In week 12 and 13, cultural lessons and project was carried out. The project "Learning English through Fusion of Malaysian and Korean Drama" was carried out successfully.
The students paid attention and did carry out the activities very well. There
were few challenges in carrying out this lesson. First, is students had low
proficiency in English in terms of understanding the script and reading aloud.
Hence, it took some time to explain the lessons and practicing the script. They
were closely guided with translation, actions, pictures and videos. Moreover,
their team also helped them during their practice/rehearsal time by teaching
and correcting each other on how to read the script, in other words, peer
teaching. In the end, the students
understood well and able to read aloud well.
Another challenge was the
students had low self-confidence or were really shy to go to the front and
speak English. However, this was overcome as soon as they get to wear Malaysian
costumes and act out a story from a different country. They were excited to
experience, even just for a few minutes, how it is like to be a Malay.
Moreover, they were less scared as they were not alone and had to perform in
front of the class with their team members.
Overall, this activity has
given the opportunity to the students to practice speaking and reading aloud in
English. They have shown positive behavior in trying to speak English and they
were able to speak well. There is still room for improvement. I believe with
more practice, students can become better in English.
Moreover, analyzing 2
folklores has encouraged the students to be aware and analytical in comparing
values practiced by 2 different countries. Students realise the similarities
and differences of 2 countries and realise that as human, we practise the same
universal values, in terms of these folklores, children must always love and
respect their mother. Students were also amazed whilst discovering about
Malaysian culture,history and architecture. The students showed their
appreciation for the culture as they shown how enjoyable and excited they were
while wearing the Malaysian traditional clothing and learn few Malay words
while performing.
It is hoped that readers’
theatre is used by other teachers as an English teaching and learning technique
as it could provide opportunity to the students to use English orally and
increase students’ confidence to use English together with their peers as well
as allowing the students to discover and experience different culture. Hence,
students will start to have a wider view of the world and appreciate the beauty
of each culture.
Suggestions to enhance
students’ creative thinking skill are students could also do spontaneous
role-play presentation by giving them a picture and they create a story and
perform base on the picture. Students could also create a new story by
combining all the characters from different folklores from different country in
one story. Then, the students will start to pay more attention to each of the character’s
culture and think of a way to fi t them in one story.
In conclusion, this
project has proven that readers’ theatre is useful and effective to build
confidence in using English language orally. Moreover, it is beautiful and colourful that various cultures
were exposed through folklores and theatres to the students. With the awareness of the similarities and differences of
various culture, understanding, respect and harmony can be built through
communication. By using lingua franca, society can achieve an understanding
easily albeit the different views.
As an
educator, experiencing teaching students in another country makes me realize that
even though we are from different school in different countries, the challenges
in education is almost the same. I am glad to learn and exchange knowledge with
the teachers and students in the past 3 months and realize that we should
address educational challenges together and improve our global education in
order to create an advanced world nation together.
During the final week, the school brought us to an Educational Fair in KINTEX,Seoul. It was an interesting environment I get to experience. There were universities and colleges promoting their places such as medical, fashion, agricultural and aerospace. Each booth has different activities for children and teenagers. They get to build robot, structures,mathematics games, car models, airplane models and listen to short briefing. It was interesting.
Week 12
Week 13
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