English carnival with SK Zainab 1 and SK Desa Pahlawan

The English carnivals were kicked off with awesome performances by primary school students representing 10 schools from the Kota Bharu area. 

The first event was action songs, with performances by year 3 students and the competition was fierce; with songs ranging from Malaysian pop artists to "Roar" by Katy Perry. Many of the pupils had been rehearsing for months in preparation for the event and it really showed.

Not only did the pupils do a great job with song and action routines, but their outfits were just fabulous!

The 2nd event of the day was paired poetry recital; many of the poems were original and written by students and teachers working together. Poem topics ranged from the attributes of the sun, to the merits of friendship and trust.

It was clear that each pair had worked very hard together to get perfect timing and rhythm.

The final competition of the event was choral speaking. Students were given specific topics to speak on in unison, with topics ranging from natural disasters to over usage of technology. 

The mood in the room was tense and attentive as the choral speaking conductor led the group through the various phases of their speech; few mistakes were made here and it was obvious that the stakes were high. Although the parents and teachers looked tense, the students seemed to glide through the speech bars seamlessly. 

   

                                      

It was an awesome experience and a great honor to join the show.

Language development activities.

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to take a moment to give my teachers a round of applause and acknowledge their hard work and consistency.

Many of these teachers have quite a heavy workload, handling in class lessons, administrative duties, co-curricular duties, lab management and other, all while participating in the TELL2 project as well as the PRO-ELT project . 

Some teachers are even taking after hours courses to further their studies, but in spite of all that, these ladies make time to meet with me wearing smiles and maintaining a light-hearted disposition. They have been working quite hard with me to make our time together fruitful and to continue honing and developing their skills as English teachers.

Bravo ladies, bravo. 

~Yusuf S.D.J.L~

New English SAL room at SK Kedai Piah!

Hey!

Students and teachers have been hard at work producing materials and decorations for the new English self access learning room. Teachers have been really enthusiastic about getting the SAL room up and running and ready for students.

The year 2 and 3 pupils were super excited when we asked them to help with decorations, and many of them produced very beautiful hobby apples for the "apple tree of knowledge".

Great work SKKP, cant wait to get back to it with you all!

~Yusuf S.D.J.L~

Pintar Mobile Learning Unit

Hi all!

Last week I was graced with a tour of an absolutely awesome and imaginative learning center, the Pintar Mobile Learning Unit!

                     

This charter bus turned education tool comes equipped  with five interactive learning station. There are two role playing stations where students assume the roles of a customer care agent and a customer, or a shop cashier and customer.

In the music station pupils have the opportunity to experience and interact with a cello and a xylophone.

 In one of the more challenging stations, students are tasked with building a functional rocket on a computer; they are given limited time to complete the task and prepare the rocket for launch. This activity helps to develop critical thinking skills as well as hand eye coordination.

The Pintar MLU set out from Bangsar, Malaysia and is scheduled to visit a few more primary schools in Kelantan before moving onto to schools in another state. Thanks Pintar group, this was quite the awesome experience!

PS. Dear Pintar group, can you raise the ceiling a little??? I'm 6'2 tall and had to crouch the whole time!!! lol :) still enjoyed it though.

~Yusuf S.D.J.L~

Interactive learning with Cikgu Rosmiha

Hey All!

Just a few days ago I had the opportunity to join a pre-school class with one of the English teachers at SK Dewan Beta.

Cikgu Rosmiha displayed a great working knowledge of how to use Realia and technology in class, in her lesson she employed a technique she developed and termed "D'bes Lcd" method of instruction. She used an Lcd display to keep the pupil's attention, dice to assist them with calculations and cute tokens to interest the young learners. 

The objective of her interactions with the pupil's was to improve their skills in the context of numeracy and mathematics. Students showed an increase in interest during lessons and improved greatly in the context of independent calculation and basic numeracy skills. 

After seeing this kind of technique in action, it is quite clear that many other students would benefit greatly from such integrated lesson activities in class; especially young learners from pre-school age up to year 3 and beyond.  

~Yusuf S.D.J.L~

Fun Fair Bachok!

The first Kelantan "Fun Fair" of 2015 kicked off at Bachok PPD in February, the event was planned and executed very nicely by Niamh Dunne and many local supporting teachers and staff from Bachok city primary schools.

 Students and staff enjoyed action songs sung and performed by Scott Varga and Philip Clark, a very intriguing performance indeed!

There were many English language based games and activities related to phonics; there were about 6 stations set up for rotating groups of pupils to come around and engage. Students were given tokens for right answers and successful completion of tasks; these tokens were then used by students to purchase prizes from the prize station.  

There are about 6 more "Fun Fairs" planned for this year, one coming to each cluster in the TELL2 project in Kelantan; so stay tuned for the next "Fun Fair" coming to an area near you!

~Yusuf S.D.J.L~

Poster making at SK Kedai Piah!

Students in Mrs. Julie Rolina's year 2 English class had quite an interesting time designing and creating rule posters for the classroom; pupils were free to create any rules that they thought were needed in the classroom.

Some of the rules were quite precise, such as: Do not sleep through the entire class, Do not sit on your friends chair, Always listen to the teacher, Do not throw rubbish on the floor or Do not stand on the tables. 

All in all these little youngsters did a great job working together to create these posters in English.

~Yusuf S.D.J.L~