Develop English Skills the CIA Way (Part II)

Aside from the school’s English courses, CIA (Cebu International Academy) has also its fun and challenging ways to encourage the development of the student’s learned English skills.

ABOUT CIA

This vibrant Semi-spartan English school is located in Mandaue City of Cebu. It is a Korean-owned school established in 2003 and has a capacity of 270 students. Students are of different nationalities. Among them are Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

So, what are these English development methods?

1.Bimonthly English Speech Contest
2.Bimonthly Essay Writing Contest
3.Spelling Bee
4.Poster-making Activity

I have already covered both speech and writing contests in a previous post. Now, I will talk about the remaining two: spelling bee and poster-making.

SPELLING BEE

This is another bimonthly contest happening every second Friday of the month. Students from all courses and levels are encouraged to join. However, only 15 contestants will be accepted and out of these roster, only three will be acknowledged as the Top 3 Winners.

Although it is not a main priority, spelling is an important aspect of English. There are chances of being misunderstood (or even laughed at or degraded, to tell the truth) if you misspell a word(s). Of course, we all make mistakes and a slight error in one letter or two of a word may be acceptable. But if you want to pursue quality learning of English, then it’s a must to be familiar with the right spelling of English words.

POSTER-MAKING ACTIVITY

Poster-making is a fun and challenging way to use one’s English skills while engaging both the person’s knowledge and creativity. In this activity, you have to think of an advocacy about a given topic. After that, you have to be able to create a unique but attention-getting illustration to represent your advocacy. All participating students use their acquired English skills and coloring materials as their tools to make a winning poster.

This activity may not be an easy task. First, it is not always easy to come up with a slogan and illustration that will compliment each other. Second, in this activity, the team’s aim is to catch the reader’s (or passerby’s) attention and persuade him or her with their advocacy. And lastly, unlike the three previously mentioned methods, Poster-making is done as a team. All members must agree on the the whole plan for the poster. (But the good thing is that it encourages camaraderie among its members at the same time.)

Through any of these methods, students are able to apply what they learn in a challenging and fun way. For the graduating students, this can push them to give more of their best in the last weeks of their stay in CIA.