Composing Your Paragraph Through ‘Carousel with A Destination’: A CSR Project With SK Banting Year 5

Introduction- Writing is a skill that amalgamates various knowledge like vocabulary,
sentence structure, spelling, and grammar. ‘Carousel with a Destination’ (CwaD) is a
concept that provides the students with the required knowledge which is to be pieced
together in writing. Carousel refers to the stations arranged in a circle and each station
offers different activities which are related to the chosen topic and skills for writing. In the
case of this study, it was ‘Picnic’. Hence, the usual carousel that goes round and round now
has a destination which is writing. Students go around the carousel to complete an activity
related to the knowledge and skill in writing at each station. The activities are in variety
and competitive in nature. The conceptual framework for CwaD combines Perceptual
Learning Styles, Gamification, and Affective Filter.
Purpose – This paper highlights CwaD - the project and more importantly, it discusses the
concept of effective fun learning. Thus, to show its effectiveness, the paper puts forth a
study as proof of the success of CwaD.
Methodology – This study utilised a simple and direct pencil-paper questionnaire. The
respondents were 56 year five students who participated in the project. The questionnaire
consists of four dichotomous questions. The dichotomy is symbolised by a smiling face
and a sad face. Further, three of the questions are accompanied by two short lines with
questions like ‘Why’ and ‘What’. They are for the students to express themselves in detail
using words they know.
Findings – There are three findings that can be shared. Firstly, the students really enjoyed
participating in the project. It was discovered that all of them circled a smiling face for
each of the four questions. Secondly, the writing they produced was good as they used the
vocabulary, the paragraph structure and correct grammar which they just learnt at the
carousel stations. Thirdly, the words they chose to express themselves in the questionnaire
reflect the elements that they like about CwaD – either regarding the activities, the teachers
or the ‘learning’ itself. All the words are positively-connotated.
Significance – CwaD is sustainable in terms of scalability where it can be conducted for
any subject and for any number of students. It is beneficial as an introduction or as a
recapitulation of any topic.