English Day at SK Pa'Pura, Bachok

SK Pa'Pura with their mentor Julian, planned and prepared an English Day for the Year 2 pupils in the school.  

The whole day was dedicated to English games and was rounded off with a Phonics movie.  

The pupils had a fantastic time playing various phonics games.  It was inspirational to see such hard work and dedication that led to such a fun and successful day.

Here are some more photos of the games:

That's all for now from SK Pa'Pura! 

Keep up the great work :)

Blogs from SK Perupok English Teachers

As part of our projects in Bachok-Pasir Puteh1, the teachers wrote a blog entry each to be published.  So let's hear it from the level one English teachers at SK Perupok (woohoo!)

First, meet Nina:

Here is what Nina wrote:

Hi bloggers!

I’m Nina and I would like to share something special about this TELL2 programme in my school.  It is such an amazing experience to be part of this programme.  A million thanks to my supportive mentor, Niamh Dunne, who has helped me so much with my teaching skills.  During the TPD (Teacher Professional Development) workshops, I also had the opportunity to make many friends with teachers in different schools.  They are nice and friendly.  I manage to follow all the lessons very well.  I never skipped the course because I was eager to learn something new which could improve my teaching.  My mentor is really nice to me and she makes me feel free to ask anything without any hesitation.  That is the reason I give 5 stars to this effective programme!

Next, meet Anita:

Here is what Anita wrote:

Hello Niamh and my dear friends.  

I’m Anita and I hope you are all happy and cheerful.  Today I want to tell you all what I feel.  As you know, I’m not good at English because my English result in SPM was credit only.  I did not get 1..2..3 or …so that’s why I’m ashamed and not confident to teach English.  First, I started teaching English when I taught at SK Jelawat.  There was not enough teachers to teach English so PKP asked me to try to teach English.  So no ‘ifs’ nor ‘buts’, I must teach English.  Oh my gosh!  It’s quite difficult…how can I say the correct pronunciation for certain words and manage the classroom.  My vocabulary in English is so poor.  Since that time until here at SK Perupok, I’ve been teaching English.  Many years experience but still not enough to teach English very well.  Compared to Nina, Uja and Linda, I think they are better than me.  Nina and Uja are very fluent and knowledgeable in English.  Also Linda, although she is a non-optionist, she got a good result in SPM and she studied at university for a while before becoming a teacher.  Three of my friends have many ideas and are professional in their jobs.  I’m very grateful to meet them coz they always help me if I am not clear on something.  Uja, Nina and Linda usually give me materials and resources to support me in English.  Thanks to my beloved friends.  Also I never forget to say thanks a lot to our mentor, Niamh.  Since she came here I feel my English is better than before.  I open my eyes and heart.  She has taught my friends and me a lot of things.  Niamh us a gentle woman with a beautiful face and she always smiles for everyone.  When I look at her I know she loves children very much and that’s why she likes teaching.  She’s a perfect lady.  Thanks again Niamh and my friends.

Next, meet Linda:

Here is what Linda wrote:

Hi everyone, I am Linda.

I love myself…I’ll do anything that I need to be a happy woman with a happy life.  So how about me?  I love to buy something that makes me feel satisfied as long as I do not trouble other people.  For me, shopping or window shopping is one of the best therapies because it can make me release stress.  I am happy with my life and thanks to my parents, my beloved husband and my family for giving me such a great life in this world.  I love them so much, forever and ever!  =)

Here is another blog from our lovely Anita! She was so enthusiastic she did 2! 

Assalamualaikum and hello again to everyone.  

Everyone has something happen in their life, happy or sad.  Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are sad.  I’ll never forget the 1st of July 2014.  That is the day my beloved father passed away.  I never believed my father could leave me and my family.  I thought the kidney disease that my father had since 2012 could smooth out with dialysis 3 times a week.  I got news from the nurse at 3.45a.m. on that Tuesday that my father couldn't be saved and passed away.  Oh my gosh! I felt nothing but empty in my heart.  My family and I regret that we were not beside father when he passed away to say “Allah and Laila haillAllah.”  Nurses could not allow me and my siblings to take care of father in the ICU room.  We always recited ‘Yaash’ for father and pray for father’s health and to get well soon.  Although we were not beside father, I know my father passed away in peace.  From his face I saw he was smiling and looked like he was sleeping.  My father is the best father in the world.  No matter what, he tried to fulfil all his children’s needs.  In his life, my father worked hard and built houses for his children.  If he had enough money, he bought cars for us, even though not new cars but still good for us to use.  My father always helped his siblings and relatives with his money or anything.  Now I never forget my father and I hope I can meet him in my dreams.  I always pray father and may God bless you, my dear father, and you sleep peacefully.  Father, you are always in our hearts and we can meet in heaven hopefully.  Your children and mum miss you very much and our lives are not cheerful without you.

Finally, meet Uja:

Here is what Uja wrote:

Assalamualaikum and hi everybody.

I’m Uja from SK Perupok.  I am going to share with you about what I did on my last holiday.  When holidays were around the corner I felt so happy…Why?…In my head I was making some plans which I never get the chance to do during the year.  What were they?  Going to travel to a chosen destination?? Oh no! The first thing was…I wanted to tidy up my bookshelf where I keep books and  stationery with my children.  The second plan was that I wanted to sew some worn clothed, which I had put in a big basket.  I want to get close with my old sewing machine! You know what happened?!? The sewing mating worked non-stop unless I switched it off manually.  My eldest child was in charge of controlling the switch…so it worked and I could use it! Hahaha so funny….and TERRIBLE!  We laughed together.  Then after 3 days using it like that, it recovered back to normal.  We laughed together again!  The third thing was…I wanted to see my house so clean and tidy.  I wished to cook some delicious food everyday for my family, with the hope they would like my food very much.  Hahaha…kikiki….Happy together forever and ever!

From me,

Uja.  

They are 4 wonderful women and I love working with them.

That's all now from SK Perupok!

Enjoy your weekend everyone :)

Niamh

English Festival in SK Perupok 2014

Sorry for the delay in telling you about this fabulous event.  In SK Perupok, Bachok, at the end of 2014, we held a great English Festival which was held over 3 days.  The first day was an opening ceremony for the English Festival with some speeches from our lovely Guru Besar, Tn. Hj. Sapruddin Bin Abdullah, and the TELL2 Kelantan Project Manager, Tobin Walrod.

This was then followed by an excellent performance from Mr. Scott and Mr. Philip and a performance by the wonderful Nur Qamarina.

We even had a guest appearance from the Brighton Mascots, Brighton and Torch.

We had many stations such as action songs, spelling bee, story telling, phonics, running diction and so on.  All the teachers from SK Perupok participated in the English Festival and they made it the best it could be.  All the teachers lead by a wonderful headmaster certainly are a 'Dream Team'!

Here are some photos of some of the stations:

The event was a huge success and was thoroughly enjoyed by the pupils.  A huge 'thank you' should go out to the Headmaster Tn. Hj. Sapruddin, the dedicated English Panel, all the fun-loving teachers at SK Perupok as well as the numerous hard-working mentors who all contributed to such a successful event.

ENGLISH IS FUN at SK PERUPOK!! :)

The SCORM Storm sweeps through SK Kampong Berangan and SK Banggol Pa' Esah

You don't need to be a weather reporter to know that the SCORM Storm is here in Pasir Puteh. FROG VLE is hopping into the daily routines of teachers and students at SK Kampong Berangan (SKKB) and SK Banggol Pa' Esah (SKBPE). I applaud these schools' leaderships and teachers for tackling this new technology head-on and accepting the computer monitor must be a fixture in the 21st Century classroom.  It's an ultimate whiteboard enhancer. Breathing life into cold lessons and attracting the Digital Generation with student centred tech savvy. BRAVO!  GB Sir Rosli (SKKB), coined a befitting motto for this school year, "Change or Disappear!"

March's mutuality mindset began with the Frog aficionado, Teacher Baha, and I sharing notes. Teacher Baha heads the computer lab at SKKB, the number 2 school in Kelantan for February Frog log-ins. Whoo Hoo, way to go SKKB! Teacher Baha put the TELL2 Google Drive on the school's Frog page making it accessible to over 50 teachers. He introduced me to the wonderful world of weebly.com. We are currently building an English SCORM page which will include the Learning Outcomes and Specifications of every SCORM English digital lesson on Frog. Teacher Rofia'ah, Teacher Mazwan, Teacher Hazura and Teacher Kamaruddin are all getting involved in the FROG phenomenon. Teacher Kamuruddin's Year 1Emerald class made exceptional progress on letters, sounds and simple words using SCORM's S, A, T and P lesson.

SKBPE is a hop, skip and a jump away from SKKB. Teacher Mohasnizam, Teacher Asisiah, Teacher Nor Azizah and Teacher Adzura are also leapfrogging their classrooms into the 21st Century with the full support of their new GB Cikgu Subri. Year 3Ariff class was busy today building their dashboards with the SCORM English lesson FRIENDS. The lesson contains seven parts: Introduction, Friends1, Freinds2, Practice, Reinforcement, Enrichment and Evaluation.

The Lesson Outcomes that are covered are 3.2, 4.4, 4.6, 4.7 from the National Curriculum Standards.  An example of Lesson Outcome 4.4 is construct simple and compound sentences with guidance and independently. The lesson Specifications involved are 3.2.1, 3.2.4, 4.4.1, 4.6.1, 4.7.2. A sample of Specification 4.6.1 is using capital letters for- the pronoun I- names of people, days of the week and months of the year. Articles are the focal of the grammatical topics. Students will also enrich their vocabularies by lesson's end with the words: happy, camping, fishing, hole, water, eel, river, cramp, boot, school and friends.

These power packed lessons are in high definition and stereo sound. As we log more hours in, we are refining the process on how to deliver a lesson more efficiently. The process is new, it is courageous and dynamic teachers like those mentioned above who are currently fine tuning this process. Regardless, the students are enjoying themselves and enthusiastic about learning English. Either way neither SKKB or SKBPE are not going to disappear anytime soon, quite the contrary they are going to leap ahead into the future.

Hop In: SK Padang Pa' Amat leaps into SCORM

I'm very fortunate, because I get to work with so many outstanding professional Malaysian teachers. Teacher Zuraida is a prime example. Even though the school's lab is expecting 40 new chromebook laptops any day now, she energised her pupils learning experience with some e-learning. With a laptop, a projector and a set of speakers; the lab became alive with FROG VLE. We had a chance to infuse the latest technology into two classes of Year 3(A&D).

I was pleasantly surprised when Teacher Zuraida used "Doing The Skeleton Dance", a title from last year, to open the session for Year 3A. Since the class was in Unit 4, People Around Me. It was a great opportunity to use "People in the Town" from the tell2resources Google Drive. The drive is available from one click on Teacher Zuraida's FROG dashboard. No longer is it necessary to remember any pesky passwords, with one click access to numerous helpful resources and teaching aides. We also used two sets of occupation flashcards to spice up the song for the cooperative Year 3A class. The lab was charged when the class with belted out the chorus, "I see the people in my town and I say, hey brother what's going down?"

Year 3D class was taught with a SCORM inspired lesson.  Quick reminder, SCORM is an acronym for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. The lesson (object) was a review of letters and sounds of s, a, t and p. All the phases of the lesson are available and sharable from one click of the finger from the teacher's FROG dashboard.  Introduction:(S, A, T, P), Identifying:(S, A, T, P),  Blending and Segmenting:(S, A, T, P), Tricky Words (S, A, T, P), Enrichment (S, A, T, P) and Assessment:(S, A, T, P). The class was able to progress through letter identification, letter writing in the air and blending many short vowel words. Their confidence soared, so they too were treated to a couple rounds of the hit song "People in the Town". This class has really progressed quickly and has begun to look forward to English class. This speaks volumes for the efforts of Teacher Zuraida to attract a class that was aloof. I'm sure the attention grabbing learning methods are a contributing factor. Keep up the sterling work Teacher Zuraida!

Hop In: SK Banggol Pa' Esah uses SCORM in the classroom

Technology is a tool, when placed in the hands of a creative teacher, it is a vehicle for a fun high definition student centred activity. Teacher Mohasnizam is one of those talented teachers winning students' attentions and increasing skills with Information Technology like FROG VLE. FROG is a virtual learning platform sponsored by the JPN (MOE) accessible to every teacher, student and parent in Malaysia. It's in its nascent stages. VLE stands for a virtual learning environment. Move over colour chalk, we have high definition with stereo sound in the classroom. It's no competition between the chalkboard versus the computer monitor, especially in regards to this tech-savvy generation of students.

Using a big screen monitor, we demonstrated a SCORM inspired e-learning lesson to the class. SCORM is an acronym for Sharable Content Object Reference Model. The lesson (or object) was dedicated as a phonics review of letters and sounds: S, A, T and P. We began with the programme Introduction:(S, A, T, P). The class sprung into action differentiating between sounds and letters S, A, T, P. Next, we sang with the songs on Identifying:(S, A, T, P).  The students also used their fingers to draw the letters in the air while pronouncing the letters with their corresponding sounds. We practiced word families and breaking down words with Blending and Segmenting:
(S, A, T, P).  

We switched gears for a few moments during the lesson. The class also enjoyed singing and watching "The People Song" video. It was a gratifying activity covering KSSR Year 3, Unit 4. Occupation flashcards were distributed throughout the class. Whenever the occupation of the flashcard in their grips was mentioned, they would thrust it into the air and shout it out.  It was good wholesome fun.

Finally, the class participated in Assessing:(S, A, T, P).  It was 10 questions online assessment of S, A, T and P. The questions were a mixed bag of skill assessments like: sounds, blending, segmenting, spelling letters, spelling sounds, missing letters and matching words. The lesson was a hit and there was not a single Angry Bird in the class.  Contrarily, they were lots of smiling faces as they gave salams to their teacher. Kudos to Teacher Mohasnizam for incorporating the latest technology in the classroom and driving it home with a fun way to increase student comprehension.

The First UPSR Clinic of 2015- SK Bukit Merbau

They are playing my tune. In Kelantan, we share a mutuality mindset and a textbook example of that collaborative effort can be seen in the verdant countryside of Pasir Puteh. Pasir Puteh is divided between two subclusters: Bachok-Pasir Puteh and Machang-Pasir Puteh. We have 6 mentors working in these 3 districts lead by the charismatic Niamh Dunne (B-PP) and Sara Teale (M-PP). We having been working jointly from the beginning of TELL2 by sharing Teacher Professional Development (TPD) sessions together. The buck doesn't stop there, we've worked hand in hand together in many projects like the Linus Workshop and the International Jamboree & Spelling Bee to mention a few.

It is only fitting, the launch of the UPSR Clinic season of 2015 was held in one of Sara's school-
SK Bukit Merbau.  The dedicated Teacher Norimah and Sara have been planning since last year to host a clinic. Due to their perseverance, they managed to be the early birds this year.

On Tuesday, the 17th of February, forty-six Year 6 students gathered, after school from 2-4 pm, at SKBM. The group consisted of mixed skills sets from classes Year 6A and Year 6B. The students were eager and bounding with potential. We started the clinic with just an overview of UPSR and BI paper in particular. Through discussion, we were able to dismiss some myths and misinformation surrounding the test. Next, we agreed that Paper 1 and Paper 2 are equal in value, 40 marks each. We identified together Paper 2 posed a bigger challenge. Consequently, we dove straight into Paper 2, Section B.

We collaborated as a class and did a sample question together. We broke it down to a chart, table, box and a written response. Methodically we filled row by row in the table. As they made mistakes, we corrected them together. Student's were advised to circle the first letter in the table to recognise wether a capital or small letter is required for the answer. It was via this demonstration many of the nuances of this section were relayed.

The students then worked independently on another sample question from Paper 2, Section B. Sara, Teacher Norimah and myself roved around the class and checked the work in progress. Due to time constraints, we only had time to check the table. The students showed a quick acquirement of skills taught by scoring 8-10 marks on the table We also introduced the first set of vocabulary as homework... Animal Parents And Their Young. We ended the clinic with the same chant from the beginning. In unison we cheered excitedly, "English is easy peasy!" We exited with the battlecry, "I want to get an A in English!"

Please note, Brighton Education Group (BEG) is committed to bringing student centred education and developing high order thinking in schools. Yet, we also pragmatically recognise in a student's spectrum of educational experiences, exams are inescapable.  Therefore, we are also able to boost the student's toolbox of academic skills with the ability of polished exam orientated methods. Either way, it's a reflection of BEG's commitment of Creating Opportunities and improving the schools in Malaysia.