Students shine as they pay tribute their teachers

PASIG CITY (October 21, 2010)—Two fourth-year high school students from San Pablo City in CaLaBaRZon and from Lanao del Sur in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao emerged as the winners in the landmark essay writing and poem writing contests that extol the virtues of teachers.

The essay writing contest winner is Fatmah Amarah Balindong, a 4th year student of Curahab, Malabang, in Lanao del Sur. She won for her essays entitled “A One-in-a-Million Act," which tells about how her teacher, Mombao “Bambi” Balindong, fulfills her duties as a teacher in the face of the volatile peace-and-order situation in Malabang.

The poetry writing contest first-place winner is Princess Fernandez, 4th year student of San Pablo City Science High School in San Pablo City. She won for her entry entitled “Soaring With You,” which describes the remarkable transformation in her life that was made possible by her teacher, Madeline Rivera.

The contest, organized by the Department of Education and sponsored by Smart Communications, was conducted to give recognition to the very important role teachers play in the lives of students and in nation-building. It was in line with the Teachers’ Month Campaign and the World Teachers’ Day celebration on the theme “My Teacher, My Hero.”

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4 young Filipino math wizards top contest in Australia

MANILA (October 24, 2010)—Four Filipino youths were among 65 students from around the world who topped the 2010 Australian Mathematics Competition (AMC) last August. The competition drew about 400,000 contestants from 40 countries.

The Filipino topnotchers are Nathaniel Ryan Ang from Xavier School in San Juan, Metro Manila; and Seanne Daphne Ang, Mikaela Angelina Uy, and Carmela Antoinette Lao from St. Jude Catholic School in Manila. They were awarded medals by Prof. Peter Taylor, executive director of the University of Canberra-based Australian Mathematics Trust (AMT), in simple rites at the Summit Ridge hotel in Tagaytay City last October 22.

The other medalists from other countries were as follows: Australia, 23; Singapore, 7; Taiwan, 5; Hong Kong and New Zealand, 4 each; Malaysia, Indonesia, Bulgaria, and South Africa, 3 each; Thailand and India, both with 2; and China and South Korea, 1 each.

Seven other Filipino students each won a prize award that is given to contestants at the top 1 percent of the AMC. They are Adrian Reginald Sy from St. Jude Catholic School; Lorems Yrol Pedeglorio from the Butuan City SPED Center; Philip Christian Gelera from UP Integrated School; Miguel Lorenzo Ildesa from PAREF-Westbridge School; Farell Eldrian Wu from MGC New Life Christian Academy; Kaye Janelle Yao from Grace Christian College; and Samuel Christian Ong from UNO High School.

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Two first-timers, veteran writer win grand prizes in Bisaya Fiction contest

DAVAO CITY, October 24, 2010 (PNA) – Two first-time entrants and a veteran in vernacular fiction writing won Friday the three major prizes in the second Bisaya Fiction 20l0 Contest. The contest was conducted by the Davao Writers Guild (DWG) in cooperation with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the University of the Philippines in Mindanao (UP-Min).

Jayson E. Parba, a budding writer from Cagayan de Oro, won the PhP10,000 first prize for his “Danguyngoy sa Suba” (“Wail of the River”) by a unanimous decision by the three-man board of judges.

Errol A. Merquita, another Cebuano fiction neophyte from Davao’s Tugbok district, won the PhP7,000 second prize for his “Kinsay Nagpatay sa Pari sa Calinan” (“Who Killed the Priest of Calinan?”), while veteran bilingual writer Raul G. Moldez, also of Cagayan de Oro City, won the PhP5,000 third prize with his “Bugti” (“Counterpart”).

The awards ceremonies has been tentatively scheduled for November 6 at the Bagobo House along Gov. Duterte St. in this city.

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Professors from Spain train Filipino teachers on teaching Spanish

MANILA (October 30, 2010)—The Department of Education (DepEd) is training select public school teachers from 54 schools nationwide in teaching the Spanish language. The program is being undertaken with the support of the Spanish government through its Ministry of Education, the Instituto Cervantes, and the Agencia Espanola de Cooperacion Internacional Para el Desarollo (AECID),.

“This is part of the continuing partnership between the Philippine Government and the Government of Spain,” Education Secretary Armin Luistro said. “This time, they will learn about advance methodological content and strategies in teaching the language.”

A total of 102 teachers were being trained by professors from Universidad de Salamanca provided for by Spain’s education ministry. The training was conducted at Instituto Cervantes in Manila and at the Ecotech Center in Cebu until yesterday.

Grants will also be provided later on to allow teachers to attend intensive or summer training and professional development courses organized by Spanish universities.

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British kids log on and learn math—in Punjab
By Julia Werdigier, The New York Times

LONDON (October 23, 2010)— Once a week, year six pupils at Ashmount Primary School in North London settle in front of their computers, put on their headsets and get ready for their math class. A few minutes later, their teachers come online thousands of kilometers away in the Indian state of Punjab.

Ashmount is one of three state schools in Britain that decided to outsource part of their teaching to India via the Internet. The service — the first of its kind in Europe — is offered by BrightSpark Education, a London-based company set up last year. BrightSpark employs and trains 100 teachers in India and puts them in touch with pupils in Britain through an interactive online tutoring program.

The feedback from pupils, the schools and parents is good so far, and BrightSpark said a dozen more schools, a charity and many more parents were interested in signing up for the lessons. The one-on-one sessions not only cost about half of what personal tutors in Britain charge but are also popular with pupils, who enjoy solving equations online, said Rebecca Stacey, an assistant head teacher at Ashmount.

But the service also faces some opposition from teacher representatives who are fearful that it could threaten their jobs at a time when the government is pushing through far-reaching spending cuts. The 3 percent that is to be cut from the budget for educational resources by 2014 might be small compared with cuts in other areas, like welfare and pensions, but money at schools will remain tight.

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India’s “untouchables” to build temple to “Goddess of the English language”
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October 27, 2010—Leaders of India’s low-caste Dalits are to celebrate the opening of a temple that’s shaped like a desktop computer to inspire “untouchable” children to improve their prospects in life by learning English. They believe that learning English will open up new opportunities for India’s 160 million Dalits in higher education and high-status government careers.
 
Dalits are India’s most persecuted caste and its members suffer violence and discrimination throughout the country. There are regular reports of Dalit boys being murdered for illicit relationships with higher caste girls.

Leaders of the influential Dalit movement in Uttar Pradesh state, where the pro-dalit Bahujan Samaj Party is in power, believe more could escape the worst aspects of “untouchability” if they master the English language.

A foundation stone was laid in April and a 30-inch brass statue of the “goddess” was dispatched from New Delhi to Lakimpuri Kheri village in Uttar Pradesh where campaigners are hoping to open the temple formally in honour of Lord Macaulay, the 19th century colonial official who sought to create an English-speaking Indian middle-class elite.

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Now, Toefl junior will test your kids’ English knowledge

October 27, 2010—Even as the popularity of the international curriculum continues to be on the rise in Indian schools, a global assessment of middle school-level English language proficiency—the “Toefl Junior test”—is expected to be launched in the country.

The Educational Testing Service (ETS), the creator of the Toefl (Test of English as a foreign language), has developed a junior version to guide English learning of middle school students.

The junior test, said an ETS spokesperson, measures the degree to which younger students have attained “language proficiency representative of English-medium instructional environments”.

It is meant at serving as a general progress measure to give schools, teachers, parents and students an objective measure of the students’ English-language progress. It can help measure developing English communication skills in preparation of future studies in English.

“The pilot test [of junior TOEFL] was conducted in Korea and it will be eventually launched in India,” said the spokesperson.

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Helping English teachers teach better

BANGALORE, October 24, 2010—The British Council has joined hands with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Karnataka, and Unicef to enhance the teaching skills of English teachers in the state.

A press release from the British Council said the training would be called English Language Teacher Development Programme. It will seek to train more than 10,000 teachers across the state who teach English to classes five to eight.

The training programme has been designed in consultation with more than 3,000 stakeholders (teachers, principals, policy makers and students) and an analysis held in five districts of Karnataka in March 2010.

In the training, the organisers will identify a cadre of expert English teachers (mentors) who can be given further intensive training in advanced training skills. More than 700 such master trainers will be identified and trained. They, in turn, will train other teachers across the state.

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A for ability, C for confidence

NEW DELHI (October 16, 2010)—Henna has a new work language and will soon be looking for her dream job. She hopes to use her newly acquired English language skills to work in the services sector and become part of India's new economy.

Henna was one of the lucky few who were chosen to take part in the Teach India 2010 pilot project that ended here on Wednesday. The initiative, “The ABC of Jobs,” is meant to make young people more employable by teaching them how to speak English.

The programme, which The Times Group devised in collaboration with the British Council, will teach spoken English to young, ambitious boys and girls in the Capital’s urban slums.

The two-month pilot project trained roughly 1,000 pupils from Giri Nagar, Sangam Vihar, Madangir and other poor parts of the city. Most students, who learnt how to speak English fluently, said they wanted to work in the services sector.

Most young learners belonged to households that earned less than Rs 8,000 a month. Most said their parents were barely literate. All of them confessed to being ambitions and wanting to improve their prospects, say, as front-office executives or even as tourist guides.

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Experts to monitor teaching of English in primary schools

MALACCA, October 26, 2010—Some 375 foreign English language experts will monitor the teaching of English in primary schools nationwide as part of the Education Ministry’s plan to strengthen the language and streamline the curriculum.

Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the experts would monitor how the language was taught by teachers from the start of school session in 2011.

“The experts are not here to teach but to monitor and guide the teaching of the language in line with efforts to strengthen the English language,” he said at a dialogue session with trainee teachers in the Institute of Teacher Education in Durian Daun here yesterday.

Besides this, he added, both English language trainee teachers and existing ones would undergo training to ensure they were equipped to implement the changes.

He said the move followed the abolishment of the Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English policy last year that was subsequently replaced by the Upholding the Malay Language, Strengthening Command of English policy.

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Teachers take on the role of students during an NiE workshop

October 24, 2010—The roles were reversed for a group of teachers as they became students for a day at a Star-NiE workshop in Kuching recently.

And they certainly learnt a lot from trainer Lucille Dass on how to use newspapers, particularly The Star’s NiE (Newspaper-in-Education) pullout, in the classroom to make English lessons more fun and interesting for their students.

The 90 participants, all English language teachers, came from primary and secondary schools in Kuching district. The workshop was held at SMK Bandar Baru Semariang for secondary school teachers and the Teachers’ Activity Centre at Jalan Astana for primary school teachers.

Dass said newspapers were a great alternative resource for teachers as there were many newspaper-based activities they could employ in the classroom to spice up English lessons.

“I focus on newspapers because they are an authentic resource and can help students to make use of language. The NiE supplement is made up of material from the newspaper, designed for classroom use and written by teachers for teachers,” she said.

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Government officials diligently studying English

BEIJING (October 18, 2010)—Capital government officials are reportedly working on improving their English language skills as a part of a bid to boost Beijing’s push towards achieving “world city” status, and have commissioned a translation center to help them study, Zhao Huimin said at a festival at the Imperial Ancestral Temple Saturday.

“We want to build a friendly international environment for expatriates in Beijing,” said Zhao, who served as director general of the foreign affairs office during the 2010 Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages campaign.

Zhao’s remarks were part of his opening speech, given in both Chinese and English, before he accepted a personal interview at the Beijing Foreign Language Festival 2010, held over the past weekend at the Imperial Ancestral Temple in Dongcheng district.

The event included a “flowing fragrance” red wine exhibition and an exhibit of artwork by Chinese and foreign artists.

In his speech, Zhao revealed that “many Beijing government officials are currently studying English in order to better understand foreign cultures and to enhance outside communications.”

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Singapore government developing a series of grammar books
            
SINGAPORE (October 20, 2010)—The Ministry of Education and National Institute of Education are developing a series of books on grammar.

Speaking at the Inspiring Teacher of English Award ceremony on Tuesday, Senior Minister of State for Education, S. Iswaran, said the books aim to help students learn grammar in a structured and engaging way.

They are characterised by their extensive use of visuals, illustrations and simple, age-appropriate language to explain complex grammatical concepts.

Mr. Iswaran said examples are drawn from everyday life that students can relate to and humour is incorporated to make learning fun.

He said the “About Grammar” series will be an important resource to complement the extensive reading and exposure to good English that all learners need.

The first in the series, “About Grammar – Basic” for Primary 3-4 students, will be available next month.

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Schools lag in language education
By Paris Achen, Mail Tribune

As soon as eighth-grader Breanna Cwiklinski heard Mandarin Chinese would be offered at Central Point’s Scenic Middle School this year, she was eager to sign up for the class.

“There was nothing else like it,” Breanna says. “It’s the first time ever there was another language to learn (at school), and it was a good opportunity.”

After about a month of instruction from teacher Qi Jing, of Xuchang, China, Breanna and her 36 classmates, divided between two sections, can understand simple sentences in Mandarin and have learned about China and its culture.

Breanna says one of the differences she noticed between U.S. and Chinese societies is that all Chinese students learn English at a young age.

Ordinarily, Chinese students begin studying English in the third grade, says Lin Lin, a Mandarin teacher at Medford’s St. Mary's School. (St. Mary's provides the Mandarin instructor at Scenic free of charge as part of its role as a Confucius Classroom designated and funded by the Chinese government-affiliated Hanban Chinese Language Council.)

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Using TV to teach English in Bangladesh

October 2010—BBC World Service Trust’s English in Action project aims to use a supernatural detective drama and a comedy game show to help millions of people to learn English.

English in Action is a major nine-year initiative in Bangladesh with an ambition to raise the English language skills of 25 million people by 2017.

In a landmark for the BBC World Service Trust project, children and adults will be brought together to learn English for the first time.

The ambition is to use the most widely adopted and affordable media available – television – to reach out to the many millions of ordinary people who have poor or nonexistent English language skills and lack the confidence to learn.

From 16 October, children and adults of all ages will be able to watch the brand-new drama series Bishaash, accompanied by a linked English-language learning show BBC Janala: Mojay Mojay Shekha (Learning is Fun), created by the trust.

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Hard times for English magazines

October 18-24, 2010—Myanmar once had a number of quality English language magazines, yet despite efforts to revive the ailing market, declining readerships and advertising revenues spell out a bleak future for the industry.

“To the best of my knowledge, literary magazines in English cannot survive in this country because of lack of readers and contributors, insufficient contacts [in the international publishing industry] and the problem of distribution,” says U Nyunt Wai Moe, an editor at Educator, a monthly academic magazine published in Myanmar language.

Myanmar once had quite a few magazines published in English, the most popular being The Guardian (1953-2004), Spectrum (1968-1975), Open Mind (1959-1972) and The Cry (1952).

Currently there is only one magazine still published in English. The monthly Today magazine has a circulation of 15,000 and is targeted at English learners. It publishes mostly on cultural themes.

With high print and distribution costs, combined with the limited size of the market, some publishers are looking at digital editions as a way to cut costs and potentially reach more people.

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