We provide our upper secondary students from the Express and Normal Academic streams a copy of our karangan and email books. This approach allows our students with better support when we teach our writing strategies. Our students are able to see how the strategies play out in the samples karangan and email in the book and model them when completing their writing assignments.
On this note, we encourage you to consider including our books in your school booklist for upper secondary Express and Normal Academic classes. Do raise your intention with the owner of your school’s bookstore and instruct the owner to contact us for supply. Do let us know early so that we can set aside supply for your school.
We have just sent the manuscript of our fourth book – Panduan Bacaan & Lisan Untuk Persiapan Peringkat N & O – for printing. We plan to provide our graduating students a copy of this book next year to better support them for their Oral O Level Examination. We are aware as educators that the oral examination is the third-largest mark component of the overall Malay Language assessment in the O Level Examinations. We believe that the book is a good investment for students who are working towards doing well for the Malay Language O Level Examinations.
You may want to include this book too in your Secondary 4 and 5 classes’ booklists. Do contact us should you be interested to do so.
We invited our most recent graduates to share with our graduating students their experiences preparing for their Malay Language O Level Examinations experiences. This sharing was part of the motivation segment that we conducted on the last day of our Intensive Mother Tongue Programme and has become a tradition that we have maintained for several years now. Following the sharing was the prize-giving ceremony that we have discussed extensively here to end our programme on a high.
The selected students whom we had invited scored distinctions for their Malay Language O Level Examinations and represented both the Secondary 4 Express and 5 Normal Academic streams. Their sharing was meant to inspire our graduating students to work hard specifically for Malay Language and generally for other subjects in the O Level Examinations, In addition, they had the opportunity to learn first-hand experiences from those who ‘have been there and done that’. This was facilitated by the Q&A session where our students could ask these graduates any questions at all.
From our experiences thus far, the questions our students put forth did not necessarily centre around Malay Language and other subjects alone but touched on a range of other topics like EAE application and interview, life in polytechnic and BGR. It was amazing to see our students being comfortable discussing openly and learn from their seniors (under our close watch of course, where we jumped in when we felt it was important to enlighten any possible misinformation *smile).
We conducted the session via Google Meet this year because of the pandemic. Nevertheless, the session was still as engaging as when we did it face to face in the previous years. This year we had Adibah, Asyiqin, Nadhirah and Adam. They had been generous and also volunteered to share in our Pelajar Cemerlang Series sharing on this website. We have seen a lot of benefits from holding this sharing and we encourage you to consider having it during your yearly Intensive Mother Tongue Programme for your graduating students. All the best!
We continued our yearly tradition of holding a prize-giving ceremony during our intensive mother programme this year. We held this ceremony at the end of the programme and it was meant to lift up our graduating students’ spirits, as the programme was quite an energy-sapping experience. The ceremony was also to reward them for working hard to learn Malay throughout their 4-5 years stay in our school.
We have seen our students grew and mature right before our eyes. We felt honoured that we had the opportunity to teach them not just the content of our subject expertise but also nurture them into individuals with wholesome values and good work ethics from our classroom interactions with them. How we wish that our influence would sustain and be far-reaching, even after our students have left us. With this in mind, we have thought of the right gift for them.
This year we have decided to gift each of our students a Solar System Crystal Ball. This 6 by 6 cm crystal ball can be part of their bedroom decorations whereby upon looking at these gifts remind them fondly of us and the advice we gave them, as well as the memorable experiences they had during our lessons.
Why the Solar System Crystal Ball?
Well, a documentary about the Apollo 8 mission that sent humanity to circle the moon for the first time in 1968 had inspired us. Though it took the following year for Apollo 11 mission to land humans on the celestial body, this mission was still nothing short of spectacular. The Apollo 8 crew were fixated at the moon as the spacecraft circled around it was understandable. The inaugural mission to the moon was a momentous moment for humanity. The whole proceeding was telecasted live that many people around the world could see the moon’s surface up close for the first time to concur if the moon was really as it was described in their local folklore of romance genre.
Something profound happens when astronauts see Earth from space for the first time
Just as all eyes were fixated on the moon, one of the Apollo 8 crew had a Eureka moment to turn the camera around to capture the sight of the Earth. He must have been curious how our planet looked like as arguably no one had seen our blue planet from space up till then. The sight of the Earth the size of a soccer ball was a gasp of surprise. Looking at our mother planet for the first time gave rise to a profound and overwhelming shift in awareness. This sense of awe is now described as the Overview Effect.
What is the Overview Effect?
While the Overview Effect is understood and discussed broadly by commentators (as evident in the Vimeo video below), we narrow its applicability to looking at one’s challenges in life from a wider perspective.
How do we mean by this?
Well, life offers us unexpected challenges as we moved along its different stations. These challenges often knock us off our feet as we are caught by surprise and left unprepared for them. During those moments when we are down and out, we are likely to fall into depression and to recover out of our predicament will prove difficult and long if ever possible. Chances are for the weak hearted, they may even call it quits and choose to end their life.
However, if we look at our challenges in a wider perspective, we are bound to ask: Does all our present challenges so great that they add up to the size of Singapore? Definitely no, right? I can only think of the Prime Minister of Singapore who has a challenge that fits the size of Singapore because he burdens the nation’s problems.
Still, even if our present challenges do fill up the size of Singapore and possibly the whole world, the world as we can see from the Solar System Crystal Ball is no bigger than a saga seed. Moreover, even if our challenges add up to the size of the whole solar system, they are still no bigger than a speck of dust in the context of the whole universe!
A knock of reality
Remember, there are 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy. The nearest such planet may be 12 light-years away. This is with only within our Milky Way Galaxy while there are an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the universe or so. And this number is likely to increase to about 200 billion as telescope technology in space improves.
How is that for a perspective? In short, no matter how huge our challenges we perceive to be, in reality they are just a speck of dust.
So what does Overview Effect teach us?
Overview Effect teaches us all life challenges put together are no more than a speck of dust and we should not be afraid of them. We should expect challenges and challenges are meant to help us grow qualitatively to be better in what we do so as to prepare us for more difficult times in the future. For example, a good entrepreneur can only be at the cutting edge of his business if he takes every challenge as an opportunity for him to reflect on his practices to seek ways how he can improve how he carries out his business. Only in this way he can succeed.
Likewise, this is the spirit that we expect from our graduating students. We are hopeful that by looking at the Solar System Crystal Balls we gave them will help activate this Overview Effect every time they are faced with challenges as they move along the different stations of life. And in doing so, they remember our advice in this regards so that they remain excited about living and take what life throws at them as an opportunity to learn to better at what they do.
Being a student is not easy. Not only that you have to contend with assignments and examinations, but you too are not saved from the brunt of difficulty when problems strike your family. I remember growing up I was always constantly looking out for community centres that offered bursary for needy students ever since my dad passed away when I was in Secondary 1 leaving behind my mom who had never work before in her life consigned to double shift work in a plastic factory to raise a family of three children.
And so, since Karangkutu is drawing record number of hits these past weeks because of the N & O Level Examinations, I thought of sharing this good news over Karangkutu so that more students get to know it.
The good news is that the Northeast Community Development Council is providing financial assistance scheme to help residents living in Aljunied, Pasir Ris-Punggol, Tampines GRCs, Hougang and Punggol East SMCs. Therefore, if your family are Singaporeans/PRs and have a per capita income not exceeding $800 (total family income divided by the number of family members), you may want to consider applying for the financial assistance by Northeast CDC.
As the circuit breaker eases in phases, we would like to continue impress upon our students the need to stay vigilant and maintain high personal hygiene as well as adhering closely to the safe distancing measures. This we do by getting our students to reflect on their practices and lessons they have learnt thus far during the circuit breaker. To facilitate this, we designed and included COVID-19 themed questions in the paper 1 preliminary examination for our graduating students. Click on the images below to view the questions.
Many students were caught off guard by the COVID-19 themed questions and a few of them did not manage to use the correct COVID-19 related terms in Malay Language in their emails and essays. As such, we took the opportinity to share the correct translation of these terms after the preliminary examinations. In this way, our students are more prepared to use COVID-19 scenarios in their emails and essays in the coming Malay Language Paper 1 O Level Examinations should the opportunitiy arises. We share the translation of these terms with you below. The slides can be found here.
We are glad to report that more students are now earning their Kami Pelajar A1 collectibles. This is a good sign as these collectibles are visual evidences to indicate that these students have attained good momentum and are on an upward trajectory leading up to their coming O Level Malay Language Examinations in June. Students appreciate it when their efforts are affirmed through these visual evidences and draw much psychological comfort to learn that they on the right track. These earned collectibles will spur them to continue working hard to earn the remaining collectibles and in the process prepare well for all the 12 examinable items in their O Level Malay Language Examinations.
Among them most notebly is Rabia who has earned 5 of the possible 12 collectibles. Rabia telah tawan Lautan Peribahasa, Taufan Kefahaman Subjektif, Belantara E-mel Tidak Rasmi, Cakerawala E-mel Rasmi dan Kehangatan Lisan. We humbly and sincerely pray that God blesses our effort and translate these collectibles into more students scoring distinctions in the coming O Level Malay Language Examinations, Allahumma ameen
At the start of the year, we did not anticipate there would a worldwide virus outbreak and we never heard the term circuit breaker being used before to name the strategy to stop the virus from spreading in Singapore.
In short, full home-based learning was remotely far from our mind. But now that we are in the midst of it, we are grateful that our collectibles have helped us keep our graduating students’ motivation high during the full home-based learning.
We document our journey employing our collectibles in teaching nd learning in the section and subsections of Kami Pelajar A1. Do check it out. Who knows you may like and consider our approach for your graduating class next year.
Congratulations to our first recipient of the Kami Pelajar A1 Collectibles!
We are proud to have Atiqah earning her first collectible on Lisan. She scored more than 32/40 for three oral practices consecutively. We hope that the collectible will spur Atiqah on to give her best in the coming oral practices as well as to earn the remaining 11 collectibles for other assessment items for Malay Language O Level Examinations.
Who can forget the jittery during oral examination? Atiqah has mastered our oral strategies and rise above the blistering shivers and sweltering heatwave throughout these oral practices. We are confident that she will do well for the O Level Oral Examination if she continues to give her best for the coming oral practices, insyallah.
Kami Pelajar A1 Collectibles is a our PLT project this year. Through this project we hope to invoke student’s affective domain positively. Student’s affective domain concerns with student’s moods, feelings and attitudes.  We believe that if we can invoke student’s affective domain positively, we can unlock their true potential and energy to achieve amazing feat!
You can learn more about our PLT project here. We document our journey so that we can learn how to improve upon how we implement the project in the coming years. That aside, our experiences will be useful for teachers who would like to carry out the same project for their graduating students.
We had ordered 50 sets of Kami Pelajar A1 collectibles from The Game Crafter and they had arrived last month. These collectibles are achievement cards meant to invoke in our graduating students superhuman effort so that they work hard to get distinctions for their coming Malay O Level Examinations this June.
Why we do this and how did we get here? We record our journey in our blog here. Do check it out. We will be updating our blog from time to time. We hope that our journey inspires many Malay teachers to try out our approach with their graduating students in the coming years.
We have not published our collectibles in The Game Crafter for public purchase, but we will do that soon. Now we are just excited experimenting them with our graduating students.
We started the year with several teaching clinics where we nurse our graduating students back to competency in the various learning strategies that we taught them last year. We have learnt sadly that the long November and December holidays last year have taken the bite out from what they used to know.
We ran the clinics throughout the whole of Term 1 and our graduating students were required to submit various assignments as part of their rehabilitation. We are pleased to share that many of them did well for these assignments and we are confident that they will continue to do well as we gear them up for more assignments in the coming Term 2.
We look forward to having many among them earning their first collectibles in Term 2. Who would that be and what collectibles will be first up for grab? We’ll see and we will be reporting that to you. Stay tune!
Our PLT project this year is the Saya Pelajar A1 Collectibles which we introduce to our graduating class who will be sitting for the Malay Language O Level Examinations in June. We use these collectibles as a teaching resource to invoke our students’ affective domain in order to motivate them to work harder to achieve distinctions in their O Level Examinations for Malay Language.
Details of our journey in coming up with these collectibles can be found here. We documented our journey in the longest ever post we had written. Happy reading! We hope that you gleam useful lessons from our experiences. : )
The above is the first lesson of our PLT project. The lesson is called ‘Cross The Line’. ‘Cross The Line’ focuses on helping students to set targets for their Malay Language O Level Examinations in June, identify possible challenges and solutions to overcome those challenges, and finally learn from alumni who scored distinctions in the previous Malay Language O Level Examinations.
This first lesson is the first of five installments where we will repeat segments of the first lesson again throught the first semester before our students sit for their O Level Examinations for Malay Language in June. We do this so that our students are often reminded of their targets and can track their progress visually. Puzzled? Just check out the video and you can find more details here.
And finally, if you would like to carry out this PLT project with your graduating students this year, do get in touch with us. We would love to learn from you!
On this note, we encourage you to consider including our books in your school booklist for upper secondary Express and Normal Academic classes. Do raise your intention with the owner of your school’s bookstore and instruct the owner to contact us for supply. Do let us know early so that we can set aside supply for your school.
We have just sent the manuscript of our fourth book – Panduan Bacaan & Lisan Untuk Persiapan Peringkat N & O – for printing. We plan to provide our graduating students a copy of this book next year to better support them for their Oral O Level Examination. We are aware as educators that the oral examination is the third-largest mark component of the overall Malay Language assessment in the O Level Examinations. We believe that the book is a good investment for students who are working towards doing well for the Malay Language O Level Examinations.
