Kota Kinabalu: Project Real (Rural focus, English for All) is creating a sustainable English-learning ecosystem in Sabah’s rural primary schools through teacher training, dedicated English corners and public speaking opportunities for pupils.
Rotary Club of Kota Kinabalu Pearl President Datin Dr Jeanette Tambakau said the initiative has grown into the club’s flagship education programme since its launch in 2016.
“Over the years, Rotary has distributed 16,271 English dictionaries to primary school pupils and established English learning corners stocked with 33,746 storybooks, complemented by audio-visual equipment to encourage reading and language immersion.
“To ensure sustainability and effectiveness of the project, we also conduct workshops to train the English teachers and conduct inter-school competitions,” she said at the Project Real Inter-district Competition Finals, recently.
She explained that the competition is designed to promote the use of English beyond the classroom while giving pupils opportunities to build confidence through storytelling and public speaking.
“The main objective is to promote and enhance the use of English in primary schools outside the classroom syllabus, provide activities to encourage the use of English, create friendly competition between Project Real schools, and provide a platform for students to showcase what they have learnt and improve their public speaking,” she said.
As participation has grown, Jeanette added that the competition has expanded into a multi-tier format, with preliminary rounds conducted at school and district levels before finalists compete at the State event.
The competition featured two categories – storytelling for Primary Five students and public speaking for Primary Six students. The third category which featured poetry was removed in order to preserve authenticity in the age of artificial intelligence.
She concluded by thanking teachers, parents, judges and volunteers for supporting the programme, emphasising that their commitment is key to nurturing confident English speakers in Sabah’s rural communities.
For the storytelling category, Dayang Ameera Hana Awang Askandar from SK Poring was awarded first place with her story titled “The Needle Tree”. The first runner up award went to Danish Ramadhan Yusmezam from SK Kota Klias while the second runner up award was given to Nur Arissa Azra Zul Azmi from SK Mansud.
Meanwhile, the speech competition saw Deaniell Deeann Disius from SJK© Cheng Ming as the winner, while Annabelle Chong Ann Rou from SJK© St Peter and Elly Nevly Chung May Ven from SJK© Tung Shan took first runner up and second runner up respectively.
For this year, the winner of the Challenge Trophy is the Keningau district.