Le Petit' 선생

Yesterday, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grader had their first school trip for the year, and today was the 4th, 5th and 6th graders' turn. Although the field trip is done according to the levels, the itinerary for each grades are completely different. For example, today, the fifth grader went to Jinju Castle while the 6th graders went to a marine museum in Busan. Not only that, each of the classes had a bus chartered only for themselves. No wonder, today we had 19 buses parked nicely at the school's field as early as 08:00a.m. Since this was more like a class trip, each of the kids were asked to pay 15,000krw to cover the cost of the transportation. The food wasn't provided. Therefore, the kids packed their own lunchboxes and a picnic mat from home. I felt very honoured to see variety of packed lunch today. It was like full of colours and love. I wonder if there's competition behind this. Either way, lunchtime was the be...

Amir and I were very privileged to be interviewed by Cikgu Saffuan (one of the aspiring young Malaysian teacher) on our experience as the KOMTEP finalist for 2019. So, we took that opportunity by sharing everything that we've seen here throughout our stay. The intention was never to compare what we have and what we don't have in Malaysia. It was merely sharing. Kindly click the link below if you're interested to watch the full length video.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqBZgGvxM1U&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1mQ5C2Z6WAPAi22IbZ8JC3NoVRUAIe1KT-4O4K9ugrTzyKgzkXKIXuB6c #komtep2019

I was happy, overjoyed, sad and frustrated at the same time. But most of all, I felt relieved as my partner and I managed to present our experience living and working in Sahwa Elementary for the past one month and a half. On top of that, we were given the opportunity to listen to our friends' presentation from the other countries as well. It was indeed a fruitful moment for me especially. Now that I'm realising there's another one month an d a half left, I start to tear up. It's not that I don't want to go back but I am sad that this could be the end of my teaching abroad experience. Even sk, at least, one of the bucket list is gonna be checked soon. Being thrown compliments by the audience after the presentation also left me with smiles that lasted until bed time  Well done, # SahwaTeam We didn't get to see our Malaysian friends presentation as we were placed in different rooms but I am pretty sure all of them did a great job as well # komtep2019 # ...

Today, the school felt a little bit empty as the 3rd, 2nd and 1st grader were out for a field trip. Sadly my partner and I, had to stay at school since we had an observation with the APCEIU officer. Regardless, it was a great lesson. We started off with a quick lesson on 'Tepuk Terima Kasih' and then we asked them to share their favourite Korean dishes. Once they seemed ready for the lesson, we tested their prior knowledge on Malaysian dishes by asking t hem to match the names of the dishes with the correct pictures. As expected, none of them managed to match correctly, which means there's room for learning 👍🏻 👍🏻 👍🏻 We left the pictures undiscussed and straight away went showing them a series of famous Malaysian cuisine. We, first let out the 'big bad' a.k.a durian. Since we were very steadfast on getting them to experience the culture, we let then sniff into a packet of Durian flavoured popcorn (which we brought all the way from Malaysia) and duria...

As teachers, it is common to think of some catchy phrases that could be very useful for classroom management. One practise that really catches my interest the most in Sahwa's classroom is the word 얘들아; pronounced as yeh-du-ra (pardon me if it's wrong. I'm not Korean just yet). During the observation period, I noticed most teachers used this word in their classrooms and surprisingly, the moment they uttered this word, all of the kids behaved themselves and gave their absolute attention to the them. Sometimes I wonder, what kind of black magic is this? 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 As seeing is believing, I tried it out myself and guess what! It worked! Care to share your magic words? # komtep2019

Shoes aren't allowed in the school compound? 😱 Correction: Outside shoes aren't allowed in the school compound. So are they going to be barefoot for the whole day? The answer is nope. They have another slippers specifically for indoor use. For school teachers and staffs, they will have to leave their shoes in their own lockers by the entrance of the school. Kids, however, will take off their shoes, bring it to their class and change into the indoor 'crocs' whi ch has been allocated in their shoe lockers in front of their classroom Smelly? Well....not so much. I guess it is a culture here to use indoor slippers therefore it is only common for them to have change of socks daily hence issue such as smelly shoes and socks won't occur. So, if we were to practise this culture in our schools, what are the possible issues that you think could happened and how to solve them? Fyi, I've tried this before in my own classroom but it was a bit of a hassle sinc...

This post is going to be very short as compared to my previous ones. So brace yourself! By the way, unlike our normal days at Sahwa, today we had 4 periods of Grade 3 classes to get into. As we were in the class I stumbled upon pile of books on the racks. So I decided to have a peek at it. Surprisingly, I saw these circle marks on the kids' books. After a while (the cognitive process took a while longer due to Monday blues), I finally figures out that's how the teachers here tick the kids' correct answers. So, instead of giving it a tick, they circled it. Interesting, isn't it? By the way, how's your book marking going so far? Remember, don't keep the piled up until the last minute # komtep2019

As I previously mentioned before, there are so much that we can share about our country especially to those living abroad. And today, my partner and I Mohd Zaki Ghazali, was assigned to teach the third graders at Sahwa Elementary. So, we prepared a lesson on the colorful Races of Malaysia. Since our clients this time is a little bit smaller and younger compared to the previous groups, we tried to make our lesson as simple as possi ble. And yet, knowing that kids at this age prefer something more hands-on and fun, we tweaked our lesson a little bit. We started off by reviewing some of the Malay expression that we've taught in the first lesson such as Terima Kasih, Selamat Pagi, Jumpa Lagi and etc. And then, we continued the lesson by teaching them various ways of saying 'Thank You'. Hence, 'tepuk terima kasih' came in very handy today 😊 It took us about 5-6 minutes wto teach them the clap as we tried to make more room for the practical...

As I was crying over the missing cloth screen that I had sewn in Malaysia, my school mentor gave me these two spotlight-ish lights and a screen which are just purrrrrr-fect for my project. Syukur Alhamdulillah. Now, I just have to keep the daily practise going with the kids to ensure that they will put up a good Sahwa version of Wayang Kulit. Keeping the fingers all crossed. 💪🏻 💪🏻 💪🏻 💪🏻 In case, your curiosity box is itching, Wayang Kulit is not par t of my Cultural class lessons. In fact, it is not even in our plans. However, it plays a vital role for my KOMTEP project as I would be presenting about this during Asia-Pacific Teacher Exchange Conference: Sharing Stories of Asia-Pacific Education Movement (SSAEM) this coming 28th November. Another area which plays vital role in my project is English. Even though, I am not teaching any Enflish classes here, our medium of instruction during Cultural class is still English. Therefore, I could picked up their English le...

As many may be wondering, KOMTEP is built upon the idea of GCED. Although, Republic of Korea is the one initiating the idea of this exchange programme, Malaysia has never failed to participate since 2014. The foundation of this programme is to not only giving teachers opportunity to experience teaching overseas and exchange culture, but to be more aware of the notion of Global Citizenship Education (GCED). There is no exact definition this ideology, but it is best un derstood as ".... a form of civic learning that involves students' active participation in projects that address global issues of a social, political, economic, or environmental nature". It is very important to have a sense of GCED to encounter the culture gap between countries hence, making understanding even more possible. It is hoped that with certain level of understanding and tolerance with each other, future dispute or disagreement is avoidable. Even so, this idea is not new. It has been laid...

Unlike my previous posts, today's post is dedicated especially to enlighten future KOMTEP applicants on preparing a project plan. For your information, applying KOMTEP is a no brainer but getting into the program is not as easy as reciting ABCs. Apart from having an impressive 'resume', one must also prepare an absolute mind-blowing project plan; which could either be cultural or educational. *As KOMTEP is aligned with the idea of Global Citizenship Education (GCED), it is vital to actually incorporate cultural awareness in order for us to understand each other better hence avoiding any future conflicts.* As for me, my project plan is about performing Wayang Kulit performance of local folktale in English. In order for me to carry this project out, I did a little bit of research on this traditional shadow puppetry art which includes building networking with those in Wayang Kulit industry such as Fusion Wayang Kulit, and a local puppeteer; Abang ...

Eventhough, the first pdpc begins at 09:00a.m., both teachers and pupils are supposed to be at school before 08:40a.m. So, what happens between 08:40a.m to 09:00a.m? This 20minutes period is the one which is best defined as 'free period'. Some pupils would go for a guitar class with the guitar teachers (including the Vice principal), while others would go for sports training or even stay in class for a reading sessions with the homeroom teachers. Once the bell rings at 09:00a.m., the first period begins and it will last for 40minutes. And then, the bell will ring again immediately after that signifying the starting of the ten minutes break. As classes end at 02:30p.m., the pupils would have their lunch break at 01:00p.m. (For the Level 2 pupils) and 12:20p.m. (For the Level 1 pupils). Is that all? Nope. Some pupils may leave and attend "after school" programmes such as English, Mathematics, Music and Arts academy outside of school for the remaining evening whi...