I'm currently working on a series of posts to commemorate my initiatives journey during TFM fellowship. Read Introduction here.
Teach For Malaysia Annual Conference has been one of the most anticipated events of the year for fellows, alumni, and staff. During the conference, teachers, students, parents, staff, government officials, and private stakeholders come together to celebrate successes and foster connections.
For me, TFM conference is like a flea market. There are always many things going on: performances, workshops, panel forum, showcase... Everyone is exchanging greetings and ideas. Most of the people will be promoting something dear to their hearts. There is always so much to see and explore that I wish I can grow few more pairs of eyes and duplicate myself to experience different roles.
In 2017, my students and I contributed to the conference by making a short video. Teachers from different schools sent in short clips of their students explaining in few words, "What is an excellent education?" Then, my team and I compiled the short clips to form a video.
Making short videos has been one of my hobbies since I was a teenager. So, when the opportunity arose, I wouldn't miss out the chance to share my passion with my students. The three students, who were selected to work with me through a lucky draw, didn't have any prior experience with video-editing. Therefore, I was privileged to be the first person who exposed them to the basic of video-editing and went through the whole process with them.
With a little bit of my guidance, they reviewed the footages, arranged the storyboard, adjusted the technical aspects of the clips (exposure, transition, etc), put in subtitles, chose an appropriate background music, and fine tuned the video flow. The software that we used was Adobe Premiere Element 13. For a whole week, three of them came early to school and spent two to three hours per day working on the video.
Ta-daa! Here's the final outcome of their hard work:
Thinking back, this experience might be one of the most rewarding journey I have been in my two-years fellowship. I enjoy working intimately with a small group of people. I enjoy mentoring students to go through the A to Z of something. Hopefully in the future, I will have chances to engage in such fun and fulfilling project again.
One thing that I wished I had done better was bringing the three students with me to the conference, so that they could partake in the joy of seeing hundred over people watching their video.
So, in 2018, I brought six students with me to set up a booth about Chinese classroom activities at the TFM Conference showcase. We interacted with the guests by playing simple games with them, gathering their opinions about their preferred way to learn language, and showing off what we have done in our Chinese class.
Our booth was ready to go!
It took the students two hours to set up the booth. Prior to this, they had spent a week in school working on the scrapbook and the materials needed for the games.
The student was explaining to two government officials how to play Connect 4.
Connect 4:
(1) Player 1 throws a ball
(2) Game master reads out the question corresponded to the box where the ball lands
(3) Player 1 answers the question successfully and gets to keep the ball on the board
(4) Repeat step 1,2,3 for Player 2
(5) The player with 4 balls in a line wins!
The guests who visited the booth were asked to put a sticker on the feedback board so that we could gather their opinion on 'What is your preferred way to learn a language?'
The student was explaining to a teacher how to play Match and Win.
Match and Win:
(1) Game master shows 8 pairs of cards to the player.
(2) Player is given a minutes to memorize the pairs
(3) Game master mixes up the cards
(4) Player matches the pictures with their corresponding Chinese characters
(5) The fastest player with the most amount of cards matched correctly wins!
The student was reading through the scrapbook with the guest and answering any question she had about the activities that we have done in class.
While the feedback from the guests was helpful to me, my true satisfaction lied in seeing my students trying their best to interact with strangers and being curious about happenings around them. My intention of bringing students to the conference was fulfilled.
We struggled with the horrid accommodation, yet despite the challenges, my students remained enthusiastic and diligent about the work assigned to them. They bravely approached strangers to bring them to our booth. They communicated with the guests in English and Malay to promote our Chinese class.
On top of that, attending the conference widened their horizon. My students asked many curious questions, such as "Why does the Malay lady shake hand with a male? Is she allowed to?" These questions may sound offensive or silly to some people, but if answered appropriately, these are the right questions needed to reduce ignorance and foster greater understanding among our multi-racial, multi-cultural community.
As I'm writing, I have stumbled across a quote on Facebook, which I think is a suitable ending for this post.
The thrill of picking up a new skill, visiting new places, or talking to strangers dies away. But as a teacher, I'm privileged enough to see this sparkle of excitement continue in my students. And while the thrill of "first times" will soon wear off for both me and my students, we continue to find happiness in repeating task that is entrusted to us and interpreting them in new light.
