Aiming to inject a little excitement into writing, English teacher Mohana Ram Murugiah from Methodist Girls School, Ipoh came out with a writing topic "10 Ways to Kill Your English Teacher" for his students to work on.
The activity is one of the five English language projects planned by Mohana to reach out to his students and improve their language skills despite the challenge of the Movement Control Order (MCO) and school closure.
"This activity was designed to pique their interest in writing and encourage critical thinking. The topic may be controversial but it is catchy enough to attract readers' attention.
"They were supposed to tackle the topic in many different ways, not to literally 'kill' the English teacher. The students were excited upon hearing the topic and they couldn't wait to start writing. At the same time, they were careful with their ideas as to not offend me as a teacher," he said.
Realising that parents may face difficulties in helping their children with online learning, Mohana focused on delivering his lesson with project-based learning so that the students could explore and learn something new during this period.
"I can just choose to give homework via the class Telegram group but, I personally feel that I would not be connected to the students by doing so. With the projects however, they constantly reached out to me to seek guidance and ask related questions.
"In one of the projects, they were required to create a scrapbook about the 'Seven Wonders of the World'. The activity was a great follow up project to a unit in the Full Blast Form Four textbook. Later, students needed to present their scrapbook in weekly online lessons via Google Meet.
"They were also tasked to come out with the Covid-19 awareness posters. Those who have limited access to technology devices could create the posters in a traditional way using their creativity.
"Other online activities were creating a brochure for an innovative product as well as a group video project titled "My Lockdown Memories". These are the things to make learning enjoyable for the students while giving them a chance at learning new skills on top of honing their English skills," he added.
On top of the projects, Mohana has been conducting free English online lessons with around 500 Form Five students every Thursday in two Google Meet sessions, throughout school closure. The participants of the sessions are from different parts of Perak as well as other states.
To help students who are unable to follow his live lessons, Mohana posted videos in his YouTube channel which mainly focuses on writing skill.
For his effort, Mohana was recently named the recipient for the Creative and Innovation Teaching award by the Perak State Education Department in an online Teacher's Day celebration.
He was also awarded the 2019 Global Teacher Award in New Delhi, India and International Conference on English Language Teaching (ICELT) Top English Teacher Award in 2015.