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A very good morning to our Heads of Departments
ELTC staff,
Course participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome our participants on the Children’s Literature in Primary Schools to the English language Teaching Centre. Selamat Datang ke Malaysia.
This four-week course starting from today, the 28th of June till the 23rd of July is of great historic significance for us, not only because it is the first of the two courses selected but also because ELTC has been chosen as the first training provider under the Malaysia UNESCO Cooperation Programme.
At the 35th UNESCO General Conference my Prime Minister made a commitment that Malaysia would initiate a UNESCO Malaysia Cooperative Trust Fund, to further enhance South-South cooperation for capacity building in education and science for the benefit of the Least Developed Countries, Small Island States and in support of UNESCO’s Priority Africa Agenda. This fund is totally supported and managed by our National Commission for UNESCO.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Let me introduce briefly our institution. The English Language Teaching Centre was established in June 2002 with the aim of upgrading the standard of English language teaching in the country. ELTC is the only in-service English Language training centre in Malaysia. As a specialist institution, we cater mainly to serving teachers and ELT professionals.
Consistent with the mandate to oversee the teaching of English, we are at the forefront of policy changes that are related to English language teaching. From 2002 to 2004 we designed training materials for the training of more than 40,000 English, science and mathematics teachers when the medium of instruction for Science and Mathematics was changed to English. In the recent initiative to strengthen the teaching of English, ELTC is charged with the responsibility of designing materials and together with institutes of teacher education, conducts training for more than 40,000 English teachers from both primary and secondary schools. In addition, we collaborate with a UK university on a trainer training programme that trains and certifies 360 English language lecturers from all the 27 institutes of teacher education in Malaysia.
We conduct an array of short in-service courses ranging from 3-days to year- long specialist courses. To date we have more than 60 courses. These courses were developed based on teachers’ needs. We also offer consultancies to other agencies outside the ministry. We have entertained benchmark visits from countries such as Oman, Thailand, Macau, Indonesia and others.
We have 8 departments – the ELT Management Department ; Language and Literacy Department, Language and Pedagogy, Language and Technology Department, Testing and Evaluation Department, Research and Development, the Documentation and Publication Department and the Quality Assurance Department .
May I now introduce the teaching team who will be with you the next few weeks.
Ms Ellen Drabble,
Mr James Lopez, is also the course coordinator
Ms Irene Cheok
Ms Ho Swee Phoon
Ms Er Eng Lee
Ms Jasvir Kaur
Ms Zurina
Ms Azizah Hashim
Ms Elaine Pang>
Mr Richard Teoh
Ms Tengku Enaliza
Ms Wong Lind Say
Ms Noor Asmira Amran
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Full attendance is a requirement on the course for certification purposes. Transport is provided for your travel from and to the hotel every day. Two of my staff are available at the hotel should you require any assistance. They are Dr Norisham and Ms Noazian. Detailed information is provided in the course handbook.
There will be an official opening of both courses on the 6th of July by our Secretary General, Ministry of Education at the hotel.
I hope in the coming few weeks, we will get to share teaching and learning experiences that will eventually enrich our classrooms and make a difference to the lives of our children. It will not be possible to provide any magic potion given the short encounter on this course but we certainly hope to explore a range of insights and perspectives of teaching literature from the lenses of Africa, the Pacific Islands and South-east Asia. Let the stories unfold... and may we find the common principles that underpin teaching and learning irrespective of our origins.
Thank you.
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