English Teaching – Page 4 – Goducate … Go And Educate!

2013-05-282018-09-23

Sing Your English Camp in Sumatra was a big hit with campers

“It’s All About Me!” was the theme of Goducate’s Sing Your English (SYE) one-day camp held on May 25th in Pekanbaru, Sumatra. This SYE’s first one-day camp attracted almost 300 Indonesian campers, who were grouped into 6 teams—namely, Blue Eagles, Red Lions, Green Dragons, Yellow Sharks, Purple Pandas, and Orange Foxes. The electricity cut in the morning did not stop proceedings.

The aim of SYE camps is to create an environment wherein the campers enjoy reading, using, singing, and speaking English and where they have a memorable time bonding with friends. SYE is program for teaching English in fun ways and through many interesting and character-molding activities; for eliminating the fear of speaking English; and for creating a desire in campers to learn English, dream big, and believe that they can accomplish whatever they aspire to achieve.

These aims were accomplished through different camp activities. Some of the activities that were big hits among the campers were the Cheers & Yells Competition, during which each team performed with painted faces and props that included pompoms flags; the Traditional Song & Dance Competition; the SYE Awesome Race, which was a combination of a Treasure Hunt and an “Amazing Race”; and the Big- Ball Volleyball, which campers enjoyed since it was their first time playing with this game. At the end of the camp, each camper was able to use the accumulated points they got from the different competitions and activities to “buy” items from the camp store.

The campers are looking forward to more SYE camps. One of the parents commented, “This is so far the best strategy for learning English. Learning English through songs is so much fun & motivating!”

Guest writer Jenet, Volunteer from Philippines

2012-11-20

First Batch Of Students Start At Goducate Language Center at Batam

Last week I visited the newly opened Goducate Language Center in Batam, Indonesia.

Batam is an island of almost 1 million people. It is an hour’s ferry ride from Singapore. Most of the people in Batam work in factories, many of which are owned by foreigners. It is also a popular tourist destination for Singaporeans, especially at the weekends. As such, those who are able to speak English are in great demand.

Though Indonesians learn English in school, for most of them what they are taught in school helps them to pass exams rather than to speak English. This is especially true for those who come from rural areas.

The Goducate Language Center hopes to teach Indonesians to speak English, so that they can optimize their potential. To do so, we will need a large pool of English teachers in order that the students will learn much of their English from conversations with their teachers rather than from listening as part of a large class.

The first batch (6 ladies and 2 men) of such future English teachers have arrived from Goducate Training Center in the Philippines, where they learned how to teach English to foreigners. They are at the Goducate Learning Center in Batam to learn to speak Bahasa Indonesia so that they can be more effective teachers in Indonesia.

We hope that they will be able to complete their Bahasa Indonesia course in about 6 months and then begin their roles as English teachers.

2012-11-162012-11-16

Goducate’s Sing Your English Program undergoes testing in Batam schools

Sing Your English is a Goducate extracurricular program for schools that uses songs as the main tool in teaching English. Sing Your English was conceptualized last year and launched in two schools in Batam, Indonesia, in August this year.

In the Sing Your English method, if the topic of the lesson is Myself, then a song about “Me” is taught to them, along with some writing, drawing, or coloring activity. If the lesson is about Basic Parts of the Body, then the song will contain the relevant vocabulary and will be supplemented by the appropriate activity.

Sing Your English is quite effective because the students can remember the songs and can be heard humming them unconsciously out of class. Starting a class by singing songs learnt is a fun and easy way of reviewing previous lessons. Singing the songs with action helps students remember the meaning of words.

Sing Your English is an extracurricular program, so there are no examinations and gradings, which reinforces the fun and activity aspect of learning English. This would help change the mind-set that English is difficult to learn.

ShowingActivigyFolder2 — Showing their activity folders

The Sing Your English program is not confined to teaching vocabulary. The students also learn conversational English, because during class they are taught and made to practice simple phrases, as well as the names of objects they commonly come across.

The testing of the program will be intensified next week at our first Sing Your English two-day camp to be held for students in their last year of primary school.