The celebrations at the end of the year can vary from big to small for each school. However, Jimmy's TELL2 SJKC Khee Chee school had a fantastically huge celebration. Jimmy was very proud to be involved with this celebration by helping his year 2 English students choreograph a dance for their segment of the presentation. These students were the only ones that were able to sing their own song. This event was attended by Jimmy and Martina from the Temerloh cluster.

Bottom Left: Year 2 English class singing and dancing to "Let it Go" from Frozen.

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TELL2 school SK Kampong Tengah had a funfair this week. This project was headed by TELL2 mentee Mr. Arif with the help of the other TELL2 mentees from that school: Ms. Amiliah, Ms. Maisyara, Mr. Azman, and Ms. Hafiza.

Mentakab Mentors Jimmy and Martina and Maran mentors Tom and Sarah came to help out all day. Tom from Temerloh, as he was injured, came for some of the morning to help with what he could. He also helped bring the games to the school earlier in the week.

The kids seemed to have a great time and the events of the funfair were not limited to games. There were also contests for the best team chant, a team treasure hunt, and best mini-action song.

Pictured here are all of the students and teachers that participated. Jimmy and Martina are seen pictured here with their teams.

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Still on top of their game, Mentakab Mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin continue to move from school-to-school with their workshop. Hopefully, the skills from the reading and writing workshop will make a big difference with the students and teachers in the coming year.

The two mentors led their workshop at Jimmy's TELL2 SJKC Khee Chee school today with the two best year 5 classes. It is their hope that these year 5 students will continue to exercise the skills learned in their workshop in preparation for their year 6 UPSR exam next year. Mentors will continue to encourage level 2 teachers to give and create opportunities to review these skills over the next year.

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There's less than two weeks left until the end of the school year, but Mentakab Mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina are still working hard. Last week and this week, these two mentors have been busy leading workshops all over the Mentakab and Temerloh area.

Martina's TELL2 school SK Abu Bakar, invited Jimmy and Martina to lead their workshop on reading and writing skills. This workshop is aimed at helping level 2 students and teachers improve upon these skills and the methods used for strengthening these skills.

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Mentor Jimmy Ma is helping his TELL2 SJKC Khee Chee school with their year 2 end-of-the-year presentation. These students will be performing an action song based on the movie "Frozen." Jimmy is helping with the choreography of the students. Stay tuned for more!

The end-of-the-year celebration will be on Tuesday, Nov 18 and have 15-20 presentations from groups of students. Attendance by parents and supporters is estimated to be over 1000!

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Mentakab Mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin have started to provide a Level 2 UPSR workshop for their schools. The first school to schedule these mentors for this workshop was TELL2 school SJKC Mentakab 1.

In this workshop, TELL2 mentor Martina Gilmartin provides different reading skills and activities for the students. TELL2 mentor Jimmy Ma provides a section on improving writing skills. It is the hope of these mentors that these students will learn and practice these skills throughout their final year of primary school, in order to help prepare them for their final UPSR English exams.

The workshop consisted of activities with opportunities for the students and teachers to make presentations. Students demonstrated the skills learned in the workshop and teachers demonstrated the feedback techniques from the workshop.

Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin make their presentations. Students make presentations and work together in their groups.

Students working together in their groups to make mind maps (left) and write journal entries (right).

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Brighton TELL2 mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin participate in many community events. One event held at the beginning of November was the annual dinner and dancing event. This event is held annually by the Mentakab Dancing Association. Not only does is this event held in order to raise money for the Dancing Association, but a portion of the proceeds also goes towards a different charity group each year. In addition to dance classes for adults, the Mentakab Dancing Association also offers classes for younger students. Some of these are Jimmy Ma's students at TELL2 school SJKC Khee Chee.

The bottom left photo feature some TELL2 students from SJKC Khee Chee

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A proud tradition of the Western world is dressing up on everyone's favorite day of the year: Halloween! Mentors from all over Pahang and Terrenganu came together in order to celebrate this holiday in Mentakab. Arrangements for this event were made by Maran mentor Sarah Higgs with some help from local Mentakab residents.

Pictured here are mentors from Temerloh, Maran, Raub, Bera, Bentong, Kuantan, and Kuala Terrenganu

Members of the community came out to support Halloween

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Mentakab mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin are working together during the last days of the 2014 school year. These two mentors are visiting their schools; planning and scheduling a workshop on reading and writing skills.

Jimmy's TELL2 mentees Suhana and Afzan from SK Bangau recently had birthdays. Jimmy and Martina were lucky enough to be able to join them for a special birthday lunch provided by the two teachers.

Suhana and Afzan received a very nice cake from their GPK1!

Left to right: Suhana, Martina, and Afzan

From top to bottom: Mentor Jimmy, Cheese Cake, Empty Plate of Food

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As the 2014 school year draws to a close, it is important to remember that mentors continue working with their mentees and students right up until the end of the year.

Mentakab Mentor Martina Gilmartin works with one of her mentees in her TELL2 SJKC Mentakab 1 school in a lesson about different holidays.

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Temerloh mentor Jimmy Ma was preparing for a class with his TELL2 teacher Amiliah from SK Kampong Tengah when the printer malfunctioned. They were unable to print out the pictures they needed for their lesson.

However, both mentor and mentee came up with the idea of drawing the pictures on poster-board. Below are the results. Sometimes, with all the influence technology has on us, we forget that we can still create simple lesson resources using non-technological tools.

This skill of down-grading technology is especially helpful in classes and schools that are lacking in technology.

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TELL2 Mentor Martina Gilmartin had a great class with her mentee: Mr. Veera, from TELL2 school SK Bandar Mentakab. In this lesson, students took a hands-on approach to learning about fruits and "how to" directions. The students had a great time with the class: bringing in fruits, talking about them, making fruit juice, and using English to describe the steps involved.

Another activity from this class was to have students "become" the fruit and describe different characteristics of the fruit using English.

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Another event from October that the Temerloh Mentors helped with was the Brighton FunFair hosted in Bera. This event was hosted in Bera's TELL2 school: SK Durian Tawar by Bera Mentors: Meryl Thomas, Tom White, and Tara White.

Bera's blog can be found here: http://beraclustertell2.blogspot.com/

The FunFair is a great opportunity to use English-language games in the schools to show students and teachers how fun learning English can be. These events and games are open to all students in the schools, not just the level 1 students. This is a great way to introduce more students to the TELL2 program and the approach that TELL2 mentors take to teaching English.

This FunFair was attended by Temerloh Mentors: Jimmy, Martina, and Tom.

Bera's FunFair had a lot of great English-language games!

The teachers were in charge of the many games at the funfair.

The students had a great time with the games, face painting, and other activities at the FunFair! 

Temerloh mentor Martina Gilmartin and Maran mentor Sarah Higgs pose with the DLO from Bera.

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Temerloh cluster started October with a bang with some big events. ELC Tom Hanly helped his TELL2 school SK Seri Songsang with a fantastic reading event sponsored by Scholastic. This event helped put books into the hands of not only the students, but the school library as well.

This event was a great success, supported by: Temerloh mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin, Maran mentors Thomas James and Sarah Higgs, Brighton project manager Ryan Harb, Brighton Project Coordinator Su, and Temerloh PPD DLO En. Zaini.

TELL2 Mentors look forward to bringing this event and this great opportunity to their schools in the future!

Pictured here is DLO En. Zaini giving his commencement speech, Brighton mascots "Brighton" and "Torch," and students receiving their books, and ELC Tom Hanly introducing the mascots.

The Brighton mascots pose with students and all of the visiting teachers.

The Brighton mascots pose with DLO En. Zaini; Maran Mentors: Sarah and Tom; Temerloh mentors: Tom, Jimmy, and Martina; and Brighton administration Ryan and Su.

The Brighton mascots got a great response from both the students and the teachers!

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Martina Gilmartin had a great class with her TELL2 SK Bandar Mentakab school recently. Her mentee Pn. Norzaini and Mr. Veera brought the students out of the classroom and helped them with making costumes out of old newspaper. The learner-oriented classroom allows students to use their own imaginations in some situations. In this way, we strive to create lesson plans that students enjoy which also adhere to the needs of the English curriculum.

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Mentor from Mentakab Martina Gilmartin had a great class with her TELL2 SK Bandar Mentakab school this past week. Her students brought in fruits and went through the whole process of making a fruit salad from washing the fruit to their favorite part: eating the salad!

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Mentakab Mentors Jimmy and Martina were invited to celebrate one of the members of the members of the Mentakab community receiving the title of "Dato." This is an honorific title bestowed to citizens of Malaysia that have made significant contributions to their community and country. The title of "Dato" is given personally by a Sultan during a special ceremony.

Jimmy and Martina have been working with this individual's organization closely as consultants for educational charity opportunities as well as participating in other fundraising activities.

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Martina and Madame Bee Choo from SJKC Mentakab 1 celebrated Chinese Lantern Festival with their year 5 students. The students made lanterns and Madame Bee Choo made moon cakes to share with her students. They then had a procession around the field. It is important that these students get the opportunity to celebrate their culture in their schools. 

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Some of Martina's schools came together for an inter-school field day before the UPSR test. These kids had a lot of fun!

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Jimmy continues to encourage his mentees to start PAL reading at their schools. Here, Mr. Haniff from TELL2 school: SK Telok Sentang can be seen helping his year one students as they read to each other during PAL reading.

Jimmy and his mentee will check the progress of the students to gauge how PAL reading affects the students throughout the rest of the TELL2 program.

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Temerloh mentors Jimmy and Martina walked into big celebrations in their schools on Friday morning. Their TELL2 schools were celebrating Merdeka, which is the the independence day of Malaysia.

Martina's TELL2 SJKT Ladang Semantan school really celebrated well with their flag-themed hats.

Jimmy's TELL2 SK Bandar Temerloh school gathered all the students and teachers for a morning of dancing, performances, and patriotic pride.

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As part of community outreach on the part of the "Mentors in Mentakab" (should we coin that phrase?), we work with many different social and charity groups in the Temerloh area. Temerloh mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin were at an event hosted by the Temerloh Hakka association with their friends Thomas James and Sarah Higgs from the Maran cluster.

The Hakka association is both a social and charitable group that brings together and celebrates the Chinese-Hakka ethnic culture, which many Chinese members of the community belong to. These dinners serve as a way to celebrate their culture and introduce others to their culture. An added bonus is that the proceeds from the dinner tickets goes towards causes such as education and welfare.

Temerloh mentors Jimmy Ma and Martina Gilmartin are pictured here with the principal from TELL2 school SJKC Khee Chee: Principal Lai, some of the school's teachers, and committee members of the school's alumni association.

Temerloh mentor and Maran mentors are pictured with a Hakka committee member and his wife. 

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