STUDENTS preparing for their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination had a fun English workshop here yesterday.
Organised by the education unit of New Straits Times, the Newspaper in Education (NIE) programme, a two-day workshop conducted over the weekend helped participants to prepare for their English examination papers.
They were given detailed insights into answering techniques for information transfer, directed writing, continuous writing, reading comprehension and summary writing, as well as to understand novels and poems.
The workshop was conducted by Jacob Matthew, an English teacher of 28 years, who captured the participants’ attention with his interactive sessions.
Fifth-former Khadeeja Az-Zahra Jaizal Kamar from Kolej Yayasan Saad, Melaka, said the session had helped her to be more creative in her essay writing and ways to elaborate on it.
“The sessions held were interesting as we learnt new vocabulary to be used in our essay. This will help me to write a more creative and interesting essay.
“The teacher taught us about mistakes commonly made by students in their examination. Although we knew that grammar errors were normal in essays, but with the detailed insights, we can now avoid making the same mistakes,” said Khadeeja.
Luqman Hakimi Mohd Fahmi, 17, from SM Hafiz, Klang said such workshops would help students to prepare for their examinations as the short hours for lessons in school might not be adequate to cover every topic.
“This workshop has taught me to understand better the knowledge needed to score well on the English test.
“I had learned a lot on idioms to be used for my essay.
“Many of my friends wanted to join the workshop, but were too late in registering for it,” said Luqman.
Among the group of fifth formers, Nur’Izzah Mohd Khairul Sahrie was the only 16-year-old who decided to join the workshop as an early preparation for her SPM examination next year.
Izzah, a student from SM Agama Persekutuan Bentong, who travelled from Cameron Highlands to attend the workshop, said an eleventh hour preparation for the examination would not be able to improve her question answering skills.
“My dad found out about the workshop through newspapers and encouraged me to attend it. He was even willing to send me here.
“The workshop has helped me to understand various ways to answer certain segments. It prepared me psychologically as it gave me more confidence to answer examination questions.
“Although I have long way to go before I could take my SPM examination early preparation, such as this, will help me to improve my command of the English language,” she said.
She hoped that similar workshops would be done in various states to allow more students to attend them.