To plant the seeds from heaven: A first meet

‘Jalinan Budi’ Programme UM-TESCO 2015

UMMC, TESCO, UMCARES, Faculty of Education, and Faculty of Computer Science

13^th December – January 2015

Report of First Meet - 11^th of December 2015 @ Laman Santai, UMCARES, IPPP, UM.

Dr Adelina Asmawi, Pn Roselina Khir Johari, and 7 student volunteers from the Faculty of Education attended the first meet and greet session with the Palestinians as well as representatives from TESCO, UMMC, UMCARES, lecturers and volunteers from Faculty of Computer Science. The volunteers from Faculty of Education who were present were Farah Diana (PG), Farah Aiman (UG leader), Madihah (UG), Najibah (UG), Irfan Haziq (UG), Adlina (UG), and Yasmin (UG).

WELCOME!

Strategically placed.

UMCARES Director chatting with volunteers from Faculty of Education

 The session began with a short greet by Director of UMCARES, Prof NorZulaani. 

Saying hello - ahlan wa sahlan

Adlina beaming with Sajaa

Sniggering while playing games

This was immediately followed by an ice breaking session carried out by the Fac of Education volunteers. They seated themselves around a big round table and played the name game, memory game, and a picture card game (which also doubled up as an assessment tool for them to gauge the Palestinians’ English Language proficiency level).

Focused

There are five Palestinians of different age group: 8, 16, 17, 19, and 22. The 8 year old is a girl named Sajaa. She is wheel-chair bound and has no prosthetic legs. The other four are already with prosthetic legs, which will be replaced soon by UMMC. The volunteers and the Palestinians seemed relaxed and bonded over the short period of time playing those games. We noticed that one Palestinian, Anaz, is more advanced in his proficiency compared to the others. He understands some English and could easily label pictures. The others are not as equipped with the language.

Picture cards

The 8 year old girl was shy and did not want to play a different, more suited to her age game. She could not follow the game but was happy being around the other Palestinians. Most of them did not know the letters A-Z and used Arabic letters to spell their names. Volunteers are blessed for having the knowledge of these Arabic letters and therefore had no issues spelling their names. 

Discussing and completing the task

After the session, volunteers from the Faculty of Science Computer took over and did an assessment of the Palestinians’ IT skills. Faculty of Education volunteers had a debrief session – brainstorming plans and strategies for the coming lessons.

The volunteers from FoE discussed the proficiency levels and suitable facilitators for each Palestinian. They also discussed the approach to use for each of the patient. Dr Adelina and Pn Rose thought that having another 8 year old girl with Sajaa might help calm her and get her lessons going better. Volunteers were reminded to speak slower and to exaggerate their utterances so that Palestinians would be able to follow and imitate better. Play learning – painting, colouring might do the trick as well. All volunteers discussed what they needed for the next lessons and listed whiteboard, markers, sheets of papers (white and coloured), paint, brush, pallet, used cups etc. Volunteers would prepare lesson plans and these would be vetted by Aiman and then Diana, before being emailed to Dr Adele and Pn Rose.

The next lesson is scheduled at 14^th of December 2015, 2pm at Laman Santai, UMCARES.

To infinity and beyond!

All in all it was an eye opening experience for the volunteers and this would challenge the volunteers into thinking outside of the box to cater to the needs of folks which are very different from Malaysian ESL students. Here's praying for all to run smooth sailing the coming 6 weeks! Ta!