AKADEMI TERRABACA coaching station: December 2008

AKADEMI TERRABACA Coaching Station

Introducing an upcoming Portal designed as an interactive online arena for language learners to put into practice results of their participation in the Coach-a-Coach Reading Assistance Programme or CERAP. The portal is called AKADEMI TERRABACA Coach-a-Coach Express, and is under construction with our content partners.

Applying the coaching method outlined earlier each reading group having completed the assigned reading content will now choose the best from amongst them to compete in an online language games expressing various skills in Bahasa Melayu and English based on the collection of stories published by Utusan Publications & Distributors, Himpunan 366 Cerita Rakyat Malaysia and 366 A Collection of Malaysian Folk Tales.

AKADEMI TERRABACA Coach-a-Coach Express aims to be the platform for schools to coach and produce participants in a contest to search for:

* Best Reader/Best Storyteller

In this contest students run the CERAP practice of their choice stories from the 366 short stories in the assigned book. Group members who have obtained ‘peer endorsement’ can now record their reading in the Portal. The recording is then listened to and in turn graded by other students from schools participating in the contest. The grades are then tabulated to show ranking and accessible to all.

Students can undertake repeated recording to repair and improve their reading skills within the alloted time, thus establishing the linguistic rule of Frequency For Fluency

* Best Handwriting

The best handwriting slot is to provide opportunity for the lesser qualified reader to vie for best handwriting. Students copy their story of choice and go through similar process of ‘peer endorsement’, get the work scanned and the uploaded to the portal in pdf mode, to be graded accordingly. This encourages slow learners not to quit and be discouraged from participation.

* Best Jawi Transliterator/Khat

Himpunan 366 Cerita Rakyat Malaysia being Romanised allows opportunity to draw out the artist in the student, a Khat contest preferably to showcase Mushaf Malaysia fonts. It is hoped that this would lead to a student compiled ebook of Himpunan 366 Cerita Rakyat Malaysia in Jawi.

* Best Speller

Best speller is database collection of marks achieved at school level CERAP Spelling Contest using list of words within and beyond the suggested corpus of "Buku Panduan Senarai Perkataan KBSR" for both Bahasa Melayu and English. The grades will decide the shortlisting of candidates for the state-level AKADEMI TERRABACA Coach-a-Coach Express Spelling Contest.

* Best Coach

The best coach is not just expected to be a good reader but a diligent one, to be adjudged based on the number of students so coached by him or her, and by the level of competence achieved through his peer coaching effort.

* Best Achiever

Since all participants in the contest are pre-graded to measure achievement level after x hours of drill and practice, the low achievers also compete on who moves up the levels fastest. This is to sustain the interest of the other half’ or ‘special pupils in need’ to continue with the reading practice.

This bricks and mortar via real and repeated reading practice culminating to multimedia presentation is a necessary gateway before students could be expected to comprehend the multitude of materials available online for the diligent. Like coaches on the express train, each pulling along the other, the expression of both reading and writing skills in a wider competitive environment is the best incentive for students to remain at the coaching station and thus ensures sustainability of the reading habit.