By Wafa Awla
GOMBAK, 24 September 2016: Volunteers from Student Enhancement Club (STEC) were making a difference in southern Thailand by conducting 7th English camp in Lalor Vitya School, Pattani recently.
Due to crises happening regularly in southern Thailand, students who live in that area are lacking in opportunities to learn the English language.
“We conducted this programme to give the students exposure in learning English in Islamic environment. Throughout this programme, the classes were run based on our module emphasising on speaking, writing and listening,” said the Programme Manager, Areef Abu Bakar.
To encourage students to be enthusiastic in the learning process, instructors from each class came from various countries. They were Mamoudou Chonde from Guinea, Md Saysdul Haque from Bangladesh, Nurul Wafa from Malaysia, Sarah Abdallah Eltayib Adam from Sudan and Muhammad Fatah from Algeria.
“We received 83 students from Lalor Vitya School and several schools nearby such as Akrasart School and Damrung Vitya School. Throughout the classes, we were focusing on practical use in English language to increase students’ level of confidence in speaking English,” he added.
To measure the effectiveness of the module, there were two tests set up for the students. The first test was pretest which was to measure the level of students’ exposure in English. The second test was conducted at the end of the class, which measured the improvement of students in English after attending several classes.
“The result of the post-test was really encouraging since we had students who got full marks and all of them showed an improvement at the end of our programme,” said Normaa Talama who was the head of module for this camp.
“This programme was really fun. It changed my perception towards English language. We really hope this programme will continue to be conducted in the future,” said Adam Aphibanmee who was also one of the participants in the programme interview. ***