It has been said since the days of yore that public speaking trumps death as the number one fear for many people. To be able to present a speech in front of an audience is also the main factor for the success of an individual. So the earlier you eliminate the fear of public speaking the better your kids will turn out when they grow up.

It is with great honour that we have Teacher Sylvia Kwan as our new member of The Vibrant Readers family. Highly vivacious and energetic, Teacher Sylvia is a famous Mandarin Speech & Drama educator who changed the lives of many kids. Many parents are amazed at the scale of improvement they see of their children after only several months under the tutelage this teacher.

This once-a-week class will provide public speaking opportunity for your kids, in addition to help them master the skill of speaking accurate and clear mandarin. A class of up to 10 students from diverse range of age between 4 and 18, students will be given assignments based on their competency levels to prepare for their future stage performance. The kids will eventually have to perform their works in front a crowd of parents during organized gatherings which will be held every six months. You can imagine how much tears of pride the parents will shed during those gatherings.

We have another good news for you. Teacher Sylvia has been so kind to open a FREE TRIAL to help you familiarize with the class. Just bring your children and experience the energy, and learn more about the benefits of this Speech and Drama: Mandarin class by referring to the details below.

The free trial will be held at

The Vibrant Readers Bandar Puteri Branch

March 10, 2012 (Saturday)

11.15am to 12.15noon.

DON’T MISS OUT!!

Call Teacher Sylvia (012-3087393) for more information.

More information can be found at thevibrantreaders.com 

We at The Vibrant Readers wish Mr Alfred Koh a very happy birthday! May all your wishes come true.

Astounding: Astounding is similar to overwhelming. However there’s a slight difference.

You went to office yesterday and the load of work waiting for you was overwhelming. The masterpiece sung by Adele in Someone Like You (the pop ballad which drew her records amount of accolades) was emotionally overwhelming. Astounding however adds another element into the meaning of overwhelm; the amazement factor. A positive factor which gives thumbs up to the subject matter. Overwhelm does not necessarily provide the positive factor, as in the case of work load in the prior example. When you use ‘astound’, you have a wonderful and amazing feeling alongside your feeling. You are astounded by the straight ‘A’s achieved by your son in his PMR. The fireworks program performed by the organizer in conjunction with 2012 New Year’s celebration was astounding, we were hypnotized.

Bona fide; bona fide has two meanings, one means ‘honest’ (Your contract of agreement between the two has to be a bona fide statement), and another refers to anything that is ‘true and authentic’ (I believe in dug up ceramic is a bona fide 13th century antique). However I prefer to use the simpler words like honest and authentic instead than bona fide because really there’s no significant difference between the respective ones.

However you use of bona fide when you want  to describe something that is the combination of the two meaning, honest but may not look like one in the eye of many. Robin Hood is described as a bona fide savior to the poor because he gave loots stolen from the greedy rich to the oppressed poor . The rich did not see him as a savior but the poor did. Massage has yet to have scientific evidence to help overall health. Medical fraternity does not see it as one of the modality to treat a patient, but many patients swear by its curing and pain relieving help, hence its a bona fide solution for muscle pain in medical term.

Rankle; you can use rankle in replacement of angry. Rankle is a combination of irritation and resentment. You feel rankled if you are irritated by your noisy neighbor and whom you resented for reporting to police about your own noisy firecracker display during Chap Goh Meh. Angry is a rather universal word to communicate your feeling might or might not involve deeper psychological agenda. Rankle in essence shows your inner feeling and deeper agenda. Recent article by Time on how to avoid regrets, study found out that your are more rankled by the regret of you not putting love first in your life than regret of you not putting extra hours for your work.

“I don’t care whether in the future people will trade 3D lion tamer for the real one. If such is the case, I will become a bona fide lion tamer, astounding my audience with my overwhelmingly cute face” 

Here are some words you can use in your wishes to your loved ones.

Appreciation

Enchantment

Yearning

Rapture

Fondness

 Embrace 

The thesaurus is probably the most handy utility to help one to expand one’s word power but carrying it around would be a work in futile, before you flip open the intended page, your intended attention fro your children has disappeared.

No worry, we at The Vibrant Readers is here to help you. We will begin to post words that are underused to help you occasionally replace words that you have used too often. The reason why these words are rarely used is because the words used too often are simpler, or maybe because your own parents had been using them on you. These words below in thesaurus terms are similar to the common words yet have a slight difference in terms of the nuance you might like o express in the future.

1. Elucidate: this word can be used in replacement of “clarify”, or “commentary”. If a person has confusion about an insurance policy, you clarify to take away the confusion off them. If the person has no knowledge about one particular paragraph of an insurance policy, you elucidate with examples and easy-to-understand words to make him understand. See the difference?

2. Aptitude: aptitude is very similar to ability. Ability/aptitude to repair a car, ability/aptitude to perform a magic show, or ability/aptitude to score “A” in English in exam. However aptitude is more specific than ability. You can use the word “ability” to describe skills, but you can use aptitude to describe a special talents; She has a special aptitude for mathematics. In addition to that, aptitude can also mean the readiness or quickness in learning new skills. If someone is said to have a high aptitude, this someone can learn things very quickly.

3. Prerogative: Remember the hit by Bobby Brown, My Prerogative? In the lyrics, Bobby says “Everybody’s talking all this stuff about me, why don’t they just let me live? Tell me why I don’t need commission make my own decisions, that’s my prerogative” Bobby Brown wrote this song at the height of his popularity frustrated by the flood of paparazzi and gossips surrounded his life. If Bobby had used “My Privilege” instead of “My Prerogative” it would probably be less of a hit.
Privilege is used when you are accorded a special treatment, prerogative is used when you are accorded treatment that is entitled to you, examples are like freedom of speech as entitled to you by the national constitution.
I am given a special massage when I go to an expensive hair saloon, that’s a privilege accorded by the expensive hair saloon. At cheaper hair saloons they can’t wait to pull your hair to the washer.
I have the money to spend on an expensive haircut, that’s my prerogative. I can do whatever I want with my money.

“It is our prerogative to enjoy our  time because we are kids!” 

Stay tune for more words that you will love to use.

Even for you who are in need of a laugh with an educational twist, make your way to this site and find interesting learnings about your favorite language (English that is) at the comfort of your home. Just don’t laugh out too loud if you’re in a class.

Below is only one of the many lessons he posts.

Perhaps the least explored  commonly used word in English language, “Oh” is frequently used in conversation whether informal or formal. It’s an important element in a conversation that provides nuance for you to understand better what one is trying to convey. Without it one could miss out the most important cue in a message.

Consider this, “I think it was blue or red. Oh I am wrong. It’s red.” If you omit “oh” in this conversation you might end up sounding either too robotic or less humble. The risk of not using “oh” is that the meaning of your gesture would be greatly misunderstood, and may even sound argumentative. Yes it might be a speech crutch to a toastmasters member, but having “oh’s” in your conversation, like your mother used to say, would give you much character.

Let me list down the various functions of “oh” in our day-to-day conversation.

1. Correcting someone else : A said “Well that was a beautiful fish” B correcting A “oh that was actually a mammal”

2.  Requesting clarification: A said “Is there anyone you would like to talk about?” B replied “oh you mean now?”

3.  Suddenly remembered question “Oh listen I forgot to ask you….”

4. Knowledge re-orientation: A said “How can I get an appointment to go down there to bring my son on a tour?” B replied “Oh I didn’t even know they gave tours”

5. Unanticipated Information: “Oh I didn’t know that!”

6. Display of recognition: A said “We ate at the Shanty Seafood” B replied “Oh yeah, I’ve heard that’s good”

7. Receiving new information: A said “Hey Henry, your girlfriend’s here” B answered “Oh yeh?”

8. Make an intense reaction: A said “SM Kepong still has a reputation” B responded “But like it did?”, A instantly interjected “Oh yes, SM Kepong is still rated higher than SM Taman Ehsan”.

“Look at that BIG ang pow my boss has in his pockert, oh did she just snap the digital camera without my knowledge?!!” 

 A special thanks to The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language written by David Crystal.