English Teachers Community

KWN 2010

2010-03-02T22:07:00.002+08:00

Hi friends,
KWN 2010 is now open for registration! The deadline to submit the storyboards is on 25 March 2010. It is open to students from 10 to 15 years old. The theme is Ecology and Communication.
For further information please go to www.kwnmalaysia.com
Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Don't wait until the last minute to send in your entries, it'll get jammed up!

New babies!

2009-12-29T00:58:00.003+08:00

Just to inform other members, i got a message from Maslinda this morning. Good news, she and Nurul Hayati are now mommies! Congratulations to both of them! Enjoy those splendid and joyful moments with your new borns! (and don't forget to upload your babies' photo here very soon!)

gambar perhiasan: my baby ~ Muhammad Irfan Hakim - a day after birth :)

Panasonic Kid Witness News (KWN)

2009-12-28T12:45:00.007+08:00

Heard of the Panasonic KWN before? It's a hands-on video education programme sponsored and supported by Panasonic where students learn to write, shoot, edit and produce their own 5 minutes video clip. I'm sure Chris is familiar with this programme as SMK Sri Aman has won the Videography Special Award in 2008! Congrats! To those who haven't heard of it please go to this website - http://kwnmalaysia.com/ All you need to do is tell your students to make the storyboards first and submit the entries to Panasonic and they will decide from the storyboards whether the students are selected to go for the video recording workshop. You have to send in the storyboards online, so, send in early because from experience last minute submission made entries jammed up and the Panasonic didn't get the storyboards.

Well, here are some photos of what my students had done this year, but, unfortunately, they didn't win anything.

Expect the Unexpected

2009-12-25T22:34:00.007+08:00

This is a video of a sketch acted by Form 3 students on a chapter in 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' novel. These students are from the 5th class in the form. There are 32 students in the class with 10 girls and the rest are boys. So you can imagine how it is like where the boys rule!

The audio is terrible, couldn't figure out why...sorry!

This is the first chapter of the novel. The scene where a little girl, Edie, was trampled on by the evil Mr Hyde.

I told the students to just act as if Mr Hyde stepped on the girl. I didn't realize that 'Mr Hyde' had actually kicked and stepped on 'Little Edie' until I replayed the video and heard the other students muttered "Dia buat betul-betul!" (means he had really stepped on his friend). I scolded the boy and ordered him to apologize, but the 'victim' only replied "Ala...main-main je, Teacher" (means they are just joking around). Boys are boys! They really test my patience!

Christina's clip 2

2009-12-14T21:40:00.002+08:00

hang out time ..

2009-12-14T21:15:00.000+08:00

Orang pertama saya jumpa, Kak Deebah .. best kan kak .. bila dah tau nak guna blog ni kan? (^^,)

serius betul Aidza .. ke tension sebab lupa password? Aktiviti ni kat McD, lepas makan kena buat kerja hehe (Haa Liza .. jeling apa tu?)

hari berikutnyna .. kat Pizza Hut la pulak .. :) tapi frust jugak sebab tak dapat guna wifi kat situ .. urusan pun tak selesai semua ..

Saya nak ucapkan berbanyak2 terima kasih pada rakan2 yang sudi meluangkan masa cuti mereka untuk makan bersama-sama sambil try out new things in blog. Jika ada kelapangan bolehlah jumpa dengan yang lain pula ..

Thanks Kak Deebah, Adiza, Liza, Kak Siti and Norina for your time (^^,)
Jangan lupa siapkan entry dan masuk blog selalu ek!

Christina's little clip

2009-12-14T21:04:00.002+08:00

Photos of activities over the year

2009-11-30T17:58:00.017+08:00

Many things have happened over the last 11 months. I have done a lot and gone places. Here are just some photos that I have. Most have already been posted in facebook but here are some, just to remind me of the people I have met over the months.

Dr Lee Su Kim, writer and lecturer in UKM. She is really a Nyonya.

Dr Alan Maley, whose books I have read and used during my uni days.

Cast and crew and everyone involved in the school's "I have a dream" production. Something I am very proud to be associated with.

The Sri Aman crowd with Wai Yee (ex-sri aman and cast of musical "2 from Galilee")

The staff and PTA during the Royal Gala Dinner with the Permaisui Agong. No pic of her majesty, I'm afraid.

Selamat Bercuti dan Salam Aidil Adha

2009-11-26T15:55:00.001+08:00

Saya mengambil kesempatan ini untuk mengucapkan Selamat Bercuti buat semua, walaupun ada yang terpaksa menjaga peperiksaan SPM serta terlibat dengan penandaan kertas peperiksaan, saya kira itu merupakan sebahagian daripada 'kehidupan' seorang guru - yang sentiasa mengorbankan waktu peribadi demi sebuah tugas yang mulia.

Buat rakan-rakan Muslim, saya panjangkan Salam Aidil Adha, semoga perayaan kali ini membawa seribu makna serta mengajar kita erti pengorbanan yang sebenarnya :)

Have fun with your families, and bring back all sweet memories!

Regards (^^)

Creating comic strips......

2009-05-16T14:19:00.003+08:00

Hey everybody.....i want to share this website with all of u......www.makebeliefcomix.com .......perhaps all of u can try this with your students...................

Tributes my Form 3 students created in blogs - Christina

2009-02-19T19:36:00.003+08:00

Here are the urls of my students' tributes. Just sharing. I haven't graded them yet. But I am impressed with some of the blogs.

http://tunkuabdulrahman-jnsz.blogspot.com/

http://3bakti09.blogspot.com/

http://little-fans-of-chedet.blogspot.com/

http://ghandihateswar.blogspot.com/

http://oprahwinfrey54.blogspot.com/

http://yooitsobamanator.blogspot.com/

Let me know if you have problem accessing them.

2009-01-30T18:13:00.002+08:00

TASK 1 -
One of the lessons went well was a lesson I had with form 3 students. The topic was about
people and it was a lesson (to enhance writing) on describing people appearances .Using power point, (actually i wanted to use flash...but it's so time consuming!)I started off with showing them their very own snapshots that i had taken earlier during my classes. I got them to describe about their own appearances. They responded well to the pictures shown as it were their very own. They had a good time laughing and at the same time describing at those candid shots i took. The describing went on and on for quite some time as they were describing from head to toe. Without realising, they have successfully described using adjectives. I wrote all the adjectives mentioned on the board. The final few photos were superimposed. I did some editing with adobe photoshop to make them look slightly older, darker, with long hair etc. They were simply in 'stitches'! Next, i got them to create a sentence using those adjective and I also got them to expand those sentences. Here's an example

Jane is beautiful.Jane is a beautiful lady.Jane is a beatiful lady with long hair.Jane is a beautiful lady with long black hair.Jane is a beautiful lady with long black hair and green hazel eyes.

What made the lesson successful was because the pictures used were theirs and their friends.
I learned that students learned much better when they are exposed to technology. Using
computer, lcd, teaching softwares are a must in classrooms today but its totally different
when you manage to inject a teeny weeny creativity of your own to all those gadgets to come
up with something original and refreshing. I wouldn't say that it had much difference compared to other lessons as i have always tried to incorporate IT elements when i teach. What made the lesson successful was the response that i had gotten from the students. They
successfully came up with interesting decription of people using sentence expansion
technique. Not only that, as sentence expansion maintains the same structure of sentence,
they kinda memorized it at the same time too. I certainly have shared this sentence
expansion activity with my collegues and it worked wonders!! May be you could try it too and tell me about it.

TASK 2
It was a challenging lesson as i was teaching a group of good students ( a little demanding one
-as they always look for something exciting) and because i have to spend some time
editing photo shots, it's still kinda new to me.
The ideas for this lesson came from a friend of mine who is a teacher in another residential
school.I thought it was worth a try and indeed it worked wonders for my students as now they
have become more creative and expressive whenever they write their essays. There is
something I learnt from this particular lesson and that was to always inject our lessons
with something they are closely related with..n nowadays they are entwined with technology!

2009-01-05T12:08:00.003+08:00

Task 1 :
a) One of the lessons that went well was a lesson i had with the form 2 students in 2007. The topic was The Phantom Of The Opera ( Plot ). I started the lesson with a 5- 8 minutes quiz about the novel to check on the students' undertstanding of the novel. Next, i put them into groups and asked them to choose a leader and a secretary. In this lessson, students were required to produce a poster to promote the novel. Guidelines and samples were given to the students to keep them into the right track. At the end of the lesson, students were required to put up their posters on the wall so that everyone would be able to look at each other's product. Marks were given and the group with the highest marks was given a present as a token of appreciation for their good efforts. I got the idea for this lesson from a discussion that i did with a friend of mine.
b) This lesson was different from other lessons as the lesson was an integration of English and Art subjects.
c) The integrations between Art and English subjects made the lesson fun and enjoyable. Students were able to use their creativity to produce attractive posters. Students who were good in art could come up with interesting drawings and those who were good in language would be able to describe the novel interestingly.
d) I learned that having a leader for each group is very important as the leader could help the teacher in class control. The leader could also help the teacher in making sure that all group members participated in the group discussions. Besides that, i also learned that guidelines and samples must be given to the students so that students have a clear idea on what they were suppose to come out with.
e) To improve the lesson, i supposed i could ask the students to evaluate their own works. I could ask the students in the class or students from the other classes to vote on the best poster. This could encourage good competitions among the students. I did share this lesson with a colleague of mine. She did the same lesson with her students and it was as succesfull as mine was.

Task 2 :
a) One of the lessons that i felt was challenging was a lesson i had with the form 2 students last year. The topic was People and Social Issues. ( Day In Day Out ). In this lesson, students were required to produce an itinerary of a place that they would like to visit. I got the idea for this particular lesson from the form 2 textbook. I did some alterations to the lesson to make it more interesting.
b) This lesson was different from other lessons as students were required to use the Publisher programme to produce an itinerary. As students were not familiar with Publisher programme, I had to teach the students on how to use the programme before the students proceed with the task.
c) The lesson was challenging as i had to make sure that the students were confident enough to use the programme before giving them the task.
d) I learned that I had to be knowledgeable and confident in using Publisher in order to use the programme to teach. This is because during the lesson, students tend to ask many questions regarding the programme. Besides, there would be many technical difficulties that I had to solve.
e) To improve the lesson, I would need to give a sample of the product that the students need to come up with. As for the weaker students, helping words or step by step guidance would be helpful for them.
f) I had indeed share the experience with other teachers in a workshop that i had to conduct in the school.

Task 1 and 2 by Siti Faridah

2009-01-02T07:43:00.015+08:00

A lesson that went well:
One of the lessons that I would do whenever I teach a Form 2 class is one on giving instructions, to be exact, writing instructions for a recipe. Most of my students would really enjoyed this lesson, except for when they felt misplaced in the group. In this lesson ( 80 minutes lesson/ double period), students were to write the instructions for making a drink (for weak students) or a dish (for good and average students). Students were also required to use sequence connectors in the instructions, so they were exposed to some sequence connectors first. Then, they discuss on one simple recipe to write on and start writing the instructions into maximum of 6 steps. Students were also required to make illustrations(on mahjong paper) for their instructions, which means there will be 6 illustrations for the 6 steps. I haven't tried this using the IT yet, don't know how to. The students would normally have to complete the illustrations at home after the lesson and present on the next lesson in class. The students' presentation can be used for their oral assessment. I got this lesson from one of my TESL coursemates when we were doing practical teaching back in 1989. But she was doing it differently which I couldn't recall anymore as I have been doing a lot of changes to it. I believe the lesson was successful because the students enjoyed it and the end-product was really creative. Oh...I even gave prizes to the best and creative illustrations or presentations. The students did take a long time to decide on the recipe and made a lot noise, so sometimes I brought my students outside to the canteen or the school hall. I had shared this experience with other teachers, some like it and said they would try it in their class but there were also some who just could not bear the noise. By the way, I would go around the class to make sure they were using EL when discussing. But, of course, there were some 'mother tongue' interactions heard especially when I turned my back from them. I would like to try this using the IT next time but I've no idea on how to make the students draw the illustrations using the computer.

Task 2 - A challenging lesson:
One lesson that I found challenging is when I asked students (in a group of 3) to interview a teacher of their own choice in the staffroom to gather information about him/her so that students could write an essay about the person. Originally, I got the idea from a Bahasa Melayu teacher teaching a Form 1 class on writing a short paragraph on a teacher without revealing the name and at the end of the lesson students from other groups had to guess who the teacher was. I had made some alterations to the lesson by making them draw an illustration of the teacher. But last year, I made another alteration to the lesson by making them interview a teacher first. I brainstormed some simple questions that the students could use before they started interviewing the teachers. The lesson became challenging when some teachers refused to be interviewed (eventhough I've told them earlier) and some students were a bit late in starting their task. This is probably due to their inconfidence in spoken English. From this lesson I've learned that for those who are not fluent in the EL, they need to have a warming up session first before they are being 'put into' a real conversation. Thus, in the future, for the teachers to be interviewed I will list down all the questions that will be asked by the students, and for the students I will make a short session on interviewing each other in class first before I start letting them loose in the staffroom. I think I've told some other EL teachers about what I did and there were some responses but I've forgotten what they had said. I should have written them down...so, that will be my 2009 resolution!! I should hang a notebook and a pen around my neck at all time!! What do you think? Well, friends, please...do comment.

Nirmal Kaur

2008-12-27T22:17:00.004+08:00

Task 1:
One of the lessons that went well with my Form 1 class in the year 2008 was on the short story “How Dalat Got Its Name”. It was a simple lesson on plot, the purpose being to familiarise students with the events in the story. The lesson was started off by asking a few questions about the story such as the names of the characters, their relationship with each other, the setting of the story, etc. Then, the class was divided into groups of 6 and each group was given a jumbled up set of sentences. The students in the groups had to sequence themselves in a line according to the plot in the story. Later I conducted a quiz on plot among the 6 groups. The quiz comprised multiple choice questions and true false statements. Finally the students had to answer comprehension questions on plot based on two excerpts.

a) The idea of the students sequencing themselves in a line was from a course that I attended a long time ago.

b) This lesson was different from other lessons involving the sequencing of events because here the students had to move about in the group to make sure they were standing at the right place in the line.

c) The lesson was a success because it involved movement, instead of the normal ‘sitting in a group’ activity.

d) Students are excited and co-operative to carry out activities involving movement as most of the time they would be at their desks.

e) To improve this lesson, it would be better if the sequencing part of the lesson be done in an open area because students require space. The tables and chairs in the classroom are a hindrance to their movement.

f) As usual, I sometimes casually share my ideas with another colleague but can’t remember whether I did so for this lesson or not.

Task 2 :One of the lessons that went well but was a bit challenging with my Form 1 class in the year 2008 was on the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”. It was a concluding lesson that was conducted in the Multimedia Lab. I started off the lesson with questions about the poem to refresh the students' memory of it. Some of the questions were:-
(i) what type of house the poet chose to live in
(ii) the location and description of the house
(iii) what he would do for a living
(iv) the poet’s reasons for choosing that particular type of life

Then, I instructed the students to close their eyes and to imagine the type of house that they wanted to live in, its location, what it looked like and what surrounded the house. A few students were asked to describe their imagination to the class using the future tense. They came up with fantastic imaginary houses such as a treehouse in the middle of an island. Then, came the interesting part of the lesson where the students had to work in pairs and browse the internet to look for the image of a type of house that they would like to live in. They were told to copy and paste the image into a word document and then to type out their description using the future tense based on the guided questions. At the end of the lesson, the students had to send in their entries as attachment via e-mail to the teacher. Some students did not know how to do that. So I asked those students who knew how to do it (there were some) to teach their friends. The best entries were displayed on the class notice board.

a) I got the guided questions for this lesson from a workbook which I further adapted and the ICT part was an idea of my own that struck my mind as I was relaxing.
b) This lesson was different from other lessons because it was an integration of language and ICT.
c) The use of ICT made the lesson fun and enjoyable but it was challenging. I had actually overestimated the students' ability in using e-mails. The lesson was challenging because some students did not have an e-mail account and neither knew how to create one. Some had an account but didn’t know how to send attachments via e-mails. Although I instructed those who knew how to do it, they were only willing to do after they had finished their work (which I can well understand - the time constraint they had in the lab). So, I had to stop the students halfway during the lesson and teach that aspect of it. Because the students were already engrossed in their work (showing their keen interest) some were not attentive enough and later asked again and so I was practically tired walking around the class giving the steps at the pace they were working. Besides, some computers had technical problems which I was unable to solve and students had to wait for their turn or attempt the task after school. After school meant less guidance for them from the technical aspect.
d) Students are able to learn a language item better through activities which interest them. Here, their interest was on the use of computers and ICT. They were very happy to have that hands on experience to do their work using ICT and I actually got entries from almost all of them. When students find that we share their interests, the product is better.
e) To improve the lesson, I suppose I should have one session with the students on creating e-mail accounts and sending attachments. That would have made me less tired! I could also put up all the descriptions on the class notice board and ask the students to evaluate their friends’ work, instead of me alone.

f) I did casually talk about the activity involving the use of ICT with two or three colleagues.

That’s my experience. Do comment.

How to put diagrams in your entry?

2008-12-10T12:39:00.001+08:00

Hi everybody,

I think it is good to share this stuff with all of you - just in case you need to put any diagram(s) in your entry as an illustration to your presentation/discussion.

STEPS:
1. Draw your diagram(s) in PowerPoint file
2. View the slide
3. Printscreen the slide view (find for PrtSc/PrintScreen on one of your keyboard buttons -> Press the button
4. Open Paint program (if you do not know how to open it - click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Paint
5. Paste the prinstscreen of your slide show in Paint
6. Save it as JPEG (File -> Save As -> name the file (File name) -> Save as type: JPEG -> Save
7. Go to your blog -> New Post (or Edit Post, if you have already posted your entry but you want to add some diagrams -> click Add image icon (third icon from right)
8. A new window (Blogger - Upload image) will appear
9. Click Browse - find the file that you saved from Paint -> click Upload Image
10. Once it's done, the picture will be appeared in your posting box - you can easily drag the picture to the place you want it to be or alternatively you can cut the picture and paste it between paragraphs.
11. If you are satisfied with it, as usual click Publish Post.

Below is the example of a 'diagram' which I created using the steps above:

NB: Apart from using Paint, you can also use another application like Photoshop etc, however I choose to use Paint in this example - considering that some of you might not have Photoshop installed in their PC/notebook.

Christina - First response to tasks 1 and 2

2008-12-04T16:54:00.000+08:00

Task 1. Describe one of your lessons that went very well. For this lesson, explain what you were teaching, how you were teaching and how you knew it went well. In your description of your lesson consider the following:
a. Where did your ideas for this lesson come from?
b. How was this different from other lessons?
c. What do you think made the lesson successful?
d. Did you learn anything from the experience?
e. If you want to improve this lesson how would you do it?f. Have you shared your experience with anyone else?
One of the lessons I can remember from year 2008 is a lesson conducted quite early in the year. It was a Form 3 lesson. The subject of study was Tun Abdul Razak but I brought in elements from the USA history as well, specifically Martin Luther King, and another famous person, Nelson Mandela. How I planned the lesson was basically by looking at what we were supposed to cover. It was a lesson that was different because I decided not to focus too much on language content but on historical significance and using material that was available elsewhere (internet). I would say the lesson was successful because we moved away from convention whereby language was of the utmost importance. Instead, we looked at information on the persons as found in other media, ie. the internet. We also looked at something that WAS language-based, and that was Martin Luther King's famous speech that contained "I have a dream". We studied that part of the speech for its language content, how certain things are expressed in poetic language. The main thing I learned from the lesson (actually a series of lessons) is that we have to move away from just focusing on language content. There is a need to draw the students' interest in matters that we are supposed to teach and by focusing on other things such as historical significance (or scientific discovery, or impact of certain rock bands, even), we show that we respect the students' interests. When the students find that we share their interests, they have a new respect for our interests and the things we try to teach them.
To improve this lesson, I would probably be a lot more organised. Instead of just asking the students to look for information on Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, I would ask them to tell me why they would want a leader like them. I would prepare more sign post questions to lead them to where I want them to be. And yes, I have shared about the lesson with a colleague who was teaching the same topic but in a different manner.

Task 2 All teachers experience challenges. Could you describe one that was very challenging. Where did your ideas for this lesson come from?
a. Where did your ideas for this lesson come from?
b. How was this different from other lessons?
c. What do you think made the lesson challenging?
d. Did you learn anything from the experience?
e. If you want to improve this lesson how would you do it?
f. Have you shared your experience with anyone else?
One of the challenges I find in teaching is trying to NOT prepare a one-size fits all kind of lesson. Come what may, our students have varying levels of proficiency and face different problems in language learning. One of the lessons I had which was challenging to implement was one on famous persons. I asked the students to get into groups of 4 and each group is given the name of a famous person (an entertainer). They were to pretend (as a group) to be that person and prepare for an interview by journalists in a press conference. The journalists are actually members from another group. So each group was interviewed as a famous person, and also became journalists. The challenge was actually to get the students to speak up. Some students did find it difficult to ask questions (esp in a polite manner), and to answer (politely). They tended to get carried away with the role-playing. I got the idea from the students themselves as they were often sharing gossips about artistes. It was challenging because I have to discover the artistes that interested them and they knew about. And it was different because the lesson was going to be all speaking and listening and no writing. I learned later that I should have included writing as an enrichment task - ie. write a short paragraph about the interview they conducted. It was a very noisy lesson and things were getting slightly out of control and I would plan my lesson a little differently so that it would be less noisy. I did share with a colleague .... and got some feedback from her.
That's about it. It has been a long response. Do comment. Thanks.

greetings

2008-12-04T10:08:00.000+08:00

Hi everyone,
Time is just flying! It seems as if we just had the workshop...only to realise it's been 2 weeks now! How are things going? Remember, your blog entry should be in by 8 December. Have fun!

Online Discussion

2008-11-24T10:34:00.000+08:00

Dear everyone,

Thank you for participating in this Online Continuing Professional Development project. We appreciate your participation and commitment. We assure you that this blog is private, therefore nobody from 'outside' the group will be allowed to view the entries in this site. So, please do not hesitate to share your views here.Now, please look at the questions below and answer them as best as you can.

Task 1

1. Describe one of your lessons that went very well. For this lesson, explain what you were teaching, how you were teaching and how you knew it went well. In your description of your lesson consider the following:

a. Where did your ideas for this lesson come from?

b. How was this different from other lessons?

c. What do you think made the lesson successful?

d. Did you learn anything from the experience?

e. If you want to improve this lesson how would you do it?

f. Have you shared your experience with anyone else?

Task 2

All teachers experience challenges. Could you describe one that was very challenging. Where did your ideas for this lesson come from?

a. Where did your ideas for this lesson come from?

b. How was this different from other lessons?

c. What do you think made the lesson challenging?

d. Did you learn anything from the experience?

e. If you want to improve this lesson how would you do it?

f. Have you shared your experience with anyone else?

Now read the other entries posted by your online community and discuss them.You might consider what you have learnt from reading each others’ entries.

Deadline for submission of blog entry: 8 December 2008

Discussion from 9 December 2008 until 31 December 2008