50 participants of English language seminar awarded with certificates

A TOTAL of 50 participants of the seminar-workshop entitled "Strengthening the Teaching and Learning of English in Vocational Technical Education Institutions and Secondary Schools in Brunei Darussalam" received their certificates at the closing ceremony yesterday.

Acting Director of Seameo Voctech Regional Centre Hj Yussof Hj Mohamad in his remarks said that the seminar aimed to refresh and re-empower participants with new trends and other methodologies, including ICT or the essence of computer-assisted teaching and learning English.

He added that it also aimed to enhance oneself through the sharing of ideas, inputs and visions, and to reinforce professionalism and quality traits of teachers.

"The effort is to venture into capacity and capability building programmes towards human resources development of related professionals, based on our existing resources," he said.

Speaking to The Brunei Times, Alvin Pan Khee Meng, English lecturer at Singapore's Seameo Regional Language Centre, said that during the workshop, he delivered a broad stroke of current trends in English Language Teaching (ELT), which "the participants are familiar with, especially those who keep abreast of the latest development in the field of ELT".

In his presentation during the workshop, he also discussed the current methodology and teaching approaches and gave participants an overview of the various methodologies that teachers have been using over the years.

He also focused on the most recent methodology - a task-based language teaching.

"I hope that the workshop will reach out to a large group of the participants and hope that they will find the content useful and relevant and take away from the workshop something that they can apply (in their teaching)," he said, adding that the workshop also acts as a platform for participants to be clear on the various methods in English language teaching.

Commenting on the response of the participants, he said: "Participants were very cooperative. First I was apprehensive about it as the participants come from diverse backgrounds."

Jolene Muckle from St George's School said the workshop was "somewhat interesting" although she said it had "little relevance pertaining to secondary schools".

The 24-year-old Head of English Department added: "This workshop is more suited for the technical field but not for secondary schools."

She also emphasised on the importance for everyone in the education field to collaborate by sharing views on how to better the country's standard of English among students.

A vocational secondary school teacher who was a participant of the workshop said that the speakers "did not really concentrate on the technical and vocational level".

The teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, said that she attended the workshop to get help in teaching English but the workshop "just told us various methods and approaches in teaching English in general".

Commenting on the speakers, she said that they only touched on general things, nothing that she did not already know, and added that some of the points highlighted in the presentations was merely stating facts.

"The workshop teaches us facts, what we have been currently doing at school for normal students, not vocational students," she added.

Another participant, an educational officer at the Department of Technical Education under the Ministry of Education, Nadia Hj Adenan said that she hopes future English Language workshops would be more centred on vocational and technical students.

However, she also found the seminar and workshop interesting and beneficial to English teachers. "The seminar and workshop helped us to identify what teachers need to do to cater to the needs of the students," she said. (RSH1 & GEN1) The Brunei Times