peak hours. On the other hand, LTA can also collaborate with MOM and MOE to reduce the crowd of peak hours by rearranging the school and work release time to spread the peak hours more evenly.  In short, the Singapore government was made public transport as one of the mode of transport for every Singaporean to reduce the CO2 emission by the fossil fuels in transportations. Every Singaporean should appreciate what had the government did and follow the footsteps of the government to protect the environment.

  Other than focusing on cutting down the emission of GHGs from transportation, the Singapore government also has been focusing on reducing the emission of GHGs from buildings. Based on the data from NCCS (n.d.), the building sector emitted about 16% of CO2 in 2005. To reduce GHGs emission from the buildings, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) implemented the BCA Green Mark Scheme in 2005 to raise the awareness of sustainability as well as to encourage building developers to develop more environmentally-friendly buildings in Singapore. The Ministry of National Development (MND) provided 20 million dollars for this Green Mark, while BCA also provided some new grants to attract the developers to build or upgrade more green buildings. Other than that incentive, the National Environment Agency (NEA) launched the Energy Efficiency National Partnership (EENP) programme to encourage the private sectors to maximize the building energy efficiency to reduce the carbon emissions. With these policies, the NCCS is expecting to cut down the CO2 emission from 16% in 2005 to 13.8% in 2020. Through these effective policies, NCCS should be able to achieve their goals by 2020, but from my point of view, the government could improve their policies by providing extra cash incentives as a motivation for the designers to produce new creative ideas in their designs. 

  In conclusion, the global warming issue is getting more serious and it will have major effects on Singapore. Throughout the years, Singapore government had set up many policies to reduce the carbon emissions from the transportation and building sectors. Thus, this is the time for every Singaporean to work with the government to protect our environment by taking a few small steps toward energy conservation. In this way, we could have an immeasurable effect!

797 words

References:

Building and Construction Authority, (n.d.). Code on environmental sustainability measures for existing buildings 1st edition. Retrieved March 8, 2014, from


Goldin, I. (2009). Navigating our global future. Retrieved from          


National Climate Change Secretariat, (2012). Impact of climate change on Singapore, Retrieved March 8, 2014, from


National Climate Change Secretariat, (2012). Projecting Singapore’s greenhouse gas emissions, Retrieved March 1, 2014, from


National Climate Change Secretariat, (2012). Sectoral measures to reduce emission (up to 2020). Retrieved March 8, 2014, from


National Climate Change Secretariat, (n.d.). Singapore’s national climate change strategy_chapter 3: mitigation of greenhouse gas emission, Retrieved March 8, 2014, from


National Geographic Society, (1996-2014). Causes of global warming. Retrieved March 1, 2014, from


National Geographic Society, (1996-2014). Global warming solutions, Retrieved March 1, 2014, from