100 Johor teachers to attend NST workshop

JOHOR BARU: About 100 teachers from Johor are expected to attend the second New Straits Times- Newspapers for English Language Enhancement Workshop at GBW Hotel here on Saturday.

State Education Department principal assistant director of English Rokiah Ahmad said: “We hope to see 70 per cent participation from secondary school teachers and 30 per cent primary school teachers from the districts of Johor Baru and Pasir Gudang.

“Through the workshop, we hope to inform them that teaching resources do not only come from textbooks, but also from newspapers. Textbooks are published once every five years unlike newspapers, which are published daily, providing better teaching material to students.”

This is the third consecutive year GBW Hotel is sponsoring newspapers for pedagogical purposes.

The workshop is organised by the Johor English Language Teaching Association (Jelta) with the cooperation of the department. Other sponsors are University Book Store Malaysia (UBS) and Oxford Fajar.

GBW Hotel general manager Chan Seng Chow said the hotel was honoured to be chosen.

“We feel honoured to be part of this initiative and we believe teachers are the best role models for their students.

“With newspapers, teachers can conduct fun activities for their students, helping them improve their vocabulary, comprehension, grammar and interpretation. They can have lots of fun through activities with newspapers.”

Jelta president Vincent D’Silva said among speakers at the workshop included NST group editor Rashid Yusof, who will give an overview of the newspaper’s production.

“Rashid will speak to the teachers during the workshop and explore ways to use the newspaper in the teaching and learning of English,” said D’Silva.

Other speakers scheduled to attend the workshop are University Utara Malaysia Associate Professor Dr Hariharan N. Krishnasamy, Keith Thong from UBS, School Times writer Rokiah Rahmat and D’Silva.

D’Silva said using newspapers in classes would allow students to master the four crucial skills in English, which were listening, reading, writing and speaking.

“The workshop will show teachers the sections of the newspaper that can be used as teaching materials,” D’Silva said.

Source: NST