Peer Assisted Learning at SJKJT Jerantut!

Learning Together

SJKJT Jerantut decided to hold classes Wednesday before Chinese New Year and asked if the TELL2 mentors would join in.  We agreed and decided to organize a Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) event. Our goal was to get the students learning together and then teaching each other what they had learned.  We separated the entire school into 9 groups with students from all years in each team.  

Taking Notes

Next, we gave the students dry erase boards and markers so that they could take notes.  Each mentor gave a Powerpoint presentation on a topic of personal interest.  After each presentation was finished we replayed the slides, but this time called upon the students to share what they had learned and written in their notes.

After all three presentations we wrapped up with an interactive Q&A "Bomb!" Game.  Special attention was placed on the students only being allowed to answer once.  As such, they were constantly sharing notes and helping each other.  In the end, lots and lots of English was learned and used by the students.  I think it is fair to say that we all really had a great time!

~Joshua Simon
    ELP Jerantut Cluster

Silent Segmenting

Fun and Effective Phonics Class

Teacher Noor Aziatul Akma at SK Kuala Tembeling prepared a simple set of phonic words and letter cards for the pupils to practice segmenting and blending the sounds p  a  t  s .   

Everyone got one card, and every card had a word or a letter from the p  a  t  s range. Everyone practised sounding their letter or segmenting their word, and teacher Akma also asked the students to say the segmented sounds silently. The silent segmenting really forced the students to make the correct mouth shapes for the sound - and it worked very well.

Instead of re-shuffling the sound cards, the pupils left their cards on the desk and ran around musical chairs-style while teacher Akma played music on her phone; when the music stopped, the pupils would stop running and practise with the word card at the new desk.

Silent segmenting

Enjoying learning

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

READING ESL (for teachers)

Easy Online Reading!

Last year we had the Traveling Library - a box of books in the mentor's car boot! The books were all easy readers and covered a range of topics and genres. Some of the most popular books were children's books that teachers took home to read to their own children.

I still have the books this year, if anyone is interested, and I also have a collection of Readers' Digest books and some ESL magazines to add to the mix. So, look out for the Traveling Library 2015!

As well as the Traveling Library I also have an easy reading web site that you can access through your phone or home / work computer. I have re-written some interesting magazine or news articles into very easy to read English. As well as the easy version of the story, I have also provided a link to the original article with a vocabulary list of the less common English words used by the original author.

Here is the latest story:READING ESL: oh my goat!

Here is the archive: READING ESL: archive

I hope you enjoy reading!

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Shared Reading

Peer Assisted Learning 

PAL 2015 Jerantut - PAL is Back!

Almost half of Mohd Hanafisah bin Jusoh's Year 3 English class at SK Jerantut Jaya are LINUS pupils. Today we took the 3I class to the library and practised 'shared reading'. Teacher Hanafisah paired a LINUS pupil with a non-LINUS friend and gave them English books to read together. The teacher and mentor moved around different pairs of readers keeping them on-task and helping out with difficult words, but mostly, the pupils were focused on the task and enjoying reading together.

Reading Together at SK Jerantut Jaya

Peer Assisted Learning

In this case it was peer assisted reading. Both teacher Hanafisah and the mentor kept the children at their reading tables by carrying a pile of books as we moved from pair to pair. Whenever a particular pair finished reading, we just took their book from them and replaced it with one we had in our pile. I have learnt from previous PAL reading projects that if they are given the chance to replace their own books from the shelves, after only ten or fifteen minutes or so a lot of the children will spend more time running back and forth to the shelves than actually sitting down and reading!

We allowed the children around 35-40 minutes of reading time, and the last fifteen minutes or so were spent writing their NILAM reports. For a full-on reading programme at school, we would need a lot more English books than most school libraries could provide, but reading is just one aspect of Peer Assisted Learning; other opportunities for shared learning can be found in shared writing, junior mentoring at school events (like funfairs or English days), team-building and parental involvement.

The Jerantut cluster mentors are very keen to do more PAL work in more schools in 2015, so please let us know if you have any ideas for other shared learning projects we can help you with. Have a look through this blog, as well as the Brighton PAL blog to see if there are any ideas that particularly appeal to YOU.

You can find Brighton's PAL blog HERE

Stephen-Peter Jinks (ELC Jerantut)

Happy Lunar New Year Everyone

This is going to be a great year for the TELL2 teachers and mentors in Jerantut!

Flooding in Jerantut and the Surrounds.

Lending a helping hand to schools.

One of the many classrooms damaged at SK Tanah Rom.

It was a tough start to 2015 for many people in Malaysia with the immense flooding.  Just over a month has gone by and some people are still getting their lives back together.  I had never experienced such vast destruction before.  It was a humbling experience and quite surreal knowing that just 20 minutes away from our houses people were suffering and recovering from the destruction.  In the morning we would drive to a school, try to clean up the damage as much as possible and then in the afternoon return to the safety and comfort of our house, which was fortunately not damaged by the flood. 

Jinks, Josh and myself donated goods and helped clean various schools in the week leading up to the start of the new school year.  One of my schools, SK Perian, was badly damaged and they are still recovering and slowly getting the school back to normality.  It is amazing to see the spirit of the teachers and students and how they continue to learn and study despite the tough time they have had. We also helped at SMK Pulau Tawar where the water mark was 2m high on the first floor!  The amount of mud on the school property and in the classrooms was incredible. 

Pictures undoubtedly say more than words so here are some photos of the areas surrounding Jerantut.

Clearing out rooms at SK Perian.

The water mark at SK Perian.

Sweeping out mud at SK Perian.

Donating goods.

Sweeping out mud at SK Tanah Rom

The water mark at SMK Pulau Tawar.

Is that a boat in the road?

A thick layer of mud in the road outside SMK Pulau Tawar.

~Melissa Simon
     ELP, Jerantut Cluster

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