Integrating ICT Skills and Language Acquisition with the Star Wall

‘Star Wall’, a 3m by 2m digital screen made up of nine plasma televisions, is a new addition to East Coast Primary School’s library and in the school’s language acquisition curriculum.

A first in Singapore schools, ‘Star Wall’ is an interactive screen with six touchpoints that allows pupils to experience hands-on learning related to video production. With this technology, pupils are able to hone their skills in script writing, video production, editing and even acting.

This state-of-the-art technology was a result of collaboration between the school and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), an engineering company located near the school. As part of AMD’s corporate social responsibility efforts, the company provided funding for ‘Star Wall’ to be installed in the school’s recently refurbished library. The pupils have certainly put it to good use.

Typically, pupils will spend an hour a week to work on a story. The school is working on a customised curriculum to cater to the different learning needs of the pupils at each level. Lower primary students are able to create stories to be published as e-books while upper primary students polish their oral skills as they react to different scenarios using ‘frames’ programmed in the interactive system.

‘Star Wall allows pupils to express themselves confidently as the interactive element of this technology serves as a good language acquisition platform which helps to build 21st century competencies in the children,’ said Mdm Lela Shamsuhadi, who has been the Vice-Principal of the school since 2009.

The Star Wall also enables teachers and pupils to be able to assess and evaluate self and peer performance. The process is documented for progressive learning and teachers provide feedback on how pupils can improve their presentation skills.

‘Pupils improve their oracy, presentation and writing skills in a stimulating environment that engages learners,’ noted Mrs Maria Bhavani Dass, the Head-of-Department for ICT.

She also shared that ‘Star Wall’ helps in contributing to the social-emotional learning of her pupils, as they get to experience the dynamics of teamwork in the process.

Aarush Pratap Singh and Celina Hitzel, both in Primary One, were among the first pupils to experience having English lessons using the interactive screen. They had to personify different characters in an e-book and express various emotions such as excitement, anger, confusion and joy present in the characters. Both Aarush and Celina are excited to attend English lessons every time they are able to read e-books, or role play using ‘Star Wall’.

‘We have crafted a guided programme to integrate ICT skills and language acquisition using ‘Star Wall’. With this recent installation, the school hopes to make learning languages interesting and fun for pupils, and at the same time, expose them to new skills such as video production,’ said Mdm Lela.