By Fatimah Fawziyah
GOMBAK, 4 April 2016: œOne IIUM, one nation describes the true colour of students in this university. Either local or international, they both share a strong passion in learning other languages: Bahasa Melayu, Arabic, Mandarin, and French.
This œMentor-Mentee programme has been suggested by Muhammad Aiman Azahan who is the president of Student’s Representative Council and Nasrah Cherotich Musa, the chairperson of International Students Affairs.
Targeted at all IIUM students, this programme had conducted classes four times and two outdoor sessions, with the last session held at Blue Lagoon, Port Dickson on 26 March 2016. The first class started on 12 February 2016 at AIKOL LR 1.1 for Bahasa Melayu and LR 1.2 for Arabic language.
œThe purpose of this programme was to integrate international and local students through languages and various activities, to strengthen the relationship among students from different nationalities and fields of study, and to familiarise them with other languages,” said the co-chairperson of International Student Affairs Secretariat, Ahdyat Zain Athoillah, during an interview session last Monday.
“We expected to have equal number of local and international students based on the registration, and we got more than 400 students registered in less than three days. But then, sadly we must choose 40 of them, he added.
Sarifin Ismael, who is an international participant from Kulliyyah of Economics and Management Sciences (KENMS) said: œI really enjoyed this programme. However, I would like to suggest that the objective of the programme be stated clearly and it could be a combination of indoor and outdoor sessions. The programme should conduct more modules that emphasise both on leadership skills and teamwork. By the way, the committees were doing it very well.
œThis programme was good, enjoyable and meaningful because through such a programme I got the chance to make new friends especially international ones. I got to learn their languages like French and Mandarin especially. Plus, I got to understand our international friends culture through their verbal and non-verbal communication, said Adilah Zulkifli, a local student participant from Kulliyyah of Languages and Management (KLM).
After the completion of this programme Ahdyat Zain realised that many things need to be improved, but for him everything that took place was beyond his expectation “for everything went smoothly till the end of programme.”
œIts an amazing programme with amazing participants. I realised that many things could be improved. The major point here is to make sure that the participants chosen for the programme are those who are committed to follow the programme till the end. But then the seats are limited. If Im given another chance to organise it again, I would increase the seats to more than 40. In addition, the schedule clashed with co-curriculum classes which are on Thursday evening when some students have classes.
Therefore, sadly we had to remove those students and replaced them with others. I do really hope for the next SRC to give an improvement to the programme, said Ahdyat Zain.***