Pre-trip Local Proj @ St Hilda's Pri

The Local Project for St Hilda's Primary was done on 3rd (P6/4) and 5th (P6/10) of Nov respectively. It was an activity-packed and meaningful 2 hrs cultural exchange for the kids.

After a few ppt slides on Project SMILE, Myanmar location and traditional culture.. we moved on to breaking the ice with the kids!

Due to the large class size, we divided the kids into three facilitation groups according to their index numbers. Phew, there was a more or less equal mix of males/females! The first 2 Burmese phrases they learnt were "Mingalabar" and "Jer ma/naw namae _______". So we practiced these 2 phrases during the introduction round whereby they'd to say those as well as an interesting fact about themselves.

Yongyan and Kyaw breaking the ice with P6/10

The high energy kids were itching to move around after the introduction. Next activity: Jigsaw mix! The facilitators pasted fragmented pieces of Burmese/English words on the students' backs, and they were supposed to shuffle themselves around to construct 2 sensible English phrases per group. The eventual six phrases were pasted on the whiteboard and we went through the Burmese translation for each phrase. Some students from P6/10 actually copied them down on a foolscap paper for reference! wow

Lijun making the kid's life VERY difficult by pasting it upside down?!

P6/10 solved the puzzle really fast!

It was back to the P1 days whereby we parroted the teacher's words. hahaha
Teacher: Je zu din ba dae means "Thank you very much". Class, now repeat after me.. 1,2..
Class: (in chorus) Je zu din ba dae

The next segment was probably the most captivating segment of the lesson. Adrian showed 3 videos on how Chinlone is played in Myanmar. A brief description on Chinlone - it's not a competitive sport but rather, seen as a form of 'dance' whereby the person in the centre (known also as the 'Prince') would display graceful stunts to juggle the ball and his friends (surrounding him in a circular arrangement) would help keep the ball in the circle. The agility, flexibility and ball control of the Burmese wow-ed the students and even the teachers! The kids couldn't wait to give a shot at Chinlone.

Shafiq juggling the ball like a soccer player. Rising star aye!

This girl must be a ballerina! or it's the "chapteh" style

Adrian joined the boys

Well, all good fun comes to an end. Soon, we'd to begin on our card-making session. The Burmese phrases from the Jigsaw mix activity were left on the whiteboard so that the kids could include them in their cards. Here's the P6/10 girls writing rather lengthy cards:

The facilitators walked round throughout the entire session to attend to the kids' queries. This helped ensure that the contents in the cards were suitable for the Burmese children to reply to! The students showed enthusiasm in using their newly learnt Burmese phrases!

Sadly, we only had time to take a group shot with P6/4 and their completed work.

Adrian's sheep (Group 1)

Lijun's potential soccer stars (Group 2)

My.. err.. silly billys. (Group 3)

Haha, so the days came to an end. We, as beginning teachers learnt some new classroom management skills (ahh, typical tee-chers!) and how the new generation of kiddos were going to be. I'm sure the Burmese phrases stuck close to their heads cos the next time I met my teacher, he told me;

Mr Soong: "Lisa, my boy spoke some weird stuff to me along the corridor yesterday."
Me: "oh really? was it Mingalabar?? it's the easiest word they could remember!"
Mr Soong: "No... it was longer than that!"
Me: "-laughs- then how did you reply?!"
Mr Soong: "Sorry la, I don't understand Burmese!"