Report

Wednesday

21st April 2010

Student Council Room

8.00pm

A total of 24 trainees, including some of the seniors, attended the meeting, with Mr Earnest as the chairperson.

The purpose of the meeting is to discuss problems that Speaker's Corner is encountering, and suggestions on how to overcome them.

Below are some of the problems identified:

- Poor attendance / not keen to come / LAZY

• it is not compulsory
• excuse given was waking up late due to assignments
• routine: wake up after 7am

- There is gap between TESL and other optionists

• others see Speaker's Corner for TESL only

- Trainees do not see the benefits of Speaker's Corner

- English and Tamil units are not active compared to Chinese unit

- Committees are not committed

• people's thought: it is unfair if non-committee comes for Speaker's Corner session when the committees sleep in their respective rooms

- Topic is not interesting

• same topic for the whole month

- Committees have no teamwork and they are not responsible

- Speakers are not serious

These are some of the suggestions voiced out by everyone:

- Stress on disciplinary

• reward trainees who have consistent attendance or best speaker e.g hand-made bookmark

- Make it as a compulsory thing to do for all TESL-ians, which is, to attend Speaker's Corner every week

• absentees will be punished e.g be the speaker for the following week

- Set up Speaker's Corner session during recess time in order to attract crowd

- Insert additional purpose e.g include phrasal verbs, word of the day, MUET tips, etc.

- Promote and make speakers be recognized e.g take their photos and print them on banners/flyers/posters/brochures with names written their photos.

- Introduce speakers when making announcements (Announcements to be made on Monday night for Tuesday session; and Wednesday night for Thursday session).

- Allow various ways to deliver speech; meaning that, speakers may sing or perform skits

- Encourage favourite lecturer to come

- Ask trainees to put their opinions and thoughts in a box, in terms of:

• Suggestion(s) for next topic
• How to improve Speaker's Corner

- "Force" people to come, and see the result

How Speaker's Corner got its name

Once, there was a group of Mathematics/Chinese unit who wants to improve their English. So they went to Mr Earnest. They used to meet up every morning before lecture starts. Until a day, one girl claimed that she wants more. They came across this idea of having Speaker's Corner.

The wish was granted. The director approved the idea despite knowing that Speaker's Corner will help to improve every one's English.

Back then, there were 70-80 trainees. Mr Earnest planned to improve Speaker's Corner by building a canopy.

However, the Speaker's Corner now has approximately 20-30 trainees only. No one knows why trainees are not keen to come anymore. Let's bring Speaker's Corner to live again.