Materials Development for Islamic Schools

On August 5th & 6th 2008, ELTIS invited Rahayu Mohamad and Azra Taufiq from IQRA Singapore to ELTIS Bali to help set in motion the production of one of the ELTIS Resource Packs for MTs teachers entitled ‘Islamic Life.’

IQRA is an International Educational Foundation based in Chicago. Most recently they have been working with MUIS (Majilis Ugama Islam Singapura; Muslim Council of Singapore) in Singapore to adapt the original IQRA books to suit the Singaporean context.

On the first day the ELTIS Master trainers experienced a lesson using IQRA materials, and looked at how materials related to Islamic culture, history and values can be made accessible to young learners through the medium of English. The trainers also discussed the kinds of adaptations that would be required to personalise these materials and make them suitable for MTs learners in Indonesia.

In other sessions trainers worked with IQRA to devise evaluation criteria and frameworks for materials design and adaptation. The Master trainers were also given numerous sample activities to evaluate and trail related to critical thinking, text analysis and information transfer.

In the afternoon a small team, including gender specialists from ELOIS and the ELTIS Islamic Schools Adviser, Drs. Sholikin, worked with IQRA to discuss objectives and topics for the Islamic Life Resource Pack. A list of evaluation criteria for materials was also drawn up.

Our key topics are as follows:

Theme 1	Lessons from the Qur’an: Teenagers and Social Responsibility
Key Aim	To raise awareness of social responsibility appropriate for teenagers.
Theme 2	Once Upon a Time: Stories from the Islamic Traditions
Key Aim	To make use of familiar stories that students can relate to which promote Islamic values appropriate for teenagers.
Theme 3	Muslims Around The World/Muslims Across the Globe
Key Aim	To help learners relate to the global community through stories and articles about Muslims communities from around the world.
Theme 4	Famous Muslims Personalities — Achievements and Contributions
Key Aims	To develop an awareness on the achievements and contributions of Muslims from all walks of life, past and present, male and female, to the human civilization. To promote the self-esteem of the learners and raise their aspirations to follow in the footsteps of their pioneers.

The workshop gave us all a clearer sense of direction about the content of our resource pack and the kinds of tasks we would like to include. This particular resource pack has already generated a lot of interest from MTs who are very interested in contributing ideas and designing materials.