Fun with English

At SK Pulau Mansok
Fun in Learning
Thanks to Raja Maheran for this blog post.

The teachers and TELL2 mentor collaborated in making the learning fun with Level 1 students.

One of the posters.

Teachers and mentors working together.

50 pupils from Year 1 until year 3 were having fun in learning. The objective of the programme was the pupils learnt in a fun way. The pupils were put into 4 groups and they had to create their own cheer for the group.

Story time

English Races - following instructions.

The programme started at 2.30 pm with Mr Jinks. Firstly, they had difficulties to understand, but slowly they managed and enjoyed it. They did the action based on the topic 'food'. Then they had English Race where the focus was on simple instructions. Who ever made a mistake had to move backward to start again. The winner will get a token. Next, they had a Ring Race where Mr Jinks asked for some food by making a story and the pupils race to find the correct pictures around the hall. Finally, they had a funfair station where in different stations they had to finish the activities individually. there were matching games, food family, skittles and prize stations.

Raja Maheran Binti Raja Ramli (Teacher SKPM)

Simple skittles game with target vocabulary printed on coloured paper.

Children enjoy playing the matching game with words and pictures pasted onto the bottom of some paper plates.

Using your mentor ...

How do you take advantage of the TELL2 mentor's visit to your school?

At SK Teh the teachers tell the TELL2 mentor what they would like him to do for them during the school visit.

More than just colouring in.
Everyone loves colouring pictures, and
Year 1 pupils are no exception!
The colouring in was just one of many
activities around the food card

Reading assessment for LINUS.
The other pupils are engaged with a
variety of  activities in English, while
the teacher focuses on individual
pupils' needs. 

This week Mr N (Teacher Naeiman) is busy with a LINUS assessment programme for Year 1 pupils, and Teacher Shantini is teaching her Year 3 class a tricky grammar point (possessive pronouns). When the mentor came bearing games for reinforcing the vocabulary around healthy and unhealthy food, neither teacher was very impressed. Instead of patiently listening to the mentor and wishing he were talking about something more useful, both of the teachers found ways to use the mentor and his materials to improve on the classroom plans they had already developed. Mr N asked the mentor to take lots of photocopies of the labelled pictures of common foods into the class. Mr N explained the procedure with the class and worked with individual children on their reading while the mentor and other pupils coloured the pictures, copied the labels and generally chatted about food and colours.

Some pupils needed more coaching and
support than others, but generally everyone
was happy to yell out the answers (right or wrong).

Everybody owned some food.
Whose apple is it? the teacher would ask.
It's 'hers!' or 'theirs!' would come the reply.

Pn Shantini used the food cards (and the mentor) differently. She wanted to teach possessive pronouns to her Year 3 class. English possessive pronouns work quite differently from the children's L1; it is quite a tricky topic to teach, because the children are learning new concepts as well as new vocabulary. The teacher wanted to create a visualisation of the concept to help the children decode the information in their text books and then to help them complete the extra worksheet that she had provided. Teacher Shantini took the mentor's vocabulary cards and gave them to pupils who then 'owned' those food items. The pupils all had to call out which foods were 'his', 'hers' or 'theirs'. This gave the pupils plenty of opportunities to meet the new vocabulary, as well as visualise the concepts 'his', 'hers' and 'theirs'.

Teacher Sim was on a course that day, which was probably just as well, otherwise it would have been a very busy day at work.
Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)