Issue: August

ELTDP 2

ELTDP Newsletter
It has been a long time since the last issue of the ELTDP Newsletter and a lot of work has been done by the
ELTDP mentees during this period. In this issue, three teachers reflect on what they have been doing since
Gawai and share their experience. Mr. Ling tells us about his experiments with communicative flashcard
activities, Mdm. Lora shares her experience with classroom management techniques and how useful she found
attending the Free English Class on Wednesdays and Mr. Yassin describes the Resource Bank project run in his
school, which involved creating a collection of picture and word cards for the schools that follows the KSSR
books.

Mr. Ling, SJKC Hock Lam: After the Gawai

festival , we the ELTDP mentees had a
workshop about flashcard activities and
since then Ive tried quite a few of the
suggested activities. I do find some of them
quite useful and effective after I make some
modifications for each one of them. Some of
them that I regularly use are whispering
game, flashcard chain , phonics balls and
sheriff game. For each activity I divide the
class into 4 groups according to my class

arrangement in the beginning of the year. I

made the pupils to sit in 4 straight columns
according to their group except for sheriff
game where pupils sits in 4 circles. Pupils in
my year 1 classes do enjoy repeating the
activities. For all these activities (except for
sheriff game) I make sure that the flashcards
or any learning tools are remained closed to
the front of each column in order for me to
monitor and correct the pupils mistakes.
Overall , I enjoy myself teaching English
especially to the year 1 pupils. I had never
taught Year 1 ever since my first posting in
Hock Lam until this year. At first , I felt
overwhelming pressure for such
responsibility. But , I found great joy and
encouragement from the ELTDP program
which had helped me to brainstorm new
ideas and methods to teach these early
learners. I hope that non-English teachers
would also give themselves a chance to
explore new ideas and creative activities to
motivate pupils to learn any subject they
teach.

Tibor Barna
Tibor.Barna@britishcouncil.org.my
01119887250

Issue: August
ELTDP 2

Mdm. Lora, SK Kampong Baru: Early

February it seemed to be so difficult to get
involved in this program because of the
overlap with work that I have to complete.
After a few weeks joining the program I
managed to overcome the situation and I
found that it was very interesting to be in the
group.
Mr Tibor comes to my school every week,
sometimes to observe me or just to see my
progress on how and what I will do for my

Mr. Yassin, SK Ulu Yong: Foremost, to all

English Panel members participating in the
Resource Bank Project, Miss Norazlaili, Mr.
Aik Unggat and the students of SK Ulu Yong
under the guidance of the ELTDP mentor Mr.
Tibor Barna. I would like to take this golden
opportunity to express my sincere gratitude
and thanks for your cheerful, marvellous and
undivided support in making this project into
reality. To all my colleagues, the English

next lesson. I had produced the reward

system that he suggested me to do which I
think was one of the creative system that
discipline the pupils. I divided the pupils into
5 and named their group based on their
requested. I produced some reward cards to
be paste on the board which had increase
their interest to understand and to solve the
task in group. I think I will carry on doing the
rules in the class with the rewards given
after every evaluation. Besides that, I also
produced a lot of picture cards for each of
the topic. Those teaching aids will also be
very useful for other level where the item is
connected to the topic. I am still collecting
some other pictures that are suitable for any
other topics as well.
For the weekly session, I attended the Free
English class conducted by the mentors, Mr
Tibor and Miss April. I really like the weekly
class because I can practice communication
skills. Naturally I am able to increase my
confidence level speaking English better
than other teachers in my school. I am very
happy and lucky to be one of the mentee for
the ELTDP program. Thank you, Mentors..
teachers and our distinguished ELTDP
mentor, million credits we shall deserve for
the time, guidance, effort and the hard work
shown in the process of creating the
flashcard project called The Resource Bank.
Without you guys, this project will never
succeed.
The objective of the Resource Bank is to
create picture and word cards that follow the
units of the KSSR books. After a few brief
meetings with the mentor, we decided to
create long lasting and useful teaching aids
such as flash cards and word cards. This is
because the teachers before this have shown
their creative ways by making their own
teaching aids for their lessons, but with this
project, we can join together, create the
teaching aids together, and then the whole
English Panel can share the new resources.
The cards have been made for Year 1 and
Year 2 KSSR classes first, for which we
already had a clooection. For Year 3 and Year
4, we have lately ventured and collaborated
with the teachers from SK Sg. Kapit to
identify and find the pictures needed. Our
school found the pictures for Year 4, SK
Sungai Kapit teachers did the collection for
Tibor Barna
Tibor.Barna@britishcouncil.org.my
01119887250

Issue: August
ELTDP 2
Year 3, and then we swapped what we had.
This is a continuous process of adding the
pictures by expanding it until Year 5 and Year
6. The budget for doing this project was from
the schools English Panel, the PPD and the
English teachers.
The process still goes on and continuously
finding the pictures according to the topics
from the internet, printing hundreds of
pictures then laminating them and cutting
them and also rearranging them according to
topics was a great group effort.

Hopefully, for others English teachers out

there, if the school was too far from the town
or didnt have the facilities to do so, you can
make your own pictures bank by drawing
and writing them in the manila card or A4
paper. Then just use transparent plastic as
cover. Keep on going using flash cards and
word cards in the lesson so that you may not
translate the words. Teaching and learning is
always fun if you are creative in your own
ways to arousing the pupils interest and
need in learning.

Tibor Barna
Tibor.Barna@britishcouncil.org.my
01119887250