Learning English the Fun Way

A program facilitated by the Lincoln Corner, US Embassy in collaboration with the Melaka Youth Resource Centre and hosted by Kampung Buku Malaysia Melaka

Monday, 25 April 2011

9.30 to 12 noon

Class 5H, SJKC Wen Hua – being good & quiet in the beginning

After almost 2 months of planning and preparations, today was the Big Day! For the very first time, the Melaka Youth Resource Centre (PusatSumberBelia Melaka) ran an event for primary schoolchildren called Learning English the Fun Way. We were very lucky to have the Lincoln Corner, US Embassy of Kuala Lumpur as our facilitator and to make things more interesting, we decided to hold the event at KampungBuku Malaysia Melaka.

KampungBuku is located within the Melaka Botanical Gardens and has lots of space plus is fully equipped with a PA system, projector and screen and more importantly has plenty of books and magazines to keep everyone fully occupied.

Mr. John Slover, looking serious and thinking hard before the program

The kids from Class 5H, SJKC Wen Hua, BatuBerendam arrived in good time around 9.15am and settled down to have drinks and snacks while watching a Steve &Bindi Irwin Wildlife DVD. Since they were a little early, they had to wait for the team to set up the presentation and make sure the PA system was working.

I’m sorry….. can you say that in Chinese?

We then started with a speech. Speeches can be boring affairs so we decided to make this as short as possible. But it was very hard to be brief because we had so much to tell…… we talked about the International Organisation of Booktowns, book villages and book towns around the world, the founder of IOB (Richard Booth) and of course about KampungBuku. We spoke about what KampungBuku has to offer and invited everyone to visit us during the weekends and school holidays with their families and friends. More importantly, we reminded everyone to look us up on Face Book and LIKE us. On Face Book, photos are available and everyone was invited to tag themselves and upload their pictures. We also introduced the Lincoln Corner (there are 7 Corners around Malaysia). Lastly, we introduced Mr. John Slover of the US Embassy who was the program facilitator. We found out that John studied for a doctorate in music at the Shanghai Music Conservatory and can therefore speak Mandarin. That was something special and it came in handy when he had to explain certain terms to the kids.

Getting started

Here are some pictures of the event and as you can see, things got very busy, noisy and interesting. John had the kids participating and everyone was enjoying themselves, including the teachers! Since John’s area of study is music, the program was musically inclined and lots of interesting music was played out on the iPod.

Learning English the Fun Way…. literally!

Learning English was indeed fun with John at the helm. The kids learned new words in a whole way with lots of songs and actions. They even learned how to make up their very own blues song with self penned lyrics and were introduced to the history and rhythm of Jazz. Incidentally, April is the Jazz Appreciation Month hence the special emphasis on jazz.

HarvinderKaur and John Slover of the US Embassy of Kuala Lumpur

After everything was over, the kids had a free run of KampungBuku and they checked out the internet station, the Kidz Corner and the bought lots of souvenirs. The souvenirs are new in KampungBuku and they feature Si Nadim, our official mascot.

Hooray for KampungBuku and Lincoln Corner!

A BIG Thank You to the US Embassy of Kuala Lumpur and special mention to MsHarvinderKaur and Mr. Slover for making the event a success! We also thank our staff who worked hard to make things happen and for helping out during the event. For further reading on this event, check out the following links:-

http://malaysia.usembassy.gov/program_english_jazz-042511.html

http://www.mhi.my/images/akhbar/2011/APRIL/260411/ (Go to Page 18)

Also check out out Facebook album at :-

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.206865972680515.57396.140332772667169

SelamatMembaca!

Linda Phua Sue Lin

Chief Executive Officer

Perbadanan Hang Tuah Jaya