Check out the 'PIERS Pirates' in the Photo Albums. The photo shows three people who were obviously up to no good! No prizes, but do you know who the person on the right is? Click on the picture to make it bigger.
Use the 'comments' link below to tell me.
Friday, 27 July 2007
Another week goes by and still no news!
Not much has happened this last couple of weeks, but as this is supposed to be a 'weekly' blog I thought I'd better write something.
Most of you will have seen the recent e-mail from Chris F. in which he says that the good news is, "We were very pleased to learn earlier this week, that our proposals have now been forwarded from the Secretary General to Finance, which is, we believe, the final stage before we are able to sit down with CDC to discuss the details of the new contract."
But don't hold your breath! We still need Ministerial approval for the projects and there are lots of steps to go through yet.
On a lighter note, Alison L. had a couple of stories to tell in her June report that I'm sure she wouldn't mind me sharing with you all. She says, "Was asked to be a judge in Kota Belud drama competition but got caught in a flash flood en route and spent seven hours stuck in my car!" When I asked what she did for seven hours, her reply was, "The worst fate of all befell me. A technology teacher who wanted to practise his English adopted me so I got stuck with answering questions like 'What kind fruits you have in Australia' as I fretted in my car.....!!"
The second story concerns a ghost in Pitas. She says, " Just something trying to pull me out of bed then a door that mysteriously locked itself with me inside..Got one arm out the window and yelled help. The occasional passersby either ignored me (maybe thought it was a white ghostly arm)or shouted 'Hello' I guess 'Hello' And 'Help' sound similar. Only Malay I could remember was 'Minta maaf' as I couldn't remember 'Tolong'. Locals told me everyone knows about ghosts in guest house and many a person has ended up sleeping in their car out of sheer terror.."
Not all monthly reports contain such frightening stories! But if you have a story (it doesn't have to be a frightening one!) that you think others would like to hear, please send it to me or put it in your next report.
Don't forget that you can also write comments to any of my posts. So come on, make yourself heard!
TTFN
Most of you will have seen the recent e-mail from Chris F. in which he says that the good news is, "We were very pleased to learn earlier this week, that our proposals have now been forwarded from the Secretary General to Finance, which is, we believe, the final stage before we are able to sit down with CDC to discuss the details of the new contract."
But don't hold your breath! We still need Ministerial approval for the projects and there are lots of steps to go through yet.
On a lighter note, Alison L. had a couple of stories to tell in her June report that I'm sure she wouldn't mind me sharing with you all. She says, "Was asked to be a judge in Kota Belud drama competition but got caught in a flash flood en route and spent seven hours stuck in my car!" When I asked what she did for seven hours, her reply was, "The worst fate of all befell me. A technology teacher who wanted to practise his English adopted me so I got stuck with answering questions like 'What kind fruits you have in Australia' as I fretted in my car.....!!"
The second story concerns a ghost in Pitas. She says, " Just something trying to pull me out of bed then a door that mysteriously locked itself with me inside..Got one arm out the window and yelled help. The occasional passersby either ignored me (maybe thought it was a white ghostly arm)or shouted 'Hello' I guess 'Hello' And 'Help' sound similar. Only Malay I could remember was 'Minta maaf' as I couldn't remember 'Tolong'. Locals told me everyone knows about ghosts in guest house and many a person has ended up sleeping in their car out of sheer terror.."
Not all monthly reports contain such frightening stories! But if you have a story (it doesn't have to be a frightening one!) that you think others would like to hear, please send it to me or put it in your next report.
Don't forget that you can also write comments to any of my posts. So come on, make yourself heard!
TTFN
Tuesday, 17 July 2007
Update on Negotiations
For those of you who may have missed the recent e-mail from Chris Frankland, I'm posting it here.
Dear Colleagues
Dear Colleagues
A number of you have written to us asking if we can update you on contract negotiations. We are increasingly aware of your concerns, and acutely conscious of the predicament that some of you currently face, with a wish to remain in
I would like to assure you that all of us at the CfBT Malaysia office are doing everything possible to expedite a decision from the Ministry. Proposals have been with the Secretary General, Schools Division, Matriculation Division and CDC since April, and a revised proposal was sent in only last week. However, the Ministry remain mum, although we do constantly remind them of the urgency.
Indications continue to be positive. We lobby where possible at all levels, but the decision rests with those in the corridors of power. One good bit of news which will, we hope, do much to aid our cause: Tn Hj Ali Ghani, Director of Languages at CDC, a staunch supporter of our projects, is to be promoted to Deputy Director of CDC as from 19th September.
If you hear anything on the grapevine, it might be helpful for us to know, bearing in mind that there are, as ever, rumours circulating!
I reiterate that I will write to all of you just as soon as we get any further news or developments.
With best wishes
Chris
Monday, 16 July 2007
Friday 13th: Lucky for some!
Last Friday, Vance Carson, the PET at SMAP Kajang, scored a first when he took a group of students, members of the IBI club, to visit the British High Commissioner, Mr Boyd McCleary, in KL. The High Commissioner told the students about his job, the role of his office and finished off by talking to them about the benefits of speaking English.
The IBI students then gave a slick Powerpoint presentation about the aims and objectives of the school's IBI Club (Intelligent Bahasa Inggeris. See earlier article about IBI).
The students were then shown a documentary on the plight of the Malaysian orang-utan after which they asked some very probing questions I'm told.
Before they left, the High Commission treated the students to a very nice morning tea.
Later the students visited the 'Eye on Malaysia' before heading back to school.
A more detailed report by Vance will appear in the next PROUD.
The IBI students then gave a slick Powerpoint presentation about the aims and objectives of the school's IBI Club (Intelligent Bahasa Inggeris. See earlier article about IBI).
The students were then shown a documentary on the plight of the Malaysian orang-utan after which they asked some very probing questions I'm told.
Before they left, the High Commission treated the students to a very nice morning tea.
Later the students visited the 'Eye on Malaysia' before heading back to school.
A more detailed report by Vance will appear in the next PROUD.
Friday, 6 July 2007
July Update
Such a lot has happened in the last month that it's difficult to know where to begin! Perhaps the best way would be chronologically. So, as the song says, let's start at the very beginning.
Firstly, I hope you all had a great holiday, whatever you did and wherever you went. I know it must seem a long time ago now and you are already well into this term.
The second weekend in June saw the 5th Asia TEFL
& the 1st MILE Conference. Several of our staff gave presentations: Alison Lyall, Rob Clement, Ron Coveney, Mick Hughes, Mark Baldwin & Karen Halahan from Malaysia and Gavin Cowley from Brunei. Thanks also go to those who 'manned' the CfBT stand (see photo album). We had lots of visitors and it was a real opportunity to let people know just who we are and what we are doing in Malaysia. If you've been checking your e-mails, you would have seen the Star article and the picture of the ever popular Mick Hughes being 'swamped'. In case you missed it, here it is. Other presenters weren't so lucky with the press coverage but several did get mentioned in the article.
In June there were also two conferences in the UK to which several of our staff were invited. The first was a two day Primary Symposium, "Leading the Highly Effective School" which several of us attended, whilst others had meetings with senior people in the Reading office. This was followed by the "Making a Difference - Together" staff conference where Jeremy Bishop and Rebecca Hazell both gave a talk on their work in Malaysia. At both conferences we were able to meet people from other projects in the UK and from around the world, which gave us a better idea of what CfBT does on a global basis. We will tell you more about it at the Annual Conference , but in the meantime, if anybody would like more information, please feel free to contact us at the office.
Whilst in the UK we received the e-mail from CDC that informed us of the date change for the Annual Conference. You can imagine the panic that this caused! Only two weeks to go and we weren't in the office to let everybody know. Thank goodness for e-mails! The new date, as you now know, is the end of August. For those of you who had already made flight bookings, I would suggest that you wait a while before making any changes so as not incur any more extra charges than you already have. We will be in touch as soon as we can confirm the new date with any certainty.
The last thing that I would like to say is about the recent changes to the management structure for SE Asia. You should have all seen the e-mail from Andrew Caie by now, but in case you haven't, the main points are that he is now the Executive Director Malaysia and as such is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Malaysia office. Chris Bell will move to Malaysia full time soon and will be responsible for Business Development in SE Asia. These changes have been brought about in the main by changes in the CfBT Reading office and a response to last year's staff survey. Andrew is looking forward to catching up with everybody at the Annual Conference in August but has also said that you should feel free to contact him any time if the need arises.
OK, so the last paragraph was not the last thing I wanted to say. Obviously, many of you are anxious to know what is happening next year. I get many e-mails from you all and this question appears in some form or other in most of them. The short answer is, "I don't know." I can say that Andrew Caie and Chris Bell had a meeting with CDC recently and are currently endeavoring to arrange a meeting with the Secretary General. We are all hoping that something positive will come out of that meeting. And as I always say, "When we know something, you'll be the first to know."
Ron Coveney
INSETT Manager
Firstly, I hope you all had a great holiday, whatever you did and wherever you went. I know it must seem a long time ago now and you are already well into this term.
The second weekend in June saw the 5th Asia TEFL
& the 1st MILE Conference. Several of our staff gave presentations: Alison Lyall, Rob Clement, Ron Coveney, Mick Hughes, Mark Baldwin & Karen Halahan from Malaysia and Gavin Cowley from Brunei. Thanks also go to those who 'manned' the CfBT stand (see photo album). We had lots of visitors and it was a real opportunity to let people know just who we are and what we are doing in Malaysia. If you've been checking your e-mails, you would have seen the Star article and the picture of the ever popular Mick Hughes being 'swamped'. In case you missed it, here it is. Other presenters weren't so lucky with the press coverage but several did get mentioned in the article.In June there were also two conferences in the UK to which several of our staff were invited. The first was a two day Primary Symposium, "Leading the Highly Effective School" which several of us attended, whilst others had meetings with senior people in the Reading office. This was followed by the "Making a Difference - Together" staff conference where Jeremy Bishop and Rebecca Hazell both gave a talk on their work in Malaysia. At both conferences we were able to meet people from other projects in the UK and from around the world, which gave us a better idea of what CfBT does on a global basis. We will tell you more about it at the Annual Conference , but in the meantime, if anybody would like more information, please feel free to contact us at the office.
Whilst in the UK we received the e-mail from CDC that informed us of the date change for the Annual Conference. You can imagine the panic that this caused! Only two weeks to go and we weren't in the office to let everybody know. Thank goodness for e-mails! The new date, as you now know, is the end of August. For those of you who had already made flight bookings, I would suggest that you wait a while before making any changes so as not incur any more extra charges than you already have. We will be in touch as soon as we can confirm the new date with any certainty.
The last thing that I would like to say is about the recent changes to the management structure for SE Asia. You should have all seen the e-mail from Andrew Caie by now, but in case you haven't, the main points are that he is now the Executive Director Malaysia and as such is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Malaysia office. Chris Bell will move to Malaysia full time soon and will be responsible for Business Development in SE Asia. These changes have been brought about in the main by changes in the CfBT Reading office and a response to last year's staff survey. Andrew is looking forward to catching up with everybody at the Annual Conference in August but has also said that you should feel free to contact him any time if the need arises.
OK, so the last paragraph was not the last thing I wanted to say. Obviously, many of you are anxious to know what is happening next year. I get many e-mails from you all and this question appears in some form or other in most of them. The short answer is, "I don't know." I can say that Andrew Caie and Chris Bell had a meeting with CDC recently and are currently endeavoring to arrange a meeting with the Secretary General. We are all hoping that something positive will come out of that meeting. And as I always say, "When we know something, you'll be the first to know."
Ron Coveney
INSETT Manager
Thursday, 31 May 2007
Happy Holidays
It's that time of the year again when many of us take leave and enjoy a well deserved break. From the Leave Applications that we have received in the office, I know people are off to Thailand, Japan, Australia, UK and some of you are taking the opportunity to explore some interesting places within Malaysia itself. I wish you all the best and trust that you all come back safe and sound and suitably refreshed.
You will be receiving hard copies of the 'PROjects UpDates' soon along with the latest pay slips. We did e-mail it last time, but as many of you have problems with downloading and printing, and we have a nice new photocopier/printer in the office now, we can do hard copies for you. Please share it with your colleagues as it has lots of interesting reading in it about what we are doing. If you need a soft copy, please e-mail Jan and she can send it to you in pdf or Publisher format.
Several of our people are presenting, or are participants, at the 5th Asia TEFL/MELTA conference being held at the PWTC in KL this year, June 8th - 10th. So I would like to wish them well and hope that they have a fruitful time. CfBT also has a stand at the parallel 1st MILE (Malaysian International Language Exhibition) so might see you there.
We are also pretty busy in the office at the moment with preparations for the Annual MoE/CfBT conference to be held from 2nd - 4th July. It was originally planned for Port Dickson but I was informed yesterday by CDC that they have decided to make it The Legacy Hotel in Melaka now. Apparently the resorts in Port Dickson just aren't big enough for all of us! Looking forward to seeing you all there and having a fun time. E-mails and letters to your school/office will appear in due course.I don't know if you've been following the Malaysian news of late, but there have been several articles about education in Malaysia, not the least of which was one about pay rises. Another really interesting article was about a two-day International Seminar on Teacher Education held at Seri Kembangan recently. At the end of the seminar the teachers said that they want "...teachers' training to be redefined and redesigned." One of the teachers who attended had this to say, "A lot of us have been talking about bringing back the art of teaching, the creative side of it, so we can make our classrooms livelier." I would say that this what all of us in the project have been trying to do. If you would like to read the full article, click here: 'Teachers want training...' . Today's editorial also makes interesting reading as it talks about teachers' working hours and how much work they have to do. Again, you can read the full article here: 'Stayingin class'.
As many of us from the office will be attending a conference in the UK in June, and taking a few days leave, I may not have the chance to post on the blog for a few weeks. So we'll see you in Melaka early July. Take care!
Friday, 11 May 2007
That Was The Week That Was
Several things of note have happened recently involving CfBT Malaysia staff.
There were two articles in the Star newspaper on Wednesday. One directly involving our staff and the other the family of one of our board members. The front page article was about the forthcoming marriage of Zara Salim Davidson, who is actually a grandniece of first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and the daughter of Bill Davidson, who is the CfBT Malaysia lawer and one of our board members. For more information see the article on-line: Zara Salim Davidson will become Raja Puan Besar of Perak.
The second article "English lessons for rural students" is a follow-up to my previous posting about PIERS. The article shows Mohd Arif (aka Chris Bell) with Tunku Naquiyuddin at SK Undang Johol, one of the schools participating in Kuala Pilah, and gives some details about this particular PIERS project.
STOP PRESS
"Today I gave a demo class to the Education Ministers of Malaysia and Thailand, who I think were impressed and seemed very happy that PETs were doing such good work in schools. So their trip to SMAPK may be in the Star or NST tomorrow or Monday perhaps. Don't know if I shall be mentioned, but it doesn't matter, what is
important is that he promised to help the school with some of the things we needed and I'm sure he will look on the continued relationship with CfBT with good heart. ... the theme of my lesson was "The Future:, and when I showed a picture of a UFO and asked the students what type of vehicle it was, the Minister piped up; "it's a space ship it's a space ship".
Everyone laughed at his energetic answer. Then, when they left, everyone laughed again when I told the Ministers they both had detention for sneaking out of the class.
A good day I think." Vance Carson
See also related article (Sorry Vance, the school got a mention but not you. But then there's always next time, eh?) re SM Alam Shah
There were two articles in the Star newspaper on Wednesday. One directly involving our staff and the other the family of one of our board members. The front page article was about the forthcoming marriage of Zara Salim Davidson, who is actually a grandniece of first Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and the daughter of Bill Davidson, who is the CfBT Malaysia lawer and one of our board members. For more information see the article on-line: Zara Salim Davidson will become Raja Puan Besar of Perak.
The second article "English lessons for rural students" is a follow-up to my previous posting about PIERS. The article shows Mohd Arif (aka Chris Bell) with Tunku Naquiyuddin at SK Undang Johol, one of the schools participating in Kuala Pilah, and gives some details about this particular PIERS project.STOP PRESS
"Today I gave a demo class to the Education Ministers of Malaysia and Thailand, who I think were impressed and seemed very happy that PETs were doing such good work in schools. So their trip to SMAPK may be in the Star or NST tomorrow or Monday perhaps. Don't know if I shall be mentioned, but it doesn't matter, what is
important is that he promised to help the school with some of the things we needed and I'm sure he will look on the continued relationship with CfBT with good heart. ... the theme of my lesson was "The Future:, and when I showed a picture of a UFO and asked the students what type of vehicle it was, the Minister piped up; "it's a space ship it's a space ship".Everyone laughed at his energetic answer. Then, when they left, everyone laughed again when I told the Ministers they both had detention for sneaking out of the class.
A good day I think." Vance Carson
See also related article (Sorry Vance, the school got a mention but not you. But then there's always next time, eh?) re SM Alam Shah
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