Sabah Teachers Make History As First Malaysians to Win An Award from GoAbroad

A group of four teachers from Keningau Vocational College, Sabah, Larry James, Alvinah Tony, Akmal Rosimun, and Sirhajwan Idek recently won the 2022 GoAbroad Innovation Award in the Innovative TEFL/Teach Abroad category.

This made them the first ever Malaysian entry to make it to the final round of the prestigious competition and ultimately win a category, receiving a trophy and a winning badge from the organisers.

Their award-winning project was titled ‘Omiyage’, which has similar meanings to ‘souvenir’, was inspired by Japanese traditions and trends. It can generally be used to refer to the takeaway that the participants acquire from this project.

They wove Japanese culture into English Language Learners’ educational experience through the combination of arts, crafts, literature, games, and ideation while using the English language as the medium of communication.

Sirhajwan Idek shared, “Japanese pop culture is already prevalent in Malaysia and Japan is known as a developed nation that is technologically advanced and economically progressive, yet has been successful in preserving and promoting its cultural heritage. Malaysians have been always inspired by the Japanese society and we can adapt Japanese trends and traditions to further strengthen our educational approaches.”

The aim of the project was to guide special needs students to learn some selected aspects of Japanese social conventions and culture such as haiku, pechakucha, manga (comics or graphic novels), and keitai shousetsu in order to improve their mastery of some basic skills such as writing and presentation. They consulted a renowned Japanese teacher, Mari Sawa who provided them with input for this project.

Some of the students have developed their own artistic and academic work using the elements like haiku poetry and elevator pitches in pechakucha format, where a presenter shows 20 slides for 20 seconds of commentary each.

In fact, a few of the students have taken part in conferences and art festivals where they were able to showcase their artistic and academic work.

Pictured above are Griselda Gilbert who wrote several haikus and she won first prize in a haiku competition. Another student Fredo Foo impressively wrote a cell phone novel also known as keitai shousetsu, which the teachers will be submitting for a competition and even possibly for publication.

Sirhajwan Idek shared, “We feel euphoric since this win is a huge recognition for our Japanese-themed project and it is an impetus for us to further expand our scope to reach out to more students and to keep exploring more Japanese trends and traditions.”

The college director, Mr. Johari @ Jaibet Bin Sabin also lauded the team’s creative project which enables the students to gain more cultural awareness on foreign countries while enhancing their skillset so that they can be more confident and innovative in what they do.