Fill in the Blanks!!

Like everything in life, there are ups and downs

It rained today that only few of our members came (few means very few hahaha), but we don’t like to let our students down. We still have our meeting with those few. We agreed that few is not a let down to us, the organizers.

Today we learns through lyrics, we took Michael Bubble’s HOME to listen. We chose it because it is a slow and easy song to listen. Not all members (who came) have experienced this kind of learning activity. We thought we should give them a try. They were sent to fill the blanks with provided words. Some did it well, but some didn’t. But, they loved it. It was four time repeats before we discussed the lyrics and collected the Verbs. Next week, we planned to watch Movie….

How playful to learn new vocabulary!

Hi,
It’s been quite a while since our last post! But hey, we had a holiday last December, right?. It is nice to say that we are back to the business .

Have you ever wondered how to build your vocabulary?, how many word should you acquire to be fluent?, what words are important and mostly used?.

Yes, it is troublesome at first to memorize all those words, but that’s the language all about. Collecting words and make them into sentences to express our thoughts. Here, in JEC (Juvenile English Club) of MTs Negeri 2 Kudus, we do it while we play. Still remember how attractive a crossword puzzle could be? and how you (sometimes) accidentally get new words out of nowhere?.

Crossword Puzzle is a good means to memorize words. It offers us boxes where we can learn the spelling as well as the meaning of those word at the same time. Today we gave our members 20×20 empty table where they can enter words from the theme we gave them last week. The theme was things around house. Some of our member did clueless how to make a crossword puzzle. But, at the end they finally got it. This is an enjoyable things to do. They can identify things around them, look for the English word and collect them into a crossword puzzle as the way to preserve the words. They will have a better learning experience when they can read, write and remember. It even gets better when learners can stick the puzzle on their room, thus easier for them to read the words again in case they forgot.

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Another Introduction

Last week on our journey to Women Hall “Ngasirah” we sent out students to make report from their experience. But..well, the results were absence for many of the students in the next meeting. It seemed that they were afraid of submitting the task we gave them, so we thought they were not ready yet.

Introduction was still the main topic we brought up this week. Club members were instructed to introduce their counterpart as this is a way for them to know their friends and to train their speaking skill.

Intriducing Others

These steps explain how Ms. Umi and Ms. Ami did the game:
1. Sent students to choose their counterpart in pair (we did this actually )
2. We asked them to ask their friend’s personal information
3. Gave one of the member a marker (or other thing to hold)
4. (This is the best part) we sang together while the marker passed on one to another sequentially
5. When the song stopped, the turn to introduce is to pair which held the marker. They can introduce her/his counterpart using note they had.
6. Ended the game by giving a reward for those brave enough to introduce their friends by heart.

What do you think? give us your comment and let’s share experience with us. English rocks!

The Debate Became a Speech

Still remember to the Debate competition we told you last week?. Well, it seemed that the committee were unhappy to the number of the participants, that they got it changed into a speech contest. :p

one of the participants of the speech contest

Anyway, our club members were so anxious to know how the speech went, that we almost did not leave anyone behind!. Two cars provided by our school seemed too small to hold their anxiety. Our members was one of many schools attending the competition in Gedung Wanita Ngasirah that day. It was a great moment for us, as one of our teacher accidentally appointed to become one of the adjudicators. The competition was for Senior High School students and about 21 participants, but for us, it was a precious moment where we learnt many things from the participants.

The contest took place inside the building along with the Book Fair which had lasted for few days, and the contest was placed on the last day of the fair. Many participants had great English skill that amazed us. They were notably fantastic. They perform well on their speech. The adjudicators also gave them a few questions and that was not a problem for most of them.

A new baby born

Hello World!!!

Hi, this is the first blog of our english club in MTs N 2 Kudus. Our students were so excited that some of them went to school so early in the afternoon after school. Our english club is in its first year and today is its first day. I am so excited that when I went home, I spent my time to stare at my laptop writing this very first blog of ours.

Working in pairs in class

Our first meeting was attended by most of our students. Because this is the first time we have a club, we decided to pick some of our best students in English from 7th and 8th grade to join the club. The club name is Juvenile English Club. We chose the name because most of our members are teens and we want to have their great spirit and hopefully it will affect us in learning English. Hopefully our English Club will last long and have a role in introducing our school nation wide.

Our fist meeting was all about INTRODUCTION. We sent students inside a class and have them introduce themselves one another and YES! we made that as a game. This is how we did it:

1. Design the chairs facing one another
2. Instruct the students to come forward and make 2 lines
3. Front line gets the first chance to choose their seat on the left side of the table
4. The next line gets to choose the right side of the table
5. The left side ask questions (introduction) to the right side student, while the right side students tick points to what the left students asked (we gave them 5 questions before the game to ask to their partner)
6. After finishing the first turn, students gets another two turns but with different partners

Thus made our students excited and felt comfortable in our first meeting. Good Job for the teachers hehehehehe…..

O yeah, we did ask students to go to a Debate Competition next week for an experience. The Debate is for Senior High School and we wanted our students to know what is and how to debate, but that will be the next post to tell. See you again!