KINDY TALK TRAINING: COMMUNICATION ENGLISH FOR PAHANG AND TERENGGANU PRESCHOOL TEACHER

Pahang – On the 12th and 13th of September 2020, Kindy Talk (KT) training team consisted of five trainers had conducted a two-days training called Kindy Talk Training: Communication English for preschool teachers in Pahang and Terengganu.

The programme was a collaboration between Centre for Modern Languages (CML) and Pertubuhan Pengusaha, Pengasuh TASKA dan Pendidik Tadika Islamik Pahang (P3PTIP) and Persatuan Pengasuh Negeri Terengganu (PPNT). It was a programme under the FRGS grant (FRGS/1/2018/SSI09/UMP/02/6) or RDU190170, led by Assoc. Prof. Dr Noor Raha Mohd Radzuan and a Matching Grant of RDU192407 and UIC190832 led by Dr. Wan Jumani Fauzi.

The training team was made up of a few other key trainers which include Dr. Wan Jumani Fauzi, the lead trainer of Kindy Talk and other trainers cum facilitators – Dr. Anita Abdul Rani, the core trainer for Heart Intelligence module, Dr. Fatimah Ali, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Noor Raha Mohd Radzuan and Ms. Aisyah Khaleeda Rosli. Kindy Talk: Communication English was held in Dewan Tun Fatimah, UMP Gambang for two days.

With a full-day knowledge sharing session conducted by KT training team in collaboration with P3PTIP and PPNT, the programme aimed to introduce Communication English module to the daycare educators. Communication English, as its name suggested, is a training module that provides daycare educators creative alternatives in teaching English for communication purposes at daycare level based on Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). There were a total of 30 daycare educators in from P3PTIP and PPNT registered for the programme aged between 18 to 50 years old. On the first day of the programme, it started with a welcome speech by Dr. Noor Raha Mohd Radzuan. A brief introduction to Kindy Talk was presented to the participants.

After the welcome speech, the programme proceeded with the first session which was conducted by Dr. Wan Jumani. In this session, she explained on the usage of Talking Body Poster which uses the technology of Augmented Reality (AR). The software that was created for the poster intents to create an interactive experience in learning communication English, to overcome the problem of pronunciation among daycare educators and learners while providing an advanced learning method based on technology usage in aligned with Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) vision. Apart from that, each daycare/schools was given a set of sample posters as a part of the programme initiative.
In the third session, Communication English module was conducted by Dr. Wan Jumani. Six groups of participants were formed. There were a lot of activities included in the module and the participants were seen to have so much fun doing the activities. One of the activities was called as The Educator’s Song. Since the focus of the new module is on communication English, the activities conducted revolved around establishing good teachers’ communication with the children; creating good memories with the children, story-telling, developing interaction through games and activities and so on.

The participants also got their chance to show off their talents in singing activities that involved group activities. It was a great learning experience for both KT trainers and the participants. At the end of every activities, the participants were seen to be more confident to speak English as compared to when they first entered the programme room. During the sessions, the participants were also given rewards token where at the end of the programme, the tokens were used to determine group’s mark of the participants.

On the second day, the activities include Role Play session where the participants needed to prepare for a role-play activity and Heart Intelligence session. For the Role-Play slot, the participants were given several teaching scenarios and problems where they needed to conduct the teaching sessions while overcoming the problems occurred during the sessions. The session was conducted to enable the participants to share their methods of problem solving when dealing with their children at the daycare. Everyone had so much fun during the Role Play sessions.

For Heart Intelligence slot, it was continued by Dr. Anita Abdul Rani in which she conducted the Heart Intelligence module. The module was meant to offer spiritual confidence among the participants. In the session, participants were explained about the true intention of becoming a daycare educators. The session managed to instill motivation towards daycare educators in continuing to contribute to the society and was wholly meant to change the perception people had in their social duties.

Towards the end of the programme, participants were given certificate of participation from UMP. The programme ended at 5:00 p.m. and it was an achievement for KT training team as the Kindy Talk Training: Communication English had managed to meet its objectives and goals which is to provide the daycare educators with alternatives in teaching Communication English for daycare children.

Prepared by: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Noor Raha Mohd Radzuan, Dr Wan Jumani Fauzi and Aisyah Khaleeda Rosli.