Name: 1.

Seow Lee Fern Class: 2 SNED 1

2. Azurin B. Abdul Rahman

Task 2
Pair work: Read a short story from “The Dream and other stories” written
by Daphne du Maurier and others. Based on the text you have read, write a
personal response and present it orally in about 4 minutes.

Story 4 :
‘The Ugly American and the Ugly
Sarkhanese’
by
W. J. Lederer and E. Burdick

The Dream and other stories

Daphne du Maurier and others

1. Plot of story
An ambassador
Homer Atkins, Argument with ask for help. Atkins
American engineer important people flew to Sarkhan to
comes from different help the
government Sarkhanese.

Atkins and Jeepo start Go to a small village Faced problem when

do the machine pump. of Chang Dong; met design a pump. Wife
They solve the with a headman and assist to solve
problems together Jeepo problem.

Both of them build a Violent argument on

factory named ‘Jeepo- the changes of pump
Atkins Company happened between
Limited’. They Atkins and Jeepo
received many orders.
 Characters and their characteristics

Ugly man

Has a wife named Emma Skilled American engineer

Homer Atkins
direct person

Willing to accept advise of other

hardworking

Creative thinking

Ugly woman live in small village

in Chang Dong

Caring Emma
& clean Atkins clever & Headman

many ideas

loves her husband so much feel happy when other talk

with him in his own language

Sarkhanese mechanic

Ugly man and strong patient

Jeepo

Wants everything to be perfect

INSTITUT PERGURUAN PERSEKUTUAN
PULAU PINANG

English Proficiency

COURSEWORK ASSESSMENT
PISMP SEMESTER 2 2008
TASK 2

Name : Seow Lee Fern

Azurin B. Abdul Rahman
Class : PISMP - 2SNED1
Lecturer’s Name : Miss Chong Siew Chin
 Personal Response

According to the task given, I am required to read a short story from “The
Dream and other stories.” The short story that I choose is ‘The Ugly American
and The Ugly Sarkhanese.’ I found that this story is very interesting and it brings
out some lessons for us.
First and foremost, I am pleased that this story consists of many moral
values that can be the guide in our life. As I read the story, I really understand an
idiom that we say always which is’ no gain, no pain’. The main character in this
story, Homer Atkins had paid a lot of effort on the machine and gratefully he
achieved his success at the end. Besides, I noticed that tolerance is definitely
important among the people especially in a family. In this story, Emma and Atkins
always tolerance to each other and they live happily and harmoniously. Jeepo
and Atkins always tolerance when they work together. Throughout this story, I
realized that our determination is very important for us to achieve the success.
Just like the Atkins, he never gives up easily. He thinks and works continuously
until he gets the answer. Thus, I am sure that if we keep our determination all the
time in our life, we are able to achieve our aim and success.
No doubt, I had learnt an important lesson from this story which is ‘we
cannot judge a book from its cover’. In other words, we do not judge one’s
abilities in a bad way. Even though Atkins just wears simple attire without a tie in
the meeting, but actually he is a skilled engineer and road builder. Apart from
that, I realized that we should be innovative especially in our teaching profession.
When we meet obstacles in our life, we should use our mind to think something
new and different to overcome the problems. This situation is happened on
Jeepo. He can think and suggest a good solution to make the new frame of
machine.
In short, I learnt a lot from this story. I believed that the lesson I had learnt
could be the guide in my future life.