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~

Dynamic teaching at it's finest!

Just a few days ago I once again had the great pleasure of joining and co-teaching an English class with Puan Rosmiha at SK Dewan Beta.

As always her class was very vibrant and the students were quite interested in the short story and writing lesson that followed. Puan Rosmiha is one of the most versatile and enthusiastic teachers I have had the pleasure of working with here in Malaysia, she is constantly looking for new ways to make the English lessons contextually relevant to her students.

In many of her lessons she uses an array of Realia, most of which is original materials which she creates herself or with students, as well as technology in the classroom such as audio & video, power point presentations, virtual games and activities to create as comprehensive an English environment as possible for her pupils. In so doing, Puan Rosmiha greatly increases the opportunities for students to use English in context as well as retain the new information that they learn.  

During classes pupils are transformed into astronauts, pilots, bus & taxi drivers, chefs, gardeners and many other interesting characters during role play learning activities. This teacher's approach to communication based learning is dynamic, engaging and all around fun for students. I can always feel the excitement of pupils when they enter the class.  

Bravo Puan Rosmiha, I look forward to joining you in the coming weeks and seeing what great experiences unfold next!

~Yusuf S.D.J.L~