Fun Fairs and Peer Learning

Junior Mentors

All of the schools in the SK Pulau Mansok sub-cluster have seen the fun fair come through in some form or another, and I'd like to thank all of the teachers who have given up class time (and free time!) to help me make this happen. At SK Pulau Mansok, the fun fair idea coincided with the school's English Carnival so it worked very well; at other schools in the sub-cluster the fun fair has been run as a training event to prepare for the 'Big One'. SK Durian Hijau jumped straight in to the Big One, and the three TELL2 mentors will soon be bringing the fun fair around to other TELL2 participating schools across the Jerantut cluster. 

Behind the fun and games there is some serious learning going on.

The girls' team

"Strip the  Willow' is a British  folk dance
that children learn at school. I have adapted
it to a memory game using two rows of
paper plates. Pupils dance or march up and
down the rows until the music  stops, and then
they must try and pick two matching plates (the
items to match are pasted at the bottom ot the plates).

...and up and down we go

While the younger pupils were having fun at SKs Jerantut Jaya and Durian Hijau, the Year 5 pupils were setting up games and helping younger pupils to play them. A part of their task was to elicit English language responses from other pupils once they had had their turn on any particular game. With so many teachers and Year 5 pupils helping out at the two different funfair events, I was able to move around and listen to the Year 5 boys and girls encouraging their younger peers and eliciting lots of spoken English. It was really great.

Thanks to the teachers at SKs Jerantut Jaya and Durian Hijau, the two TELL2 mentors were able to spend time showing the Year 5 pupils how to play the games, and also let them know how we wanted to encourage the younger pupils to use lots of English. It is fair to say that the Year 5 boys and girls did a very good job and exceeded all our expectations. I'm very impressed with their skills!

Y5 pupil and teacher from SK Jerntut Jaya
playing Ping-Pong Cups

Y5 girls from SK Durian Hijau repairing
part of the photo booth

The team of Y5 junior mentors at SK Jerantut Jaya

The Learning Pyramid

As we know, different people have different learning styles. Some people like to play around with their phone in order to figure out how to use it.  Other people will just read the manual. A lot of people prefer to have a friend or relative show them how to use it. We all learn differently, but almost everyone learns better, faster and more efficiently (and they retain more, too) if they have to show someone else how to do something. This hierarchy of knowledge retention is illustrated in the learning pyramid.

Bringing these junior mentors on in the fun fair has been the first step. The next step is to introduce our Year 5 pupils to their Level 1 or even LINUS peers in the PAL (peer assisted learning) reading programme that a lot of TELL2 mentors are introducing across Pahang, Kelantan, Terengganu and beyond ...

As the mentors visit schools in the coming weeks, we will be talking to teachers about the benefits of the PAL scheme. Everybody benefits from a peer-to-peer reading programme. The Level 1 children get individual attention from a more advanced learner, the Year 5 pupils consolidate their exisitng knowledge and develop leadership skills and the teachers get to spend hands-off time in the library as they watch their pupils working together.

I've got lots of ideas for the PAL reading programme, and I'm really looking forward to working with teachers and pupils toward making this happen.

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Funfair!

FUN FAIR! 

At SK Durian Hijau

Special Thanks to
Helmizam at SK Durian Hijau for making lots of colourful and re-usable signs

There were lots of games and prizes, but the star of the show was the MarryBrown chipmunk who came to visit the children at SK Durian Hijau during the recent fun fair. MarryBrown staff were also at the fun fair and they gave away MarryBrown egg toys to all the pupils. 

There were lots of different game stations (shooting gallery, football and hockey dribbling skills, bowling, pitching games and spinning wheel games and a photo booth). The teachers, mentors and Year 5 pupils all operated one or other of the game stations. Each of the games had a language element, and the pupilss had to talk about food in some way or another when they played their turn at any of the fun fair games. When the pupils played the game and talked about food, then they were given small tokens. Whenever someone collected five tokens, she or he could cash them in for a MarryBrown gift or a lucky dip draw. There were enough tokens for everyone to get a MarryBrown egg toy and a chance to win a big prize in the lucky dip. There were only three big prizes, but every entry got a lucky dip prize as well - even if it wasn't the big one! The lucky dip prizes were donated by the TELL2 English Language Consultant.

The Year 5 pupils did a BRILLIANT job operating the games and eliciting English from the other pupils. The teachers, mentors and Year 5 pupils spent some time over the holiday preparing for this event; all our hard work paid off, and everyone had a great time.

Well done SK Durian Hijau!

There were cash prizes in some of the cups!

The Spinning Jobbie was a popular game.

photo op

Thanks to Siobhan a mentor in
Raubfor the photo booth

The star of the show

Uncle Julian

Everybody is having fun at SK Durian Hijau.

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Language Arts

Paper Plate Project
Here's another idea for the paper plate project.

Cooling watermelon fan!

Here's another paper plate idea from a TELL2 workshop I attended in Kuala Lipis. The mentor, Mark, invited us all to make a fish from a paper plate with a template he provided. We had lots of creative fun and the participants judged eache others' fish by leaving a tick by the one we liked the most to find a winner. It was an enjoyable activity and the peer judging aspect is one many of us will be taking into our classrooms next time we have a craft-based lesson.

I didn't win the popularity contest, but it was fun anyway!

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

ELT Games

The Little Words
Here is a link to a BC site that has some fun games to help consolidate second language knowledge of the'little' words of English.

have fun!

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Teachers Who Read

An interview with Raja Maheran Binti Raja Ramli

Teacher Raja Maheran and mentor Jinks at SK Pulau Mansok:
Talking about our favourite books.

Jinks: A lot of the teachers I talk to when I visit schools with my traveling library say that they just don't have enough time to read. You read a lot, but how do you find the time?

RM: I find the time in the evenings, or even late at night if I cannot sleep. On weekends, as soon as my work is done (preparing for school and domestic work) I lie on the couch - and read!

Jinks: I see you have chosen a lot of books from the traveling library. Why did you choose these particular books?

RM: Genre. These days, I like thrillers, crime and adventure. I used to like romance a lot when I was in college, and I've always enjoyed stories about magic and magic realism. I have enjoyed reading stories since childhood. I started off reading lots of Enid Blyton books when I was very young (Jinks: me too!). When I went to college I turned to the Mills and Boon series, they were romantic and interesting - and there were lots of them to read! These days I'm more interested in adventure and thriller stories, but I like it better if the plot is easy to follow.

Jinks: Do you find it 'stressful' or 'relaxing' to read in English?

RM: Both! But mainly relaxing. If I come across words I don't know, I just skip them because I am so interested in getting to the end of the story and finding out what happens in the end. Sometimes, if the plot is too complicated, I skip to the end to find out what happens and then after that I can go back and continue my enjoyment of reading the story.

Jinks: Where else (apart from the traveling library) do you get your books from, and what are you reading now?

RM: I like to shop online, and I also like to read online for free. I'm currently reading Isabel Allende's City of Beasts which is full of magic.
Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)