Recognising the daunting challenge that learning English poses for students, particularly those from suburban areas, Language Academy has taken the bold initiative to launch an English camp that will have a lasting influence on their language abilities. This groundbreaking program, which took place on September 3rd, aimed to tackle this pressing concern by providing a fun and engaging platform for students to learn English through culinary activities.
The camp focused on exposing students to everyday English language usage in culinary, such as naming ingredients, cooking utensils, and cooking methods that are second nature to them, besides putting an emphasis on the pronunciation. This approach was designed to help students overcome common challenges they face when learning English, including mispronunciation, spelling mistakes, and word stress that can be a major stumbling block. By making language learning more enjoyable and interactive, we hoped to boost students’ confidence in using the target language and give them the linguistic skills they need to take their language abilities to the next level.
To illustrate the importance of accurate pronunciation for instance, I recall a recent experience where I came across a rather “shocking” encounter when I tried to order “chicken thigh” at a fast-food restaurant. The misunderstanding was resolved when I switched to saying “chicken tight” instead. This just goes to show that we often normalise using the wrong pronunciation because it has become so much fossilised and widely accepted and used by the majority. This encounter also highlights the need for greater exposure to correct pronunciation and encourages us teachers to take necessary action to address this issue head-on.
Taking these concerns into consideration, Language Academy has developed a plan to provide students with an intervention to rectify this issue through fun and engaging English camps that will leave a lasting impact on their linguistic skills. This is the reason we came up with the idea of EduEnglish Food Fun Fest, a series of English camps focusing on culinary skills and language usage that will be the icing on the cake for the students. We feel obliged to provide students with the necessary support to overcome their linguistic challenges and become more motivated and confident to speak in English through the module and program we have thoroughly developed.
The English camp was officiated by Dr. Nur’ain Balqis binti Haladin, the Associate Chair of Language Academy. We were also honoured to have Mdm. Poonkuzhali Palaniandy, a School Improvement Specialist Coaches Plus (SISC+) officer from the Johor Bahru District Education Office (PPDJB), join us along with teachers from six schools in the coastal area of the district who were all on board with our mission. For this pioneer program, a total of 60 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Tiram Duku, SK Pendas Laut, SK Sungai Danga, SK Ladang Pendas, SK Tanjung Kupang and SK Tanjung Adang were selected to participate in the program, which was conducted at Language Academy and was a real treat for everyone involved.
Most importantly, the designed activities allow the students to experience a fun and engaging learning journey through language games, group activities, and presentations designed by our teachers and facilitated by two instructors and 15 facilitators from Language Academy. Most interestingly, the students get to cook and demonstrate it in the final ‘Cooking Show’. The feedback we received from teachers and students was overwhelmingly positive, with many describing the camp as unique and engaging. Mdm. Poonkuzhali Palaniandy even praised the students’ enthusiasm, saying that the noise of learning was music to her ears.
We are thrilled to expand this program to more schools in Johor and plan to extend it to several levels of series to cover more areas of learning in a hope that more students will benefit from this mission.
Written by: Lokman Hafiz bin Asary & Nur Shamsinar binti Ramli
