UK ACCOLADE FOR SABAH TEACHER
Project-based learning allows students to develop at their own pace
AMULTIPLE international award-winning English teacher from Keningau, Sabah, won accolades for his teaching project, “Wonder Zone”, at the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language Conference held in Brighton recently.
Mohd Sirhajwan Idek, 30, who teaches English at Keningau Vocational College was invited to present his work at the largest conference for English language educators in the world as part of the prize of Express Publishing IATEFL Scholarship 2018.
He had also bagged the Express Publishing Scholarship at a gathering of 30 winners at the conference from May 9 to 13, last year.
“My winning project known as "Wonder Zone” served as an educational outreach run by my students who used it as a platform to develop and carry out their projects in line with the concept of project-based learning,” said Sirhajwan, who was one of the participants among the English language educators in the world.
Explaining his winning project, Sirhajwan said: “We initially selected a particular primary school and our students, in pairs, chose a specific issue such as health, hygiene, literacy and sports.
“They developed their own projects and eventually carried them out on the pupils from four schools. It was a month-long continuous project.
“The students learnt to develop their creativity, communication skills, collaboration and soft skills in conducting the projects and they also learnt to use the English language meaningfully.”
He said the students enjoyed carrying out the projects as they realised they possessed the capacity to speak English.
“They performed well; the students were able to demonstrate their creativity, their ability to independently run a programme on their own,” said the teacher, who had won six global awards, including the Macmillan Teachers at My Heart 2016, Norwich, the United Kingdom, the International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Excellence in Teaching Award 2017, Paris, France; and, International ELT Research Conference PhD Grant 2018, Antalya, Turkey.
He also won the Outstanding Contribution in Education at GESS Education Awards 2018, Dubai as well as the Global Teacher Prize 2018, Dubai.