Hands of Honour

'Hands of Honour' is one the the activities we did during the English Camp. I thought I would try it out with my 3Q students as a pre-writing task.

They were supposed to write 'What I Am Passionate About'. What I really want was for them to write about what they absolutely love. I do not want them to merely write about their hobbies.

The 'Hands of Honour' works like this: Students trace their palms on a piece of A4 paper. They then write down 5 things that are synonymous with them.

I gave them a simple exercise on synonyms first (casual=informal, incorrect=wrong, etc) before asking them to write the 5 most significant things about themselves.

To further clarify the task, I gave a few examples:

"Contohnya, bila saya tengok Arif je, saya teringat silat; kalau Azfar, rubix cube; kalau Fahmi pulak, tenis."

(Yes, I codeswitch in class!)

Pretty soon the rest of the class wanted me to do/"read" them/their friends.
"Kalau saya pulak Cikgu?"
"Teacher, buat Adam pulak"...

Eventually, they settled down and began writing. Then, they had to swap their paper with a friend's and proceed to write 5 things about that friend.

Only after that do they start writing the actual essay. Yes, the pre-writing task was too long and it seemed to go on forever but I need to get my students excited about the topic first as they are chronically allergic to writing essays.

At the end of the lesson, the students handed in their essay and their "palms". I had fun reading the 5 things they had written about themselves and their friends.

These are among the ones that made me laugh out loud:

1) "If fight learning, lots man have falls". Confused? Fret not, a Malay translation was provided next to it: "Kalau lawan belajar, ramai yang kalah".

2) "Look kind, his heart still in investigation" = Nampak je baik, hati tu tak tau lagi"

And this one made me raise my eyebrows in serious doubt:

"Never misses 'Indahnya Iman' on Astro Oasis"

Then, I came across this:
Somebody had done the 5 things for me. I asked 3Q the next day and the mystery author turned out to be Mas Dayana.

So, thanks Mas, you had made my day! :)