Tuesday 29 May 2018

5 Minutes with Phyo Wai Win

The following parliamentary Senior Officer (student)’s case study is on page 190 in the English Voices of Myanmar Parliamentary Curriculum that was published in March 2018.

“The highlight for me was Questions for conversation …

“My name is Phyo Wai Win and I’m from Zigon Township , Bago West Division situated in the lower part of Myanmar bseside Bago-Yoma mountain area”.

When did you first take English? “I first learn very basic English language when I was in ‘first standard,’ known as primary school.  I was 5 years old. But I did not speak English.  Not really”. 

When did you begin to speak English? “I began to speak English when I was 25 when I joined the English class with my friend and studied English at a higher level”.

What is interesting about the Cuso English class? “By joining the Cuso English class, I have many opportunities to speak English fluently with a native speaker and my classmates, and I understand more about the language, the structure group work methodology,  critical thinking, problem solving, debates and questions for conversations with confidence”.   In our class, Alice gives us a chance to participate fully with the topic presentations everyday.  Topics could be review, fashion, family life in Myanmar, Myanmar culture, parliamentary work, my hero, global citizenship begins with me that we have just learned in the Road to Gender Equality and the ASEAN Citizen units. 

I think that the most interesting thing in the class is that we get to choose the writer which is a Scriber; Brainstormers who are really critically thinkers, Presenters who has to listen deeply to everyone’s comment; Audience who has a chance to listen carefully to the presenter and to ask the right questions  for conversation that make sense to show that we have carefully listened to the presenter.  According to the topic we participate our parts,  we have a chance to collect a lot of facts and it is really excited to work with my group and   with others groups, because we have the facts to share with each other and good relations with my friends to participate with questions for conversation that Alice has taught us”.

How has Cuso English helped you with your parliamentary work?  My Cuso English class has helped me significantly with  my parliamentary work by applying the writing briefing paper research work . I Write Burmese briefing papers that I translate from English to Burmese.  This information, I use from my Cuso English Class and collect data from the Basic Health Staff website from different countries. I create subheadings from a variety of International newspapers that  becomes the Current Affairs Digest newsletter for MPs.  This, I delegate to my junior staff to write and make sure that they understand that they need to think critical instead of copy paste directly from the web.   This is where I use a lot of questions for conversation model that I learned from Cuso class.  I also use with my staff  solving the problem in the work with critical thinking  that I keep in mind that Alice always remind us to think about when we negotiate with others in class

Would you recommend Cuso English training?  Off course,  I recommend Cuso English training to my friends, and my  colleagues, my parliamentary junior and senior staff, also my brother and sister and my family.  I think that they will have a chance to speak with a native speaker with many different topics to discuss about current issues, healthy living, language acquisition, leadership and make questions for conversations with a lot of critical thinking that we do in class.  I like most Alice class because she encourages us to always ask “questions for conversation. She could handle the class well and she knows how to manage the class with Stop, Look and Listen.  it is also important to mention that Alice is fun and makes us laugh, so we don’t want to be absent from the class. 

What was the highlight of Cuso English class?  The highlight or me is that I now use both ‘questions for conversation’   and the ”group work methodology concepts” with everything that I do with my parliamentary work and with everyone that I work with; my colleagues, my friends and even  my family!

More later ... in the meantime, wishing you fun reading and lots of laughter for the rest of May 2018….:)

No comments:

Post a Comment