English Workshop For Preschool Teachers

In line with the Ministry of Education to ensure that preschool teachers can use English as much as 50 percent in teaching and have greater confidence to speak in English, the English Language Workshop program was created.

This workshop requires all preschool teachers to be divided into small groups that will be supervised by a mentor. The workshops are conducted throughout Malaysia that involves all preschool teachers. The workshop was really good to strengthen the use of English language for preschool teachers and they will be more confident to teach in schools.

However.. it is hoped that the workshops which is run by a mentor which was selected and refined to create a session that is fun and not boring to the participants. This is because the workshop normally held in the evening after school. During that time, it’s usually quite sleepy and need more activities that will refresh the eyes.

For Zone Keramat Kuala Lumpur, two centers were established, which are SK Kementah and SK Setapak Indah. Both centers were selected for representing Zone Keramat because the mentors were from these schools, which are Cikgu Nurul Huda and Cikgu Roslaili.

The Activities

On the first day of the meeting on June 24, 2014, among the activities included was an introductory session between participants and mentor. All participants are required to tell a story about themselves and think of an adjective representing them. Selected adjectives must begin with the first letter of the participants. For example "Ainalita - Amazing".

When the activities are carried out, a lot of styles can be seen among the teachers when speaking in English. However, they desperately tried and dare to speak even not that fluent. This shows that Keramat’s preschool teachers were very eager to learn and willing to accept criticism if they made a mistake or spoke the wrong sentences.

Then it was my turn to tell about my own background and what to expect throughout this workshops I began by telling them about my name, school, family, and finally my expectations from this exciting workshop. All the teachers also hoped that they will be more confident to speak in English when they finished attended this workshop which will end in October 2014

Other than that, the most exciting activity of the day was that all participants were required to mention one adjective that representing themselves. Many adjectives that could be heard such as "sweet", "nervous", "relax "," confident "," amazing " and lots more. After we completed the activity, we were asked to write our hopes and feelings on a small piece of paper and pinned it to a tree made by polystyrene.

The second activity is a talk about English Language workshop presented by Cikgu Roslaili Mustapha. The talk begins with an introduction, objectives, and activities to be carried out during the meeting, and the findings of the school inspectors on the use of English language by preschool teachers.

Pre-test

After the presentation, were told that a pre-test will be given. All of them seemed to be surprised and pounding. We were given one hour to undergo the test. Questions were divided into two divisions, namely:

Section A: Objective Questions

Part B: Pictorial Essay

All participants seem to be concentrating on the test and feel a bit difficult to answer them because it has been a long time since they sat in any exam.

After completing the test, participants were allowed to go home at 4.45pm.

The next meeting is after the Hari Raya Aidilfitri holidays and what activities will be carried out will be described in the next post ..