Completed English Course at Mega View Hotel, Kuantan

Horne Learning Services recently completed the 12-class English course at Mega View Hotel, Kuantan. During the final class, Hotel Director Andrea Loo gave a short speech following which, we presented her with a plaque. She was accompanied by the HR Manager, Mandy.

Mr. Duncan presenting a plaque to Andrea (Hotel Director, left) and Mandy (HR Manager, right)

Mr. Duncan also presented certificates of course completion to staff who satisfactorily attended classes. The course ran from June - October, 2014.

HLS Owner, Fidelia (left) and Chief English Trainer, Duncan (centre) with staff of Mega View Hotel Kuantan, posing with their certificates

Horne Learning Services would like to place on record their thanks to Mega View Hotel Kuantan for giving us the opportunity to train their staff in the English language, and for providing us with 'roti jala' from time to time :)

Longest Attending Students Photos

Last week we recognised and rewarded our 5 longest attending students and their parents. This is our little way of saying thank you and showing our appreciation for their commitment in sending their children for English class with us, and supporting Horne Learning Services in the process.

Each child received a certificate of recognition along with a small reward. They will also receive a photo to mark the occasion.

Jen Yee is currently our longest attending student. He's been attending for 3 years!

The following students have all been attending our classes for more than 2 years:

Jia Yi and her dad

Jen Haw with his mum

Marcus and his dad. (Apologies for Mr. Duncan's absence in this photo - he was quite sick on this afternoon!)

Ye Hao with his dad

2014 Syllabus

We hope everyone enjoyed the New Year celebrations, wherever in the world you may be.

We are welcoming back students old and new to our classes, which are filling up quickly. Please be aware that Thursday afternoon is the only class remaining for children with available spaces.

During the Christmas and New Year holiday I've been busy preparing the new syllabus for 2014 at Horne Learning Services. A lot of the exercises which our students are accustomed to will remain, but there are some new additions too.

Once every 2 months (Jan, Mar, May, Jul, Sep, Nov) we will be conducting a variety of grammar exercises from The Word Bank, a more fun and flexible way of learning tense work, nouns, verbs and adjectives, synonyms and antonyms, word lists and making sentences.

During the same months we will be continuing Movie Week, essentially a listening test with comprehension questions, but doing so by watching a fun movie.

During the months of February, April, June, August and October there will be a Games Week where we'll be learning English in a fun way by making short stories as a class, doing word searches, and other games.

A new addition for 2014 is Exam Week. There will be five Exam Weeks, held on the 4th week on the same months as Games Week (mentioned just above). Exams will involve vocabulary, speaking, reading, writing and grammar exercises. Results will be recorded and passed to parents. (Exam Week will only be for students who are capable of reading and writing and who can understand and answer grammar questions. Those of a lower standard will continue with simple exercises)

Activities including speaking, creative writing, reading and word games will remain on the syllabus. We are confident our students will enjoy the variety of exercises, a  more fun way of learning, as well as being more accountable to their parents through exams every two months.

If you had 3 wishes, what would you wish for?

Last week we gave our students the task of speaking about the following question:

"If you had 3 wishes, what would you wish for?"

There were plenty of serious and amusing answers, and the best will be featured in this post.

One boy named Win shared 3 well-thought-out wishes. His first wish was to have power over time; second, to be immortal; and third, to have infinity wishes!

Haqeem and Yu Chen similarly wished for more wishes.

Zoe wanted a castle while Eugene wished for a UFO so he could go and visit aliens in space! Zhen Hui wished he could travel around the universe to find other life on different planets.

Jin Chiao believes Ironman is real and wished that this superhero would give him lots of suits so he can fly like Ironman.

Yu Chen, Siew Man and Yie Hong all wished there was no more school because it's boring. Xiang Qiao didn't want to totally eliminate school but did want longer school holidays.

Staying on the subject of education, Hui Zhi wants the government to change the school time as the start time is too early, while Kai Chin just wished she could pass her history exam!

On a more serious note, Cindy would like to go back in time to correct the mistakes she has made. Xing Wei said he would only use one wish and give the other two to his mum and dad. The following student gave the most emotional and sincere speech, and will remain anonymous here. This student wished he would stop being bullied and cried while sharing this with the class. Very brave child. (*At the time of writing, I've been informed that the situation has been resolved)

Sharmayne (pictured above) very kindly said she would buy a car for Teacher Duncan! Hope she wasn't thinking of a toy car like this one ;)

Muiz wants to be the richest man in the world while Kghartie would like to become the best squash player on the planet.

Nicolas, for reasons unknown, wished that the weather in Malaysia would be more like England's weather. (I still don't know what's so appealing about constant drizzle, grey skies, and cold wind?!) Perhaps he just wants it to be a little cooler over here :)

Irfan wished for Malaysia to beat Barcelona 2-0 in an upcoming friendly football match. I'm pretty sure that would indeed need a magic wish to come true!

Lavender wished she could go to Hello Kitty town in Johor Bharu while Nazuan wants to be the boss of Legoland.

A thin girl, Hui Xin, wished she could become fatter (I wouldn't mind putting another 5kgs on either!).

Going along with the Despicable Me 2 craze, Xiang Meng wished he could have many minions to help him do his work.

Finally, perhaps the most disturbing wish of all was shared by Kee Yok. He wished for a spellbook so he could kill his sister! Nothing like sibling rivalry!

July Week 4 at Horne Learning Services

So we are having an interesting week 4 of July at Horne Learning Services. First of all students are speaking to the class on the following question: 

"If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?"

It's only Wednesday but we've already had some entertaining answers and one very genuine, sincere and emotional response.

I'm also passing out a short questionnaire to our students to get some feedback from them about our English classes and their teacher. It's great, and sometimes funny, to hear what they think. I appreciate their blunt honesty at times, too!

Finally we are taking class photos this week, with an example of the Tuesday night class, above.

At the end of the week we'll look through all of the completed questionnaires and see what improvements we can make to enhance our English classes further.

English Workshop 1st September, 2012

Our 3rd English Workshop of the year was a success and was attended by 32 children over 3 sessions. Vistana Hotel provided the setting for us, with a nice Function Room and some good refreshments.

The agenda for the Workshop included:

• Ice-breaking
• Pictionary
• Boggle
• Speech
• Listening Test
• Treasure Hunt

The children really enjoyed themselves. This time we gave everyone individual points for how well they performed on each task. 

At the end of each Workshop the points were totalled and a winner declared. So here are the three winners:

9am session winner: Karthik

1pm session winner: Jia Qi

4.30pm session winner: Ken Foong

Congratulations to our three winners who scored the most points in word games, writing, listening and speaking exercises!

Here are some photo highlights of each session of the English Workshop:

9AM SESSION

And here are the treasure hunt winners!

2nd place:

3rd place:

4th place:

9am session group photo:

1PM SESSION

Speaking topic - "If I could go to the moon, I would . . . . ."

Speaking topic - "If I was the Vistana Hotel manager, I would . . . ."

1pm session treasure hunt winners:

2nd place:

1pm session group photo:

4.30PM SESSION

Treasure hunt winners:

2nd place:

4.30pm session group photo:

Thanks to all of the children who attended this English Workshop, and for their parents who support us in this event.

The final English Workshop of the year will be held some time in November, 2012.