Happy 53rd Independence Day Malaysia!

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Teacher Talk (3) : Gulp and Gasp

Let me share an email I received via facebook from a would be teacher concerning 'Gulp and Gasp' (Form 4 Drama text in the new literature component). Any feedback to help this young would be teacher is appreciated :)

August 18 at 3:33 p.m.

asslamualaikum, puan rahimah. i'm *****and it's nice to meet u! the reason why i send u this message is bcuz i need ur help as i had seen ur blog recently. my friends and i have to perform the form 4 drama "gulp and gasp". however, we are lack of preparations for it. easy to say, we dun know how to prepare ourselves for the drama. we would appreciate if u could help us. we have been told to do it short within 10 mins. we dunno how to cut the drama short and can be understood by the other classmates. we hope u can understand our problems rite now & willingly to guide us out.
thank u. 

My Reply:
wassalam,

i suggest u take only the important parts- focus only on the most important parts of message. it can be something humorous u know not something too serious. or u could suggest to your lecturer to divide the acts by pages. this way each group has to present a small part and once every group has performed, u will have a complete play. all the best

English Month- Merdeka Message Competition

Congrats to those who took part in the Merdeka Message Competition in conjunction with the English Month and National Day celebrations. You have a lot of talent girls and keep it up!

Ist Place- Lee Sook Chin (4S2)

2nd place- Kwan Pei Ni

The selected work

Third Place- Lam Yoke Lin

Afternoon session- Ist Kong Inn Ye

Selected students' works

Books for Beginning Teachers

Here are two free books for your perusal:

1. New Teacher's Handbook

2. Classroom Management

Teacher Talk (2) -EnglishSMART Programme

Today, I received the following email enquiring about the EnglishSMART Programme conducted in July  this year by my ELDSS  (see older posting on this) :

Salam Ms Rahmah,

My name is _____and I need your help on some information regarding the English Smart Program. I'm an eng teacher in pahang. I really love to organize a pgrm like this. If it is ok with u can u share the module with me and the activities involve..TQ..really need and appreciate yr help n share of ideas..

I don't have a module for this (maybe I should produce a module) but the main idea is to choose activities that are fun and promote active learning for LARGE groups. So size really matters.. well, I will explain the activities and hope this will help the sender and benefit anyone else who is interested:

Activity 1: Ice-breaking (Getting to Know You)

Materials needed: Song "Where's the Love" (or any other song that's catchy), cd player, portable mic

Steps: Play song and get ss to mingle. Pause song and ss must find the nearest partner and introduce themselves in English. Start song again and let ss mingle. Repeat procedure until you are satisfied with ss participation. Then move on to the next activity.

Suggested time: 15 mins

Activity 1: Ice-breaking (Vocabulary Balloons)

Materials needed:  Balloons (one for each group), list of categories

Steps: Divide ss into groups of 8-10. Mixed them all. I didn't let them represent their schools or else some schools will win all the competitions! Besides, they will get to know each other better. Tell ss to hold hands (girls with girls and boys with boys of course hehe...). The idea is for ss to kick, shoulder, butt (anything, as long as they don't touch the balloons with their hands) the balloon to their friends  in the same circle while saying a word from a category that the trainer will shout. E.g. 'names of fruits', 'cartoon characters' and this may progress to 'nouns', 'verbs' if you want to. It's up to your creativity to invent other categories. After a while, change the category.

Suggested time: 20 mins.
SS really enjoyed these two activities (although some were shy at first) and the ice was clearly broken!!

Activity 2: Wordsmith

Materials needed: one reasonably long word printed on a strip of paper and placed in a balloon, mahjong papers, marker pens

Steps: Provide one balloon to each group. Groups break balloons to retrieve the word and list out as many words they can form from the single word (am sure you've played this before in the classroom!). You can make it more challenging by setting some rules for e.g. form minimum three-letter words only, bonus marks for words that have 6 letters or more (it's up to you). Have checkers/facees check the words and total the scores.

Suggested time: 45 mins

Activity 3: Our Story

Materials needed: one newspaper per group, mahjong papers, marker pens

Steps: Provide one newspaper, mahjong paper and marker pen to each group. Groups choose 5-10 pictures from the newspaper and write a story based on the pictures selected. (see my earlier posting on 'My Story'. Each group presents story to others. Appoint teachers as judges for this activity to evaluate the best story and presentation. During our EnglishSMART programme, the best group presented a story on the world cup. I was surprised with what the students could produce considering the majority of the students were from rural schools!!

Suggested time:  1 hour

Activity 4: Puzzlemania

Materials needed: plenty of puzzles (up to you what types)

Steps: Provide a set of puzzles to each group. Groups discuss the puzzles and checkers check the answers. Here's a suggestion. While the checkers are checking the answers, you could use the time to teach ss an English song (modern or folk). This is to reduce waiting time. I didn't do this as I thought it would be too noisy.. I should've...

Suggested time: 45 mins

Activity 5: Find Me 

Materials needed: items you can hide ( we had flowers, shells, balloons etc.)

Steps: Come earlier to the location and hide all these items all over the compound. Groups look for the items and bring them to the collecting officer/facee for verification. The group that successfully brings all the items or the most number of items is the champ. I thought this was one of the activities the ss liked...although I was worried the ss might fall into the lake!! Think safety first all the time if you're planning to do this near a lake ok.

Suggested time: 1 hour

Well, these were the activities we carried out. Please do adapt for your local situation. All the best!

Ramadhan is here again...

Walk humbly
Talk politely
Dress neatly
Treat kindly
Pray attentively
Donate generously
May ALLAH bless & protect you…

"O ye who believe! Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed
to those before you, that you may (learn) self-restraint."

~ [al-Baqarah, 2:183]

18 formats for handmade thinking in the classroom

Something useful for teachers to think about...

18 formats for  handmade thinking in the classroom

View more presentations from Laurence Musgrove.

MPM Scenario Planning Seminar

Date: 3-4 August 2010
Venue: Eastin, Penang

My group's chairman
Dato' Prof  Dr Mohd Noh Dalimin, Vice Chancellor UTHM

Dr James Campbell, Deakin UniversityAustralia

 Datuk Prof Ir Dr Zaini Ujang, Vice Chancellor, UTM

Panelists: Prof Zaini Ujang (VC UTM),
Prof Mohd Nor Hussain (VC UTem)
and Prof Zakaria Kasa (VC UPSI)

Me, Gurdashan, Dr Zaini, Kala and Dr Saadiah

I was one of the eight master teachers invited to this seminar to discuss the way forward for Malaysian Examination Council (MPM) based on the changing scenario in the education scene. The others were sector heads, Dr Jamil Adimin from LPM, Matriculation Division, Vice-chancellors (Datuk Dr Zaini Ujang from UTM,  Datuk Dr Zakariah Kasa from UPSI, and Associate Professors who acted as moderators and facilitators, Excellent Principals from Tunku Kurshiah College, SM Sains Faris Petra, Kelantan, Dr Poh from HELP University College, representatives from Schools Division, Curriculum Development Centre, EPRD, Ministry of Higher Education, Cluster Schools Division and MPM Board members.

We were divided into three groups with a task each to discuss and report back during the plenary. Dr Campbell shared something on assessment but I found most of his content not particularly new. In response to the questions from the audience, Dr Zaini inspired me with his views on creativity and innovation. He quoted Steve Jobs (creator of iPhone 4 and  CEO of Apple) who practically created the iPhone out of fun. Steve Jobs said if you want to innovate, you must 'STAY HUNGRY AND STAY FOOLISH'. How true I thought...I would love to attend Dr Zaini's workshop on 'Motivating Innovation'. Will find out more about this.

Well-done to the secretariat for a well-organised seminar.

Latest News on Education

For information on some of the latest developments in education, go to
Utusan Malaysia Online - Pendidikan

"Semuanya Dalam Genggaman" Excellence Programme, State Welfare Department

Making a point...

these students were very attentive...

I hope they gained something from the talk...

I was requested by PPD Kluang to assist the Johor State Welfare Department in their Excellence programme. About 100 students from all over the state attended the programme and I was made to understand by Pn Zainora, the officer from JKM Kluang that these students came  from low-income homes. Well, what better way to spend a Saturday than to help these children? Thank you God for the opportunity..

British Council Connecting Classrooms Online Community State Level Mini-Fair

Date: 27 July 2010
Venue: Sekolah Tinggi Kluang

Nivedha, Natasha and I for the MC task

Muzafar from SMK Sri Lalang and Huda from SMK Kahang Timur

Tn Hj Ahmad Awang, Deputy Education Officer, PPD Kluang opening the mini-fair

Skyping session with schools in Indonesia and Penang

Atifah's booth- her school won the best booth category

Remember the job I moaned and groaned about in my older posting? Well, the job was well-executed  on this day. Nivedha and Natasha were excellent! On top of that Mr Shan, our Principal Assistant Director, JPNJ promised to give my students certificates for their task. Well-done girls!