Needless to say, The Edge's Newspaper-in-Education programme has given lots of fun to the students of SMK Bangsar during their English lessons. As students tend to be more relaxed when they are having fun, I found my students fully engrossed each time they had an NIE activity. Besides helping them to increase their English language proficiency, this programme also helped them to develop higher order thinking skills in classrooms through the use of authentic situations. The NIE activities in class were not only stress-free but also very enjoyable as students were able to move around the classroom and talk to their friends in English. This was certainly much more interesting than making them learn theories and memorize grammar rules.
One cannot deny the fact that newspapers are one of the best teaching resources for the teaching of English as a second language Language as they can bring a wealth of information to the classroom thus creating lots of excitement in class. The activities associated with the NIE have therefore given my students a comprehensive and organized learning framework - a good way to encourage team work and to get them to be more interested in the language. Towards the end of the programme, my students have become active learners and developed collaborative and cooperative skills. Even students who were weak in English understood their lessons and improved in the subject as there was evidence of improved academic performance.
I would like to thank the Edge Foundation for providing me with such great and convenient teaching resources. Teaching was much easier when every student had a copy of the newspaper as they could browse through the newspaper for their favourite news. This was also one reason why they displayed more concentration throughout my English lessons each time they were engaged with the NIE tasks. In other words they always looked forward to my NIE activities and refused to stop each time they started.
Other benefits of the NIE Programme include increased confidence in reading aloud and speaking, increased social awareness and motivation to learn English, and increased participation in the classroom such as cutting out pictures, making sentences, public speaking, writing essays, etc. In this article, I would like to take the opportunity to thank The Edge Foundation for their supply of newspapers throughout the year. I was really glad to see my students' happy faces each time I distributed the newspapers to them - it was like giving them a valuable present and they were very excited each time they received this special present from The Edge Foundation. Teaching and learning English have certainly become much more meaningful and effective with these great presents / resources.
The photos below were taken during my fun-filled NIE lessons in the year 2019.
