Kindy Talk: Practical Instructional Approaches for Teaching English to Young Learners

Apparently putting up my last post on FB created an uproar coz I am hardly an FB person. They say FB are for old peeps and Tiktok are for the young 'uns. Judging how Mr Hubs likes lurking on FB, it's probably true. Hahahaha! Me, I have no presence. My presence is mostly felt when I do online shopping and that skillset did sharpen greatly during the pandemic.

Since I made a promise to self to revive my blogspot as a branding tool, (again, I wonder, are people still into reading blogs? Perhaps if I link it to FB again, who knows I may even revive blogging) I share here our most recent training with preschool educators. This was in collaboration with Persatuan Pendidik Awal Kanak-kanak Negeri Pahang, where the participants were mainly from Kuantan, Indera Mahkota, Balok, and even 2 who travelled all the way from Temerloh, Julie and Mdm Linda! 

One of our participants this time was from our first ever KTP Kindy training participants all the way back in 2015 (when Kindy Talk was still known as KTP Kindy) and this time she brought her whole crew with her from Tadika Kasih Sejati IM. Nurul Aisyah, thank you so much! We really really appreciate your support.

KTP Kindy, now rebranded as Kindy Talk started in 2015 when Assoc. Prof Dr Noor Raha Mohd Radzuan applied for a Knowledge Transfer Grant and the grant ended in 2019. We have been going on ever since. We started with 2 modules; the first focused on daily routine and instructional language, and the second focused on storytelling techniques. Then I applied for an internal grant and we came up with our Talking Posters! and then we came up with our third module, English for STEM and our latest focused on the worksheets and teacher teaching aid that comes with the worksheets. 

The programme, called "Little Learners, Big Future: Practical Instructional Approaches for Teaching English to Young Learners", was attended by 47 preschool educators and featured the ever engaging theme of animals. Which child doesn't like animals? Even if they aren't fond of them, children are still curious about them. So we have to feed that curiousity. Don't just ask them what they know, tell them what they don't know.

One crucial lesson we emphasized in the programme was the importance of providing accurate and correct language input for the children because we believe that the language the children hear and use during their early years forms the foundation for their future proficiency. The meticulously crafted teacher visual aids for  worksheets provided language input that the educators could use to interact with the children. These aids allow educators to deliver consistent language instruction at the same time reinforce vocabulary and grammatical structures in a meaningful way. Puan Siti Zubaidah Salehudin, the winning participant (we had a contest of sorts at the end of the programme) shared that access to these materials boosted her confidence in teaching English and enabled her to structure her lessons better to meet her students’ needs.

Another lesson from the workshop was that learning didn't need to be static. Rather than chalk and talk, or passive learning, children should be engaged in fun, enjoyable activities that allow them to experience learning through playing. We had one male participant, Encik Ahmad Nasharudin Al Bakri, who said that games and role plays help children retain new vocabulary and language as they were actively involved.

All in all, I would like to report that we have come a long way and after 9 years doing Kindy Talk, we are still passionate and hope to improve the standards of English from the cradle in baby steps. Here a our video link for the programme courtesy of Wan Farah and Ishafira: https://youtu.be/aV_CCYQ0nrY?si=g6DUxKqtcJEaMQsy  

Reintroducing Myself – Jumani, Your Language Enthusiast

Hello, world! It’s Jumani—your friendly neighborhood English lecturer (and occasional tea enthusiast). Some of you might know me as Jujuqtpie, a nickname I’ve carried for years. At home, I’ve always been called Juju, and the ‘qtpie’ bit was a fun touch to my email handle (because, why not?). Though people sometimes mispronounce it, I’ve always found it playful and endearing!

I’ve been teaching for years, primarily focusing on making English less of a chore and more of a fun, easy language to learn. My students range from engineering undergrads to Master’s students tackling language policy. And you know what? I love every bit of it!

Beyond teaching, I’m deeply into lifelong learning, believing that we all have the tools to help ourselves improve. I’m a strong believer in blending technology with language learning, having worked on projects like Kindy Talk, a module for early childhood educators. I’m also passionate about intercultural communication and impoliteness studies (yes, there’s such a thing!).

This blog is my space to share thoughts on language, life, and maybe a few odd rants (like how I once accidentally threw an ice chip at a smoker—long story). But more than anything, it’s a place for me to connect with like-minded people who love learning and growing.

So if you’re here to discover some language hacks, pick up tips, or just enjoy a bit of lighthearted banter, welcome back to my little corner of the internet!

Reviving my blog, breathing new life

I recently joined a course called GENACITY 2.0. I would be part of their second cohort. It is really exciting to have the opportunity to learn from these VERY HEAVY practitioners such as Dr Tazli, Prof Abd Karim Alias, Don and Chuah Kee Man.

Being a lecturer at UMPSA for how many donkey years, I figured I have to keep up with the times, embrace technology, particularly AI! I am all for us using AI, it really helps with productivity, shortens my thinking time and produces wonderful writing. But that's for us; we have gone through our Bachelor, Master and PhD. Even without AI, we can survive; even if the work produced wouldn't be as fast but there would be output produced by our God-given human brain. However for students, for me to say, go ahead, use AI to your heart's content, they would have to know BOTH the long way and the short cuts. How can we let them out into the world by just AI-ing everything? What is a language class if the language is generated by AI? They have to have the knowledge in their human brain so that they can fall back on their own brain coz believe me, technology has the tendency to fail at the most inopportuned times. 

Here's a FACT: Technology has failed me at several significant life events! First example, my VIVA VOCE! On the day I was to present on my PhD, the university had a major blackout. I presented in near  darkness with natural light coming in from the windows. My supervisor said, "Only you. This could happen to only you". In a way, it was a blessing in disguise. The room was hot and stuffy and the whole process finished in half an hour. Of course, credit also should be given to easy readability of my thesis, which is a proud achievement. Remember, no chatGPT yet at that time! So it's all me! Of course I wouldn't want to read through that "masterpiece" coz somehow, the eyes could catch mistakes better post submission.

Second example: I was in the middle of presenting my poster for an online Teaching and Learning Innovation Competition and suddenly I realised I was talking by myself, to myself as I was disconnected. It really killed my mojo. Even when I was reconnected, I was a bit more flustered than before.

There are other instances but these two instances are the most memorable for me. 

Blogging again...but do people still read blogs?

I cannot even remember the last time I blogged. The last baby I blogged about turns 17 today! Here is an interesting fact. FACT: I totally forgot what happened giving birth to Hana (<-- my birthday girl!). I remember how, more or less what time each child came into this world except for Hana. This was because there were too many false alarms when it was her turn that when the actual deed happened, I had no recollection!

But guess what? I documented every detail in this blog. Isn't that amazing? Here's the link if you are curious. But mostly it is for my own record: http://jujusthoughtsgalore.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-roll-again.html

Reading back my old posts, I can't believe I was so verbose. I wonder if my blogger friends are still blogging and whatever happened in their lives now. Have they abandoned ship? Or still going strong, blogging through time and space?

Perhaps this won't be my last post. Maybe this is my new beginning. Maybe...who knows. 

Churros!

This is the last of the churros that I made. I had to stop the kids from eating in order to snap this pic. This I made before Ramadan. I just want to share that churros are actually pretty easy to make and they are supposed to be dipped in hot chocolate sauce but I was not that adventurous and so I didn't make the sauce. You can get the recipe here. Remember to fry the churros for about 4 minutes. My first few churros shrank the moment they came out of the pan even though they were gorgeous in the pan. So I reduced the heat and cooked them longer and they retained their shape. I also sprinkled cinnamon onto the churros (see the brown specks). Yum. Maybe will make churros again but this time will try the recipe from this website which uses vege oil instead of butter.

Basil Chicken Wantan Soup

Assamualaikum and ramadan mubarak to all Muslims particularly my Muslim friends.

I am posting here this recipe due to to a friend's request. She says this style of cooking is not the typical wantan and it's refreshing. This is the most fuss-free wantan I have ever made and it is good for berbuka and sahur, and of course way after Ramadan.

I say fuss-free because when I made these I only had minced chicken and wantan skins. I did not even have carrots or water chestnuts or Japanese mushrooms which I would normally add to my minced chicken if I make wantans. For greens, I asked my daughter to go to the garden and pick me some Thai basil and you can also use the sweet basil. FYI, it's very easy to grow basil, I bought some from the night market and planted the basil stalks in soil and watered them every day. The same goes for mint leaves and daun kesom. However, mint leaves always die on me. In the end I bought a pot from the nursery. They seem to be surviving. So now I have mint leaves in my garden as well.

Okay, enough digressing.

I marinated the chicken with olive oil, light soya sauce and oyster sauce, pepper, a little ginger powder (optional) and corn flour.

To make the soup, I simply boiled water, enough to cover the number of wantans I'd like to eat.

While the water is boiling, I took a fat pinch of chicken, placed it in the middle of the wantan skin, added a basil leave and pushed the skin inward to close. I made about 9 fat ones and kept the rest for next time. Then I just dump the chicken wantans into the boiling water. And some basil leaves. I seasoned the soup with a little oyster sauce, fish sauce and pepper. The moment the meat is cooked (you can see the white through the wantan skin), turn off the heat and serve. Super easy and super fuss-free.

Finally the recipe!

Chicken Posole
This Mexican soup can be an entire meal by itself. I had bowls of it when my friend, Carmen aka Siti Khatijah served it when we went to her house for a Mary Kay party. It was muy delicioso that when I had some friends coming over, I practically begged her for the recipe and it's really easy to make. The recipe below has been slightly adapted from the original recipe but it still tastes similar to the original. Have fun making it!

1 whole chicken put in pot, put in water enough to cover all the chicken. Boil with one whole clove
garlic. Take chicken out once it’s cooked. Shred the meat when cooled and return bones to the stock.

In a frying pan, put in 1 tbsp olive oil and fry one medium sized big onion, thinly sliced until golden brown with some salt and black pepper. Once the onion is done, pour into your soup stock.

Put in one chicken cube, 1 can of stewed tomato (you can use Del Monte) pulped, 1 box of tomato puree, 1 tin of Leggo's tomato puree, 2 tins of Kimball chickpeas, 1 bottle of mixed vegetables (I normally get this from Carrefour and it costs around 7.90-9.90 (or you can substitute with cubed carrots, green peas, French beans, radish). Add 1 ½ tbsp coarse chilli powder to the stock. Put in some of your shredded chicken.

If you have the powdered version, you don't need to grind jintan manis/ cumin , and ketumbar/ coriander, add to paprika powder and black pepper. (1tbsp of each to 3 bowls of water). Season with salt and sugar.

Garnish with grated cheddar cheese, shredded chicken, lettuce sliced thinly, cucumber julienned, onion sliced thinly, mint, tomato deseeded and cubed. Serve with tobasco sauce and lime wedges for extra heat and sourness.

Chicken Posole

Haha, thanks Lin, for taking such a nice pix of my favourite soup in the world. Leave it to me, there won't be a picture at all; just the recipe. Now we have the pix, no recipe. Will do that in due time.

Burmese Briyani or Danpauk

This was a recipe I stumbled upon. I had one and a half big tubs of yogurt and went into Jamie Oliver's website. I found this: Cucumber yogurt. I had cucumber, I had yogurt, I had cilantro. But no salmon for the tikka recipe. It didn't matter coz I was only interested in the cucumber salad recipe. Here goes:

Peel and halve your cucumber lengthways, then use a spoon to scoop out and discard the seeds
• Roughly chop the cucumber and put most of it into a bowl
• Halve your lemon and squeeze the juice from one half into the bowl
• Add the yoghurt, a pinch of salt and pepper and half the chopped chilli
• Pick the coriander leaves and put to one side

Then I googled for Burmese Briyani. I thought the cucumber salad would be a nice accompaniment for that. So why Burmese Briyani? When my Burmese friend got married many many years ago, we had a very memorable briyani but it was different from the usual kind we eat at weddings. It had loads of caramelized onions that gave the rice an extra but natural sweetness. And it was so nice that even though I wasn't a big fan of briyani that I had two helpings and resisted a third helping. Here's the recipe: Danpauk
Ingredients:
300g Basmati rice (2 cups Ecobrown brown rice/ Jati Basmati brown rice)
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
4 tbsp margarine (1 tbsp and 2 tbsp canola/ sunflower/ vege oil)
250ml plain yogurt
1 tsp salt
900g chicken, chopped into large pieces (1 whole chicken, a bit larger than bite sized pieces, marinated with salt, paprika powder, a bit of pepper, a bit of oil)
80ml cooking oil (canola oil)
2 tbsp ghee (1 tbsp margarine/ butter)
5cm cinnamon stick, lightly smashed to break up

(A)
4 slices ginger
10 shallots, thinly sliced
3/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp coriander powder

(B)
5 cloves garlic
1 star anise
5 cardamoms, lightly smashed
1 tsp ground fennel
1 tsp poppy seeds

Garnishing
10–15 cashew nuts, deep-fried
50g raisins
1–2 tbsp shallots crisps

Method:

1. Wash and soak Basmati rice in water mixed with turmeric powder for 30–35 minutes. Drain rice in a colander. (yup, I did this first too. How much water to cook? At the bag of the rice packet, it says for every one cup add two cups water. So it should be 4 cups water, except some I substituted with the "gravy?" from the chicken and also added a chicken cube. Anyway, while the rice is soaking, I'd prepare the chicken coz I wanted to use the excess gravy as stock to cook the rice. So if I had 1 1/2 cup of chicken gravy, I'd top up with 2 1/12 cup of water, so it becomes 4 cups water.)
2. Heat margarine and fry ingredients (A) until fragrant. Add 2 tablespoons yogurt and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix in (B) and chicken. Fry well, then add in another 2 tablespoons yogurt and remaining salt. Continue to fry until chicken is tender. (You will realise at this point that you have loads of gravy from the chicken, later you'd only be putting the chicken in, so the gravy seems wasted, so I decided to pour out the excess gravy and use it as stock. Continue to fry chicken till the chicken browns.) Leave aside till it's time to put it into the about-to-cook rice.

To cook rice:
3. Heat oil and ghee (I use margarine) in a clean wok. Put in cinnamon stick and fry until fragrant. Add the remaining yogurt to mix. Toss in rice to mix, then transfer the well-mixed ingredients into a rice cooker.
4. Add sufficient water to a level that is 2cm above the rice (As mentioned, I substituted some water with the chicken gravy and added a chicken cube, add salt and a bit of sugar to taste). Cook rice for 20 minutes.
5. Open the rice cooker and add in the precooked chicken and continue to cook until rice is done.
Remember I said the wedding briyani I ate had caramelised big onions? Anyway, I browned some thinly sliced onions and put them in when i put in the chicken. I fried this separately.)
Add garnishing before serving.

I have made this 3 times now. It's nice...Really!

Corn Muffins Update!

They were so delicious! Not exactly like Kenny Rogers but much better than the 1st recipe I shared. I think I should delete that now that I have found something better. Will put a note there or something or try to improve it. So if you come across corn meal, go buy it so that you can make these lovely muffins. I reduced the sugar content to 1/3 cup but not the honey. If you still think that's still a little too sweet for your liking, I'd suggest you reduce the sugar to 1/4 cup.