Fun with Phonics in Putrajaya Part 1

It was an overcast morning at Perpustakaan Pusat Komunity in Putra Jaya. A big shout of thanks to Kakngah Shila for organizing the event to bring 21st Century Teaching techniques to the homeschool and kindergarten communities.  The event was 10 am - 4pm on Saturday, the 11th of March. We had a delightful group of 14 educators present.

The event started with the History of English in 10 minutes. This led to the discussion of the dynamics of the language coupled with in the 1700s the attempt to code the language for the first dictionary. It is that very code that was created hundreds of years ago that phonics leverages into literacy.

We started the day by introducing the group to their new gang of friends ... Alphablocks. We began immediately learning the sounds and actions of the 26 letters. Phonics is the system based on the 44 sounds those letters and letter combinations can produce. There was some giggles from the group as we proceeded. It was long before they were given a CVC word and they had to use actions while the rest of the group guesses the sounds and blend them into words.

It led to a discussion on how to segment and blend words. We all practiced segmenting and blending some short vowel a words. Then the educators all took turns showing off their new skills.

It was near this juncture, the group decided to slow the ambitious tempo down and to make another part 2 session at a later date (13/5). This freed us from the speed racer pace. It allowed us to delve deeper into the next topic, CVC words.

CVC words are like the atoms in a molecule. They are integral part of the phonics code. We spent time refining our short vowel sounds. We did many tasks  involving CVC words. It was lunchtime, time flies fast when you are having fun.

After the break, we watched a comical reminder of the importance of phonics and pronunciation with a funny Thai video about an English classroom. One of the educators shared a story about how their daughter faced a similar situation in her own classroom. It was time to introduce consonant blends and digraphs. We had a fun flashcard team-based game. There was lots of competitive spirit between the two teams as they applied their affinity towards consonant blends.

We continued our march on the phonics trail with diphthongs. These two vowel combinations produce a long vowel sound. We then played a round of diphthong bingo to drive the lesson home. It was a highly productive day with a group of hard charing educators. Since the training took place, one of the teachers has already incorporated phonics into her lessons and says the kids are loving it. Another educator said that her youngest was already picking up sounds she was teaching the other children. It was a smashing success, the code busting family continues to grow. Dynamite!

Phonics-Toon Cam and Sam Part 1

Cam and Sam Part 1 is a short vowel 'a' story with sight words. It is aimed to be consumed by the digital generation. You can read the printable version below or

click on this link for the toon

Brief Summary of IMELT Conference

The journey began with my flight to KL being delayed which caused me to miss my connecting flight. The Airlines arranged for me to spend the night at hotel inside the airport, past the check-in and customs, and put me on the morning flight. I arrived in Jakarta and made it on time for the opening ceremonies of the conference. It was held at Universitas Islam Syarif Hidyatullah (UIN) from 3/16-18. It was a collaboration between UIN and Universiti Putra Malaysia. The theme was Breaking Borders, Enriching ELT Experience.

It was a lovely event who was staffed by some outstanding volunteers (students).  They had plenaries and breakout sessions they called parallels. There were many participants from far flung corners of Indonesia on some islands I've never heard before. No surprise considering the Indonesian Archipelago has 18, 307 islands. It has the fourth largest population in the word. It also is home to the worlds most populated island in the world... Jawa. Half of the countries population calls Jawa home. The Jakarta  metro area is the 3rd largest in the world with over 30 million people. You can only imagine the crawl of traffic at times throughout the day.

The opening ceremony had some speakers high ranking people from the two collaborating universities and a minister of a governmental department. They mentioned there has been 60 years of cooperation between the academic communities of Malaysia and Indonesia; however, this was the first conference on English. At the moment 80% of the public universities of Malaysia are involved in IMELT. It was mentioned the shared history between the two nations, prior to them becoming nations. The Melaka Sultanate was formed by a prince from the ancient Srivijaya (Jawa and Sumatra) civilization. Many of the current royal families in Malaysia can trace their roots to Jawa.

Although the two languages (Bahasa Malaysia & Indonesia) share some words, they are divergent. Bahasa Indonesia has a stronger Arabic influence than Bahasa Malaysia, Arabic is its number one source of share words. The separate colonial occupations of the British & the Dutch contributed to more divergence. The historical shadow of the Dutch is the cause of the biggest challenge facing English language learning in Indonesia. Unlike Malaysia, where English is an official second language, Indonesia considers English as a foreign language. This impacts the prioritisation of funds and influence English learning faces from a national to a local level. Although in the job market, English speaking skills are highly desirable.

The conference was power packed. I learned lots of new things and met some new compadres. Most of the breakout sessions were dissertations of papers educators wrote and presented. A sample of some of the sessions I went to was Teacher Education: Preparation or Preparedness?, Text Driven Approaches to Text-Based Learning, Gender and Foreign Language Learning and Developing Effective Professional Program Based Teacher on Educational Effective Research.

I had a parallel session on Friday and a plenary on Saturday. The 25 minute session was on the Qualities of a 21st Century Teacher. A good question from one of the participants was how to handle a co-worker who does not want to update skills. My advice was always treat your co-worker respect, it is unimaginable everybody will update their skills and keep collaborating and grinding forward thinking methods with colleagues who do.

My plenary was based on the Role of the Teacher in the 21st Century classroom. My session was more like a training infused with motivation. As always, I struggle with time issues. We discussed the success and the applicability of the Shang Hai model in Malay educational world. In this part of the world teachers are burdened with many administrative responsibilities that detract from teaching. This growing burden is fueled by MoEs trying to juggle shrinking budgets. Shang Hai has posted some of the highest PISA scores in the world. Its student population is diverse in terms of socio-economic and urban/rural backgrounds. The effectiveness of their model is a teachers spend a third of their time in ongoing professional development or mentoring. Teachers get time and support to increase their skillset which correlates into a better education for the students. My mission was accomplished by the end of the session, the participants were pivoted to become awesome teachers.

This conference as opened my eyes and my concern to the growing demands for English language learning in Indonesia. It also reconfirmed my memory, Indonesian people are lovely and their food is tasty.