Megadiverse Malaysia! – Dumond Education

Free Sample of our ‘Unit of Inquiry into a Country’ Attached!

During my hiatus, I’ve been lucky enough to explore lots of this wonderful country I’m privileged to call home for a time. Megadiverse Malaysia!

From mountain peaks to coastal waters, from bustling cities to isolated villages, from sleek skyscrapers to crumbling heritage houses, this country is truly a feast for the senses. The flora, fauna, food, and festivals are breathtaking and exciting – a riot of colour – and all so novel.

I’ve seen proboscis monkeys, silvered leaf monkeys, long-tailed macaques, and the adorable dusky leaf monkeys. I’ve marvelled at the size of the white-bellied sea-eagle, the noise of the great hornbill, the striking eyes of the lesser racket-tailed drongo, and the sheer beauty of the myriad of kingfishers found here. I’ve kept my distance from enormous spiders, glow-in-the-dark scorpions, lengthy centipedes, and huge ants!

Did you know scorpions fluoresce under ultraviolet light?

I’ve learned lots of the history of this great country and been welcomed by its inhabitants of all ethnicities. Naturally, I have focused on developing my understanding of the education system and identifying ways to contribute to it, which brings me to the purpose of this post.

Reflecting on my travels, I have come to appreciate the many facets of life I have grown to understand and value in the past few months here. Much of my knowledge about Malaysia was discovered haphazardly. As pupils today are increasingly likely to be global citizens, it makes sense to prepare them for venturing forth into the wider world, armed with the knowledge to adapt and fit in easily wherever they go.

This prompted me to design a guided ‘Unit of Inquiry into a Country’ with research prompts for pupils to consider and many hyperlinks to information sources for them to explore. Attached to this post is a free PDF featuring some of the categories, prompts, and questions to support pupils in learning more about a country of their choice. A comprehensive, fully-editable PowerPoint version of this unit is available in our online shop and is also linked below.

Aware of how easily pupils can get distracted when conducting independent research, I have also created a BUMPER Guided Research Project on Malaysia. This features many tasks from the categories featured in the Unit of Inquiry research booklet, but a structure is provided for pupils, meaning their working memory is less likely to be overtaxed as they are clear as to the specific information they are looking for. Hyperlinks are included, guiding them to information sources and helpful websites. This Guided Research Project supports the development of comprehension, research, thinking, and IT skills.

Among the tasks included are:

Reading tasks (using a variety of source materials – websites, letters, newspaper articles);
Writing challenges;
Fill the blanks (cloze test) activities to boost comprehension;
Activities to develop topic-specific vocabulary;
Tasks requiring use of the internet to source information and cross-checking this for reliability;
Using Google Maps, Google Street View, and other mapping websites to find and pin locations, identify housing types, and compare country sizes;
Examining time zones across the world;
Journey planning;
Handling data;
Examining timelines;
Activities to promote reasoning and thinking skills;
Tasks requiring pupils to express their point of view;
IT and presentation tasks including adding slides, images, and information to the presentation and changing fonts, colours, slide layout etc.;
Retrieval practice questions to support embedding learning in long term memory.

As the presentation is quite lengthy, teachers are advised to conduct an activity at the outset to activate schema and to adapt the contents of the presentation in accordance with this and in line with curriculum objectives for your class. This Guided Research Project on Malaysia is also available in our online shop and is linked below.

Both the short Unit of Inquiry into a Country PDF and the accompanying in-depth PPT are useful resources for EAL learners. They can be used to develop topic-specific vocabulary in each of the categories. It is recommended EAL pupils first practise talking about their own country. Once their vocabulary and confidence have developed, they can research another country and begin to hone their skills at comparing and contrasting and identifying similarities and differences. Depending on their level of English (and available supports), EAL learners may benefit from the Guided Research Project also, especially as it can be customised to suit individual learners.

Much division and conflict arises through lack of understanding of others. In actively focusing on promoting increased cultural awareness, I hope we can promote greater acceptance and mutual respect.