American English Webinar 4.5- Multimodal Writing: Using Media in Academic Writing

On alternating Wednesday nights, from September - November, UNITAR KB has been the sole provider of American English Webinar Series 4 in Malaysia. AE Webinar 4 is a live simulcast from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of English Language Programs in the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in Washington DC. It is a virtual learning platform broadcasted live around the world.

AE Webinar is a professional development programme aimed to provide methodological topics that foster interactive, student-centered language instruction. Webinars normally last 60 minutes and are followed by a guided discussion. There are 6 sessions. A sample of topics: Humour in the Classroom , Engaging Young Learners, Tips on Effective Writing and Digital learning.

Tn Hj Ramlan Awang Omar hosted the Webinar at UNITARKB, His school has a solid working relationship with the US Embassy in KL. They have collaborated on previous English Language programmes together. He wants to bring the best practices in English instruction to his students and other teachers in his community. He invited local primary and secondary teachers from SK, SMA and SMK to attend. The entire spectrum from future teachers to university lecturers attend this programme. 

USEKL provides a moderator for the webinar, Khidar Abdullah, to facilitate the discussion afterwards. These dedicated teachers receive a certificate upon completion of the programme. AE Webinar 4 results in the addition of new skills for the educator’s teaching toolkit.

Here is the link to American English Webinar 4.5- Multimodal Writing: Using Media in Academic Writing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udY8IR7aRys

Part 4- Benaa Group- The Tales and Travels of 1,001 Words

The sand slipped rapidly out the hour class, as the epic journey drew to a close. We left PD, to go to IOI Palm Garden Resort in Putrajaya. The group had 3 nights left in Malaysia. We had traveled through the jungle, mountains and beach... last stop was the city.

We had one final session in Putrajaya before the culminating event of the spelling bee. The final session was divided into two parts: course review and spelling bee practice. We played our last round of Secret Sight Words. Each student had come a long way, all making commendable personal progress.

The spelling bee differed slightly from a normal one, because the students were allowed to write the word on a blackboard. This eliminated any possible discrepancies. The room was stuffed with competitive spirit. Each round had a new set of 100 words which were selected randomly via an app. The final rounds were sanctioned to use any words from 501-1,000 of the Fry list. The students sailed through the first 3 rounds of 1-300 Fry Words. As we proceeded, the competition started to dwindle.

It finally became a showdown between Abdul Rahman and Osama. They went back and forth a couple times. In the end, Abdul Rahman was triumphant. Way to go! A fantastic performance by the group. We concluded by singing a final round of our trips theme music, "We Love Muhummad."

As mentioned in Part 3, I was tasked with awarding the best overall student. It was a really difficult decision. They were all champions in their own rights. After evaluating everybody's performance, it was a dead heat between two brothers Hashim and Abdul Aziz. Hashim is remarkable student and he was a steady contributor throughout the program, he's got a bright future ahead of him. Yet his brother, he showed the most improvement. Moreover, he became a whiz in phonics. Therefore, Abdul Aziz was awarded the best overall student.

It was an amazing trip. Everybody made notable progress in their English language skills. The
students had all improved in speaking, writing, reading and listening. Consequently, we have a whattsapp group where they continue develop. They were a sad to leave Malaysia, but happy to go home.  "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."- Dr. Suess

Abdul Rahman, spelling bee Champion!

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.

Part 2 Benaa Group- The Tales and Travels of 1,001 Words

On our way to the next destination, we stopped at a Yemeni restaurant named Balquis. It topped the list as one of the students' favorite places in Malaysia, lol. The students loved it so much, they ate here 3 times in the course of our travels. There's no taste like home.

It was a Friday when we arrived at our new destination, the Berjaya Hills Golf Resort. It is a lovely piece of property nestled up in the hills in Bukit Tinggi. This place is a cloud tropical forest due to it's high elevation. The high elevation caters to low temperatures and crisp chilly mountain air. It doesn't swelter up here like it does in the rest of Malaysia. This lush ecotone is often blanketed in a mist every morning. The conference room was attached to a recreation hall with pool & ping pong tables and a bowling alley.

Our first lesson was based on CVC (consonant vowel consonant) constructions. The students were split into groups of 3 for many rounds of phonics spoons. CVC helps students recogonize short vowels. This is critical for students to start identify the code of language. It was essential to master the short vowels before progressing to the long vowels. It is also a source of many vocabulary words. We spent a couple days on various CVC activities. Students started to register the benefits of phonics. They paid closer attention to their pronunciation with blending and segmenting.

The remaining 18 of the 44 sounds were covered, which includes long vowels, diphthongs  and consonant blends. We added the consonant blends and started learn more words (CCVC and CVCC). All of the new words were supported with pictures to enhance comprehension. The beginners in the class were making good progress. They began to self correct their own mistakes in regards to pronouncing short vowels.

Next, we dived into long vowels. Students learned: when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. Dipthongs posed a challenge to some of the intermediate students as well. We did many activities practicing long and short vowels. Magic 'e' was introduced, but it would take many more sessions before the concept was mastered. Instead of directly jumping into the Fry Word list, I acquainted the students with the 220 word Dolch List. The vocabulary and proficiency of the group continued to rise. I also decided to give extra work at this juncture to 5 of the intermediate students.

We started to do some onset and rhyme activities; however, daily we would apply or review earlier concepts we had already learned. It wasn't until the fifth session, I introduced the first 50 words from the Fry list. Students were pleasantly surprised they knew most of them from previous activities. It was a well needed boost to their confidence. They gobbled the words up so fast I could introduce the next 50 on the following day.

We began the class next day with Fluency Fry Speed Readers from the first 100 words. Students work in pairs to time and correct and assortment of the first 100 Fry words. It is an exercise in speed, fluency and accuracy. Students are encouraged to give more weight to accuracy during this exercise; therefore, take your time an say it correct. Mistakes were even made by the intermediate students while a few beginners made double digit mistakes. It was a good wake up call for the class. We spent the day reviewing the words with multiple tasks. At the end of the class, we had a new assortment of the Fry's first 100 Fluency Speed Readers. Everybody's accuracy and speed had improved. This method of Fluency Fry Speed Readers. was repeated throughout the travels as a practice and assessment tool.

One of the favorite activities was Secret Sight Words. Students are shown a list of pictures. They must identify the picture and use the first letter from the picture's word in making a new word. Guess correctly, you'll have gotten an answer which is from the Fry words we covered.  By the time we left Bukit Tinggi, the students covered 300 words. Actually, it was more than that, but we completed the first 300 of the Fry's list.

The highlight in terms of English was a fun excursion to KL which resulted into a trip to Kidzania. Kidzania is a micro-world for kids. They have their own currency named kidzos. Kidzos are obtained by being trained briefly in an occupation and performing a few occupational tasks to earn kidzos. Kidzos are required to get your eye examination which qualifies for driving school. Don't forget you also need the for your drivers license fee, insurance and petrol. There are other opportunities to spend kidzos, like work at Subway and make your own sandwich. The best part was the medium of Kidzania is English. In a nutshell, kid's eyes were opened to thinking about a career and the value of earning, learning and spending. The group had a blast.

Please keep in mind, the students were also engaged with Yes, I can! and physical activities daily. They were swimming, wall climbing and flying foxing to name a few. The identity of the class emerged and bonds between me and them formed in Bukit Tinggi. The learning process was in full swing, everybody got swept up in it. Outside of class they had many opportunities to practice with me throughout the day during activities and meals. We shared lots of laughs and good times together during this segment of our saga.

we got busted for late assignments, lol

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

My apologies, I'm a bit slow to document this. In August, I spent 23 days traveling around and teaching English to group of 19 Saudi students (a great bunch of kids). They were all adolescent learners ranging in age from 13-18 years old. The group's ability level ranged from elementary to intermediate. English class met daily, but the focus of the trip was Yes, I can!

Yes, I can! is a teen leadership building program created in Australia. The Benaa group is a Jeddah based business who has adapted and modified the program in Arabic for Saudi consumption. This is their third year of running the program and their first time adding an English language learning component. However, my biggest competition was the fun daily physical activities that captured the students' attentions. Flying Fox, Paintball and obstacle courses are a few of the samples.

I worked closely with two wonderful mentors from Beena, Al Mahmoud and Rajaei. Khalid, Muhummad and Abdullah were also part of the heavy hitting team. Accompanying us in a system of rotation was Ustaz Jamaan, Ustaz Hamza and Dr Ghassan. As I always say,"Team Work, Makes the Dream Work!" We traveled together to four locations throughout Malaysia with the same group of students to conduct the program. Those places are as follows: Gopeng, Bukit Tinggi, Port Dickson and finally Putra Jaya. Our day's began early and we would continue well into the evening. Not to mention, we had two occasions of jungle trekking at night.

First of all, I realised this was a big order. Trying to teach a group of 19 mixed ability students traveling around Malaysia, it takes some finesse. I met the group in Gopeng on Thursday, 11th of August. The group had already been traveling for almost 2 weeks by the time I joined. The wear and tear of travel was catching up to them. A few of them had the flu and a few them were homesick. Nonetheless, we met for our first session in a scenic and secluded resort in Gopeng.

The group had selected they were interested in a communicative approach to learning the Fry's 1,000 words list. It was decided that our goal would be the first 500 words on the list due to time restraints. These words are high frequency words and the most common in the English language. Our aim was to be able to recognize, pronounce, comprehend, spell, use and own these words. As soon as I arrived, the clock was ticking.

Therefore, I decided to start at the most basic component of the English language, phonics. I am a student of the Arabic language. There are many challenges besides pronunciation in learning. A few Arabic sounds are unique and pose difficulty to beginners. One of the first hurdles beyond sounds is recognizing foreign script. It is only matter of time before you have to learn to write it. I felt I could relate to some of the trials the beginners in class would face. A few of the students had English fluency so it seemed like a step backwards in the beginning for them. In our very first session, we started getting everybody hooked on phonics. None of them had been exposed to this methodology previously.

It was a new experience and met by reluctance from a few. Why don't we starting learning the words yet? First, we need to be competent in recognizing the letters and the sounds those letters represent in our desired words. I got them up on on their feet and introduced them to first 26 of the 44 sounds in the English language. For the kinaesthetic learners, I taught them with the actions. The foundation of the playing field was being levelled by phonics.

The first session ended with an English nashid, "We Love Muhummad." It was popular with the students and ended up becoming our theme music for our English educational odyssey. These sounds and actions proved very useful throughout the whole trip. By the end, all of them were competent in phonics. Believe it or not, they actually had fun learning it. We had to pack our bags in the morning and leave the river in the jungle for our next destination.