SK Chenor Sports Day

SK Chenor had their Sports Day today, 30th October, 2014.  I helped out at the event and was very impressed with the effort the students put forth in each event.  I was especially impressed with the pre-school students' 4x4 Relay event!  A special mention is deserved by the coaches and Physical Education teacher at SK Chenor because they went to a tremendous effort to ensure that the students were participating correctly and safely in each event.  It is truly refreshing to see so many young people developing good sportsmanship at an early age, because that is a skill that will stick with them throughout their lives.

Great work SK CHENOR!!!

Tom James, Chenor

Brighton Kids English Club VIII

Our latest installment of the Kids Club garnered eleven enthusiastic members aged six to twelve! Everyone was very excited, and participated excitedly ! Our afternoon's activities featured card games with numbers and colors, a unique Q&A game involving speed, balloons, verbs, and the modal verb "can" e.g. "Can you ___?". We also covered the distinct pronunciation of "K" vs "X", (sick vs six), and a spectacular interactive reading time with The Giant Jumperee (by Julia Donaldson): a truly excellent story designed to be performed as a play. Everyone loved it, and everyone had the chance to do both reading and voice-acting, gestures, and sound effects! As usual, snack time was a big hit, and today's manners were executed with ground-breaking consistency! We all enjoyed ourselves very much, and are looking forward to our next meeting on November 10th!

SK Jengka 3: Junior Master Chef Competition

Sk Jengka 3 students have done an amazing job with the Junior Master Chef Competition today.  The school provided basic ingredients and the equipment, and the students had to bring items from home to prepare the dish.  All dishes were noodle based and judged on three categories:  Teamwork, Taste and Creativity.  I enjoyed being a part of this event, and the students really cooked up some amazing noodle dishes!

Sarah Higgs, Jempol

SK Jengka 2 Sports Day

SK Jengka 2 had a great Sports Day today!  The boys of all years had a Football Tournament, which even ended in a penalty shootout!  And the girls participated in a Netball Tournament!  What a great effort from both the boys and the girls, and amazing collaboration between years!

Sarah Higgs, Jempol

Brighton Kids English Club VII

Wow! We had our most challenging Club meeting yet! Only eleven members this time, but the age range was six to fourteen! We tried several different activities including UNO, tongue twisters, a rhythm/skipping game, coloring and writing, among others, but the reaction was very mixed! It seems that there is simply too much disparity in the age groups to accommodate everyone at once. The younger children love singing and jumping, but the older children feel very awkward and shy, and are quite reluctant to participate in general silliness. Consequently, the reluctance of the older members spread to the younger children, and they also became shy and reluctant to participate.
Still, we managed to do quite a lot, and everyone enjoyed snack time and games, as usual.
For the next Brighton Kids English Club (VIII), we will separate the members by age: 6-10 and 11-14, and prepare activities specifically tailored for each group.
We're all looking forward to it!
 

Camping at SK Bukit Bota

SK Bukit Bota hosted a camping event today, 10th October 2014.  Sarah & I attended the event and had a great time helping the students & teachers.

First, pupils had to pitch their tents & prepare their sleeping bags.  Next, was the Bukit Bota Master Chef Competition.  The school provided the basic ingredients, and students had to bring items from home to cook a dish for the judges.  They had to build an open fire for cooking, and prepare their dish out doors.  All the teams did a spectacular job and I enjoyed tasting all their dishes.  Next, students had time to prepare their Teacher Appreciation Show.  They performed all different types of acts for the teachers, and coordinated it entirely by themselves.  Finally, it was time for bed and the students and teachers slept peacefully in their tents at SK Bukit Bota.

A great event!

Tom James, Chenor

Scholastic Book Club Event in Temerloh

Tom James, Chenor Mentor, and I, Sarah Higgs, Jempol Mentor, attended a book fair at SK Seri Sangsong in Temerloh.  The aim of the event was to inspire the students to love reading, and the objectives were (1) to arouse students interest in reading, (2) to create a fun learning environment and (3) to reinforce reading habits among the students.  Temerloh Mentors, Tom Hanly, Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin, invited Tom & Sarah along to the event, with the hope of spreading awareness of the Scholastic Malaysia Book Club Programme.  Mr. Hanly, Temerloh Mentor, gave a short presentation on Peer Assisted Reading (PAL), which is a program that TELL2 is implementing across peninsular Malaysia.

We hope to promote literacy in our own zones, following the example set forth by Temerloh's dedicated Mentors.

-Sarah Higgs, Jempol

The Opening Ceremony consisted of speeches made by the Headmaster of SK Seri Sangson, Tn Hj Abd Azis bin Md Isin, and the DLO of Temerloh, Mr. Zaini, filling in for the Temerloh District Education Officer, Tn Hj Abdul Hamid bin Hj Wan Mohammad.  Additionally, a give was offered in friendship and cooperation.

The DLO & GB presented books to each class monitor & teacher.

A dramatic reading by a students.

PAL Programme, Presented by Tom Hanly, Temerloh

There was event time for a Quiz Show & Prizes!

English Through Art Workshop

At SJK(C) Maran, the children were able to use the material that the pupils had learned to create classroom posters! We had all the children from years one through three together working on their projects! It was pretty chaotic at first, not having enough space, desks, or colored pencils, but everyone acted very kindly, sharing space and supplies! Take a look at some of the fantastic work the pupils produced! (Years one and two hadn't finished coloring, so their products will, hopefully, be posted very soon)

-Marshall Peck, ELC Maran

Maran & Temerloh Mentors Help Out at Bera Funfair

Bera hosted a Brighton English Funfair today, and TELL2 Mentors Martina Gilmartin, Jimmy Ma & Tom Hanly (from Temerloh) and Sarah Higgs & Tom James (from Maran) helped out at the event.

The Brighton English Funfair is a great way to have fun and to practice English.  When pupils discover the fun they can have using English, it not only improves their attitude toward English lessons, but also improves their literacy!

Great work Meryl Thomas and  Tom & Tara White (from Bera)!  Your Funfair was FUN!

SK Jengka 6 SPORTS DAY!

SK Jengka 6 hosted it's end of year sports competition!  After a week's hard set-up and practice, I was honoured by being invited to this event.  The standard of athletics and outstanding sportsmanship at SK Jengka 6 is truly admirable.  Congratulations on an amazing event!

-Sarah Higgs, Jempol

English Please! The Monolingual Classroom

To comply with 21^st Century ESL class standards, we should have an “English Only Classroom.”  However, monolingual classes are difficult to execute.  It feels natural to explain in L1, rather than embrace 100% English in the classroom.  Getting the pupils to stop using L1 in class is also a difficult task.  In the face of so many difficulties, how can we create a monolingual classroom?

First, we need methods to (1) encourage English use and (2) creating opportunities to practice English in a monolingual classroom.  Check out these methods from Busy Teacher.

We also need some strategies for motivating students to speak in the monolingual classroom.

There is a controversy over whether it is better to teach in a monolingual versus multi-lingual groups, and I would like to discuss the issue with you further.  Please take the time to look over the  articles above and be prepared to discuss with me on my next school visit.

TQ!

Sarah Higgs, Jempol

This work by Sarah Higgs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Works Cited

British Council. (2014). Bristish Council BBC. Retrieved from Teaching English: Monolingual: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/knowledge-database/monolingual

Busy Teacher. (2014). Speak English? But We All Speak Spanish! How to Teach the Monolingual English Class. Retrieved from Busy Teacher: http://busyteacher.org/15097-how-to-teach-monolingual-english-class.html

TEFL Teaching Monolingual Versus Multilingual Groups. (2014). Retrieved from International TESOL & TEFL Training: http://www.teflcorp.com/articles/87-tefl-teaching-monolingual-vs-multi-lingual-groups/271-teaching-monolingual-versus-multi-lingual-groups.htm

Brighton Kids English Club VI

Brighton Kids English Club VI: complete. 

Verdict: FANTASTIC

At our sixth installment of the neighborhood English club we had nearly twenty participants, and there was no shortage of fun things to do. We made Chinese dragon masks for role-playing, practiced speaking and listening using a wide variety of structures (e.g. What can you do? What do you like? Is it a ___?, singular and plurals, irregular verbs, and much more!) We also created massive bingo boards, and played “Human Bingo with Q&A” to reinforce sentence structures, vocabulary, and spelling. Finally, of course, had snack time –lots of crisps and soda for everyone!

The children have come very far linguistically this year, and demonstrate a growing a confidence with speaking and listening in English. Also, the children are beginning to display some rather fine manners, queuing nicely and (nearly) always using “Please” and “Thank you”.

Our time together is always greatly entertaining and productive, and we look forward to seeing everyone at the next Brighton Kids English Club meeting on October 13!