Mentakab mentor Jimmy Ma started a program in his SK Bangau school a month ago. This program was aimed at increasing reading opportunities for the students. The students currently are participating in a program called "nilam," which gives them weekly time in the library in order to read books. From those books, they are asked to fill out information about various things like author, character names, etc.

Jimmy's program is similar to this program, except it's reading without the chore. It's more geared towards reading with a friend (PAL) for enjoyment. The ultimate goal of this program is for the students to understand that reading does not have to be a chore and can be fun and enjoyable.

One month into the program and the students are really responding positively. The vast majority of students are on-time for this early morning event and they are also on-task.

It is the hope of Jimmy that SK Bangau will continue this reading program long after TELL2 is finished; and it looks like that is exactly what is happening!

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As we come into the last months of TELL2, mentakab mentors Martina and Jimmy are still working hard at their projects. One of the projects that Martina and Jimmy have been doing all year has been reading and writing workshops. Martina and Jimmy have been doing these workshops for all of their schools in their clusters.

As the year draws to a close, Martina and Jimmy have been going around their schools and scheduling "top-up" workshops. These are the same workshops with a different group of students. The benefit to repeating these workshops is to introduce a new group of students to these skills and remind teachers/mentees of how helpful the skills from the workshops can be when those skills are used frequently.

Below is a workshop done in SJKT Ladang Semantan.

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Pen PALs Pahang is in full effect. Here are some students writing letters in Ms. Hoo's Year 5 class in their SJKC Khee Chee class to students in a TELL2 school in the Bentong cluster.

The addresses between the teachers have been exchanged and the PenPalsPahang program is organized to continue long after TELL2 and mentor visits end. It is the goal of the TELL2 program that the methods and programs brought in by the mentors will continue long after the program is finished.

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One of the programs that Mentakab Mentor Jimmy is starting in his schools is an Early Morning Reading Program. In this program, students are placed in pairs or small groups one morning each week. They are given books and read to each other.

In these pairs or groups, there is one student that has as firm grasp on reading and one or more students that are still in the process of advancing their reading skills. The skilled reader is a "mentor" and will receive a badge showing that they are a "PAL". These students will help the other students read by guiding them and reading to them.

The program was initiated this week at TELL2 school SK Bangau. The TELL2 English teachers involved in preparing and making this event a success were Mr. Rafi, Ms. Suhana, and Ms. Afzan.

The event was successful and the students had a great time reading with their PALs! Hopefully, this program will continue on in the future!

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Pen PALs Pahang has gotten very popular. There are several teachers involved across the districts of Jerantut, Maran, Bentong, and Temerloh.

Here are some students from Bentong and their teacher, happy to receive and return letters from a school in the Temerloh district. The mentor from Bentong involved with the Pen PALs Pahang program is Charlotte Lewis.

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Mdm. Tan at SJKC Mentakab 1 has been doing an excellent job introducing writing techniques to her year 2 class. Guided by her mentor, Martina, she has developed a fun way to introduce new writing skills such as mind maps, bubble maps and flow charts. These are very important skills that the students must learn but it also incorporates HOT skills which all students should include in their writing from an early age. Well done Mdm. Tan and keep up the good work!

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Mentakab Mentors Jimmy and Martina are still a big part of their community. They do a lot of charity events, work with the rotary club, and generally promote good relationships between the community and its small population of foreigners.

One of the events in July that Jimmy and Martina's running club is hosting is a blood donation drive. This is an effort of the running club to create awareness in Malaysia that donating a few minutes of your time and a pint of blood can help save lives.

Can you spot where our Mentakab mentors are?

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Jimmy Ma has been working on his PenPALsPahang program. This is the result. These letters are ones sent between students of different schools in Pahang. The positive response of the students when writing was only exceeded by the response of receiving a letter.

It is Jimmy's hope that this program can continue in the future to help students put their writing skills into practical use and to help students make friends.

Teachers are encouraged to give students the freedom to write about topics of their own choosing. However, this does not mean that teachers can't or shouldn't provide some guidance in order to help students focus their writing on any specific  grammar point or vocabulary words when appropriate to the curriculum.

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One of the best ways to teach students is through hands-on education. Mentakab Mentor Martina was able to help her mentees in her TELL2 SJKC Mentakab 1 school with their lesson on fruits and vegetables.

How did they learn? The students brought in fruits and vegetables and they made a fruit salad together. The students had fun learning the different vocabulary words for the items in the salads and the words for the actions associated with making the salads. Best of all, they got to eat the fruit and vegetable salads!

Now that the students know the words and directions for making the salads, they can do it a home!

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Mentakab Mentor Martina has been doing something really fun in her classes. It's a very simple activity that can be used over and over again. Do you know what it is?

It's spelling! Martina encourages her teachers to keep a set of letter and phoneme cut-outs to use in the class. With these letters and phonemes, students can come up to the board and make words. This can be done in a variety of ways. One way is to have two teams in the classroom and have students race to spell the word that matches the picture shown. Finally, they can say each letter or phoneme to sound out the word verbally.

Another way to use this resource is to have students get out of their desks and line up to spell different words. Even this simple activity that has students out of their seats is likely to make more of an impact than asking students to copy words over and over again.

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At the start of the second semester of 2015, Mentakab Mentor Jimmy Ma continued to support reading and writing in his schools. This continued support came in the form of a new program envisioned by Jimmy. This program is called PenPALs Pahang.

What is a PenPAL? It's simple. A PenPAL is a term for students that help each other through writing. (We have previously had programs in which students helped each other in reading.) The program is simple. Students from one class will write simple letters to students from another class. The trick to making this fun is that the students are from two different schools, zones, and districts! This way, students get a chance to practice practical writing, reading, and make a new friend!

This program was created by Jimmy, but it needed a lot of help to get started. On board with the initial start of this program are: Maran Mentor Sarah Higgs and Bentong Mentor Charlotte Lewis. All three mentors have exchanged letters and the initial test stage of PenPALs Pahang is underway.

PenPALs from SK Bangau write and reply to letters from SK Jengka 3.

Letters can be fully guided, partially guided, or open to the students based on ability.

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Recently, Mentakab Mentors Martina Gilmartin and Jimmy Ma were invited to present some of their research in Penang at iELT - Con 2015. This was an English Language event sponsored by PELLTA: Penang English Language Learning and Teaching Association. This conference had a lot of teachers attending and presenting new methods and research related to teaching ESL.

Both mentors were very happy that their presentation proposals were accepted as presentations in the conference. This conference was very helpful at teaching our mentors new methods to try with their mentees and students.

Martina presented her research into Multi-Modality and Jimmy presented his research into Improving Students' Performance.

Martina presenting her research and receiving a Presenter's Certificate

Jimmy presenting his research, Jimmy with ESL professors Dr. Tony Wright and Dr. Paul Kei Matsuda

Clockwise: Martina with Dr. Paul Kei Matsuda, an Official from the MOE giving a speech, and TESOL International president Dr. Andy Curtis

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Mentakab Mentor Martina Gilmartin has been helping her SJKT Landang Semantan school a lot with the teachers' English abilities and methodology. One of her programs is to have a lesson-planning session with the English teachers in the school. In this particular school, Martina is helping two teachers with their lesson planning by encouraging them to help each other.

In this way, she is developing the mentoring skills of the teachers here. This is ultimately the goal of the TELL2 program. When the teachers that have been in the TELL2 program are able to mentor other teachers, we will know that our jobs have been done correctly.

This kind of program is important in order to give teachers the sense of being the mentor. Many times, mentors help teachers and there is a clear directional flow of information from the mentor to the teacher. It is good to change that directional flow and have the teachers give instruction, support, and mentor other teachers.

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Welcome to the 100th post on this blog since it started back in 2014! Since then, the mentors in the Temerloh district have been doing a lot of great things with their mentees, students, schools, and communities.

Just a reminder that many of the programs and workshops that are done in the TELL2 program aren't do-it-once programs. We like to continue using the programs and skills that mentors introduce into the schools because they are helpful as an ongoing part of the English language acquisition of the students.

Below is just a quick update on the PAL reading program. Mentakab mentor Jimmy Ma is still actively motivating and supporting his teachers to continue with PAL reading as often as they are able to. Through the use of story books, students are more likely and more attracted to reading. It is through this method that students are learning that reading can be fun.

New TELL2 teacher Ms. Anita from SK Kampong Tengah

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Mentakab mentor Martina Gilmartin helped write a speech a few weeks ago. Then, she and TELL2 teacher Mr. Veera helped coach and practiced with a student named "Nick" in the TELL2 SK Bandar Mentakab school. What happened then?? Nick went on to win the public speaking competition at the zone level for Mentakab! Next, Nick won first place in the Temerloh district for his public speaking. Nick made it all the way to the state level competition, competing against the winners from all 11 of the districts of Pahang.

Unfortunately, he didn't win the state level competition. However, his speech was great and we are all very proud of him and how far he went in the competitions!

Nick is very happy, his parents are proud, his teachers are proud, and the mentors from Mentakab are proud of him. The competition was held on Saturday, the 9th of May in SK Felda Purun. Attending the competition were mentors Martina Gilmartin and Jimmy Ma from Temerloh and Meryl from Bera.

Administrators from SK Bandar Mentakab, Mr. Veera, Mentor Martina Gilmartin, and Nick

Mr. Veera, Martina Gilmartin, Jimmy Ma, and Nick

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Now that several of the schools in the TELL2 program in Temerloh have been using the skills of Jimmy and Martina's workshop, it's time to show just how these workshop skills affect the students.

An example of a YEAR 2 journal is below. Looking at the journal, we can see that the students were only able to write one sentence when the program was implemented. Now, just two months later, look at the difference in the quality and quantity of the journal entries in the YEAR 2 class journal book.

Jimmy has chosen this class from his TELL2 SJKC Khee Chee school because they illustrate just how much help regularly writing journals can be. Other classes have also undergone improvement not only with the writing abilities of the students, but the ability of the students to come up with ideas and things to write about as well.

This boost in writing ability and creativity is exactly the outcome we are looking for when Martina and Jimmy have their workshop at a school.

February 2015

April 2015

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After all of the Temerloh zones had their English Carnivals, it's time for the big show. This past Monday, the Temerloh district had their English Carnival to select who would go to the next level: state.

The Temerloh district English Carnival had five events: Scrabble, Action Songs, Public Speaking, Storytelling, and Poetry.

Mentakab mentors Martina Gilmartin and Jimmy Ma were in attendance. Jimmy Ma was asked to fill-in as the master of ceremonies for the poetry competition and Martina's student was the District-level winner of the Public Speaking competition.

Martina's winning schools were: SK Bandar Mentakab - 1st place in Public Speaking and SJKC Mentakab 1 - 2nd place in the Action Song competition.

Jimmy's winning schools were: SJKC Khee Chee - 2nd place in Public Speaking and SK Bandar Temerloh - 3rd place in the Action Song Competition.

SK Bandar Temerloh Action Song team, PPD Officials, SJKC Khee Chee Public Speaking, Poetry Judges

SK Bandar Mentakab Public Speaking winner, SJKC Mentakab 1, SK Bandar Temerloh, Mentakab Mentors

SJKC Mentakab 1 Action Song team, SK Bandar Temerloh, Temerloh district education official, 1st place Public Speaking Prize presentation

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The Mentakab educational zone had their English Carnival last week. All of the Mentakab mentors were in attendance with Martina and Tom having several schools in the competition.

This English Carnival had three events: Public Speaking, Storytelling, and Poetry

Martina's SK Bandar Mentakab school came in first place in Public Speaking, SJKC Mentakab 1 came in third place in Public Speaking, and SK Batu Kapor school came in second in the Poetry competition.

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Mentakab mentor Jimmy has started his English areas this week by having a Student Showcase.

The Student Showcase consists of a few students (2-3). These students have their pictures put on the bulletin board and write a brief introduction about themselves. They then bring in 2 pictures from home to put on the bulletin board as well.

It is the goal of this Student Showcase that students will be attracted to the English Area because they, or their friends, are showcased on the bulletin board. Bringing the students to the English Area will help the English Area get attention for other English-related displays.

Three Students are showcased here.

Students are already attracted to the English Area after the student showcase is put up.

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Mentakab mentors Martina and Jimmy were in attendance at another English Carnival. This carnival was held in SK Rantau Panjang for the Lanchang zone. The events that students competed in were Public Speaking and Storytelling. The judges came from all over the Mentakab/Temerloh area; including TELL2 mentee Ros Anita from SK Telok Sentang.

Lanchang was previously Martina's zone from the first TELL and she was happy to reconnect with old mentees.

Martina was very proud because her SJKT Ladang Semantan school participated and came in third for the story-telling contest.

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It's that time of year again. Competition time, of course! This year's Semantan zone held its Public Speaking, Storytelling, and Poetry contests this week. This event was attended by Mentakab Mentor Jimmy Ma, as all of his schools participated in one or more events at the competition.

Jimmy helped his students prepare by writing several poems for the students and helping the students with their delivery in terms of pronunciation and intonation. He also had a hand in helping his schools in the public speaking by writing a speech and editing another speech. Jimmy helped all of his schools and their contestants with their pronunciations and overall deliveries of the speeches.

At the event itself, Jimmy helped out as the Master of Ceremonies (MC) for the storytelling event. This was the most popular event of the whole English Carnival, as 18 of 20 schools had contestants in this event. After it was all said and done, TELL2 school SJKC Khee Chee's storytelling contestant came away with the win over 17 other schools!

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Mentakab mentor Martina Gilmartin is having a great start to the month of April. Last week, she was able to put a workshop together by herself to help some of the year 6 students at her TELL2 school SK Batu Kapor with their English.

Martina was asked by some of her Level 2 teachers to show the year 6 students some of the activities that she uses to make English fun. Martina held a workshop with these year 6 students and their teachers in order to help both the students and teachers see how fun English can be. They did a lot of group work, presentations, and activities that showed everyone the fun side of English!

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Mentakab mentors Martina and Jimmy have been doing a reading and writing workshop with their TELL2 schools the last few months. These workshops have really helped students and teachers in that they have shown skills to use in increasing English language proficiency. The biggest impact of these workshops is that the teachers have been able to continue using the skills in their classes with their students.

Because of the success of this workshop, the mentors from Mentakab have decided to take their workshop on the road. The teachers of SK Jerantut also benefited from Martina and Jimmy's workshop this week. Due to some cross-cluster cooperation, Temerloh mentors worked with Jerantut mentors to bring this workshop to SK Jerantut.

The workshop was a success and both teachers and students had a great time. Teachers helped with the workshop and will, hopefully, continue using the skills from the workshop in the future. They will be guided by their Jerantut mentor: Josh Simon.

The Jerantut cluster blog can be accessed by clicking here.

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Well, it's that time of year again! A few months into the year, each year, schools start their competition season. These competitions range from poetry to public speaking to action songs; and everything in-between. Mentakab mentor Martina was at her TELL2 SJKC Mentakab 1 school this week helping out with their poetry competition. She helped with the poems and also with the judging. This intra-school competition is one of many competitions that goes from within the school all the way up to the national level.

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Mentakab Mentor Martina Gilmartin is off to a great start in April. She held a workshop in her TELL2 SJKT Landang Semantan school for her teachers. This workshop wasn't limited to TELL2 teachers or even English teachers. Her workshop was open to all of the teachers in the school in order to help them become more comfortable with using English.

Martina had a lot of teacher-centered activities for the teachers to enjoy her workshop with. They had to work together during these activities, speaking only English. Then, they had to make presentations about their work and answer questions from the audience. All of these activities promote a sense of familiarity with the English language and the English environment among teachers within the school.

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