It was fine morning in Kuala Terengganu when I met the smiling faces of Pn Nurul and Mr Ramzu. The workshop was on July 25 at SMK Seri Nilam. The workshop was conducted with 76 fantastic non-option Year 1 teachers..
The event started on time at 9am and it opened with a ceremonial talk by Tuan Haji Shafruddin bin Haji Ali Hussin, JPN Terengganu. Showing the JPNT’s support for the teachers, he read his prepared speech in English and even did a little ad lib. He humorously warmed the crowd up for me. The classroom was arranged in three rows of desks in pairs.For your reference, non-option English teachers are teachers who are trained in different subjects like science and math who are required to teach English due to lack of qualified English teachers. This group of teachers have unique needs and challenges. Yet, these teachers all had positive attitudes.
I started the first of three sessions with a little theory in efforts to get buy-in from the teachers. I spoke about the importance of their profession and after many attempts got the teachers to chant enthusiastically with a fist pump, “I’m a teacher.” After watching the lead-in video English Mania, the teachers paired up for a discussion of 3 questions: 1. What’s an example of a mania? 2.Does China value English? 3.Is English important in Malaysia? The exercise concluded with the teachers realizing that English was the international language of problem solving. Moreover, we raised the awareness that they are teaching a popular, important and useful subject.
I discussed the excellence of Shanghai schools. The teachers then broke into pairs to ponder why Shanghai schools were successful. The small groups came up with many good ideas and contributing factors; however, they overlooked the answer which was the teachers. After this activity, the group was very receptive to my vibe.
The next activity, I introduced them to the sounds and actions associated with almost all 44 sounds of phonics. We then played a game with our new acquired skills.
After break, we did an activity called vowel flowers. It is an activity based on short vowels. Each group made vowel flowers and practiced their short vowels. Then we watched Kid President, “20 You Should Say More.” Next, was a phonics video called, “When 2 Vowels Go A Walking, The First One Does the Talking.” This was the introduction to long vowels. Then I explained and demonstrated to them “magic e”. Magic e refers to an ‘e’ in the terminal position proceeded by a single vowel and consonant will always make the preceding vowel go long.
This was the segway to the next activity. I bought 800 soup spoons and distributed them to groups of 4-5 teachers. Each group got 50 spoons as a sample. This activity is an affordable teaching aid to practice long and short vowels. Arrange set of spoons in three positions. The three colours represent the letters position: Orange first position letters, blue middle position letters and green last position.Using phonics pronounce the word. It may form a real word or a nonsense word. The importance is in pronunciation using phonics not meaning.If you pronounce the word correct, remove one spoon and collect. Next person reads new word, if correct collect, if not pass.When spoons finish, count collected spoons, person with most spoons WINS!!!
After lunch, we were running behind schedule. I introduced the teachers to the 220 Dolch Words. I explained why these words are a necessary companion for teaching phonics. We read the Dolch Word story that includes all the words in it. Teachers were given the list of 160 KSSR words which are required by the KSSR curriculum for Years 1 -3. A little less than 150 words are included on the Dolch List. This exercise emphasised the importance of Dolch Words as well as that it is only an additional 70 words the teachers need to teach their students.
Next, I introduce these awesome teachers, Sam the Snake (s,a, t,p). I had time to show them 3 of the 7 files related to this SCORM package. SCORM packages were created by the JPM when the KSSR syllabus was introduced. This is one of the best IT resources available to Malaysian Teachers and is widely unknown to them. The teachers were thrilled with the demo. Teacher Sunita from the PPDKT said, I’m going to use this to teach my own children.” The final task before the closing speech by Tuan Haji Jelani bin Sulong, PPD K.Terengganu was watching a short emotional video, “What Would The World Be Like Without Teachers?”
The teachers were stoked by the snazzy certificates provided by the USEKL. The event ended with a group photo. The picture was of the group making a fist pump and passionate battle cry, “I’m a teacher.” The teachers level participation was very high and I was impressed by their eagerness.
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