Kota Tinggi, 14 February 2023: MyLinE was invited by Sekolah Menengah Sains Kota Tinggi (SAKTI) to organise a half-day English camp for 139 Form 2 students. The objectives of the program are for the participants to i) communicate effectively and confidently in English, ii) use English in a conducive environment, iii) develop positive values and attitudes (e.g., team working skills), iv) develop leadership qualities, and finally v) think critically and creatively in English.

A total of 23 UTM students from TESL and Engineering programs participated as facilitators. The program was led by the camp commandant Mohamad Fahmi Abu Bakar, a fourth-year TESL student from the School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities and his fellow teammates. These students were assisted by seven English language instructors from Language Academy, and Dr Hema Rosheny Mustafa, MyLinE Manager, was the advisor for this program.

The program was named English Attack @ SAKTI, where the activities were conducted as a scavenger hunt with six checkpoints. The program started with an ice-breaking session, animal emblems that aimed to let the student communicate without any language but only sounds and gestures. After forming the groups, the participants were asked to create a group cheer incorporating the animal’s sounds, gestures, and chants.

For the scavenger hunt, the six checkpoints were ‘aerial ace’, ‘catch me or lose me’, ‘animal farm’, ‘charades’, ‘human scrabble’ and ‘action-verb-boomerang’. At the ‘aerial ace’ checkpoint, the focus was on determining word groups. Next, the ‘catch me or lose me’ checkpoint highlighted the ability to form sentences according to the theme given. The third checkpoint was named ‘charades’, which requires the participant to act out the chosen verbs and idioms. Human scrabble was another checkpoint meant to exercise participants’ vocabulary generation. Additionally, a checkpoint called ‘action-verb-boomerang’ exercises verb usage in a specific English tense. The final checkpoint was named ‘animal farm’, which requires the participants to list animals according to their category in English. All of the checkpoints were curated so that the students could/would achieve the objectives outlined by the program. The prize-giving session and closing ceremony marked the end of the program with three groups chosen as the winners of the scavenger hunt, and there were also consolation prizes for the other groups.