Part 3- Benaa Group- The Tales and Travels of 1,001 Words

As we traveled out of the mountains of Bukit Tinggi, we played paint ball followed by another feast at Balquis restaurant.  BTW, Team Talal was victorious in the round robin paint ball event. We arrived at our new destination, Eagle Ranch Resort in Port Dickson. It is located on the West Coast of Malaysia next to a beach. This resort specialises in team building activities and hosts a wide range of obstacle courses.

In PD, we had a lots of fun in and outside the classroom. The students skills steadily improved from individual, pair and group work. We completed our first 500 words of the Fry list. We managed to have one session on team building as well. Balloons were used as teaching aid for prepositions of direction. The students had a practice round for the upcoming finale, the spelling bee.

The group spent some time on word families. This proved useful on how to pronounce properly future words. We had many games and competitions to reinforce the 500 words. This group of students was keen on competition.

One of the standout games in their eyes was when I plastered the wall with words. There was 3 groups: Future Leaders, Badr and Uhud groups. Each group would provide a challenger for every round and rotate. The students had to line up behind a line. I would give a word then the challengers had to race to the wall to locate the word. The first person to find it gets a point for their team. They really got involved in this exercise,  the competition was stiff.

The team building session in English was jolly. The theme of the day was based on the unknown quote,"Teamwork: Simply Stated, It Is Less Me And More We." Our session included hula hoop and marshmallow challenges. Again the students exemplified their fervour for competition. Future Leaders were victorious in the marshmallow challenge.

Another crowd pleaser was the Long 'i' Fries. This game practices all the combination of long 'i': i, y, ie, i_e and igh. Students were split into 2 teams. I would give a fry with a word on it like crying. They had to correctly pronounce the fry, then run to their respective wall to place it the corresponding fries scoops. Even the most advanced student in class enjoyed this activity and realized the power of phonics.

We did a little penmanship work to improve their written script. They also made Thank You cards to their parents for sending them on this remarkable trip. We had completed our 500 words and everybody displayed noticeable improvement from the beginning. The last thing was to prepare for the final spelling bee. Dr Ghassan sweetened the deal by offering a router as a prize for the champion of the spelling bee. The same deal was made for best overall student. However, the mood was bittersweet. The guys were psyched about the prizes, but they were sad that their saga in Malaysia was creeping to it's end.