PRESENCE in the classroom is that special edge that teacher Mark Lim Ming Hau has. The teacher, who is only in his third year of teaching in SJKC Kuo Kuang, Skudai, Johor Baru, was fully present in the moment as 50 pupils worked on activities using the newspaper. The school had yet to be exposed to learning English with the newspaper as this was its first demonstration session. But Lim exuded an air of confidence and was on hand to help his charges with pointers as he walked from group to group.
So it did not come as a surprise when Lim said that using the newspaper as a resource to teach the English language was not something new to him. Lim was exposed to The Star’s Newspaper-in-Education (Star-NiE) programme while he was undergoing training at the Ipoh Institute of Teacher Education in Perak four years ago.