HORIZON LANKA RESUMES ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES FOR THE YEAR 2009

February 14, 2009 at 3:22 am (Uncategorized)

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Academic activities for the year 2009 were resumed at Horizon Lanka Academy since mid December last year. Horizon Lanka has obtained the services of two experienced teachers, Mr Mahendra Illangasinghe for English and Mr Sisira Rajapaksha for ICT teaching. New students are joining every week for the new classes. Horizon Lanka also expects to receive local and foreign volunteers to support ICT and English teaching at Horizon Lanka like in the past.
The students are taught English and IT at Horizon Lanka. Once the mesh network is repaired we hope to resume e-learning as well. More http://www.horizonlanka.org/news/2009/academic_activities/index.html

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English Language Syllabus for Grades 9, 10 & 11

January 25, 2008 at 3:12 am (Education)
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Reading and Writing

  1. Skimming
  2. Scanning
  3. Intensive Reading
  4. Word Attack Skills
  5. Text attack Skills
  6. Reading Aloud
  7. Discourse markers
  8. Writing a Paragraph
  9. Describing People
  10. Describing Things
  11. Describing Places
  12. Describing Processes
  13. Defining
  14. Clarifying
  15. Comparing and Contrasting
  16. Giving Examples.
  17. Summarizing.
  18. Writing Letters
  19. Writing Essays
  20. Writing Speeches

Listening and Speaking

1.    Listening for Specific Details
2.    Listening for Main Ideas
3.    Listening and Dramatization of Dialogues
4.    Telephone Conversations

N. B. Grammar will be handled as required for the above tasks, but will not be handled separately and the above activities will often be integrated to reflect the authentic language use.

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English Language Syllabus for Grades 6, 7, 8 and 9

January 25, 2008 at 3:09 am (Education)
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Listening and Speaking

1. Loud Reading
2. Recitations
3. Orations
4. Singing
5. Listening and Enacting Dialogues
6. Listening for Specific Details

Reading and Writing

1. Scanning
2. Skimming
3. Intensive Reading
4. Word Attack Skills
5. Text Attack Skills
6. Writing Notes
7. Writing Paragraphs

N.B.Grammar will not be taught separately, but will be dealt with as part of the above activities depending on the need of the hour.

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Horizon Lanka Virtual Academy

January 23, 2008 at 1:22 pm (Education)
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Horizon Lanka Virtual Academy

The HorizonLanka Academy of Mahavilachchiya, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka launched the Horizon Lanka Virtual Academy. This site is done by Sri Lankan students. The lessons are created by students themselves with the help of expereinced teachers here in Sri Lanka and abroad.
We mainly focus on the Sri Lankan O/L (Ordinary Level) and A/L (Advanced Level) curriculum. No need to panic if you are not an O/L or A/L student. We have lots of other useful resources as well.
We also invite you to submit your lessons on various subjects to us and share it with the students globally. Send lessons to hlva@hlacademy.org. If the file is too heavy, you can send it through www.yousendit.com.

In future we are looking forward to launch local language versions of this website as well.

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Visit the latest version of Horizon Lanka Academy website

January 23, 2008 at 10:25 am (General)
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hlacademy.jpg

Visit the latest version of Horizon Lanka Academy website at www.hlacademy.org and send your comments.

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Student Guidelines for e-mentoring

January 22, 2008 at 2:57 pm (Education)
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1.    An e-mentor is a precious gift. Use them productively!
2.    Once you have been assigned an e-mentor, you will be contacted by a staff member of Horizon Lanka Academy who will give your e-mentor’s details including their email address.
3.    The first email to an e-mentor should include a short introduction on yourself as your first essay.
4.    At least 1 essay should be sent per week.
5.    All emails should be cc’ed to info@hlacademy.org which will be checked by a staff member.
6.    Your essays can be about anything you choose (except politics, gender, religion or asking favors):- your family, your school, the village, Horizon Lanka or things you did this week. Write about things you know.
7.    Older students Grade 10+ may prefer to write “Make Believe” stories, which are always interesting for your e-mentors to read. Poetry is also a different way of practicing your English. Letters for business and pleasure are also a good way to improve your English.
8.    Essays should aim to be minimum 20 lines long for Grades 9+.  For younger students, 5-10 lines will be accepted.  The more your English improves the longer your essays will become.
9.    Before submitting an essay to your e-mentor, ask a friend or classmate to check it with you. This will ease e-mentor’s job.
10.    All corrected essays will be returned to you by the e-mentor and a copy will be sent to info@hlacademy.org.
11.    Please read your E-mentors comments and corrections carefully. Make sure that you understand your mistakes. If you do not understand, please ask a teacher or the e-mentor to explain. Also, sit with the friend who checked it with you and make sure they understand the mistakes also.
12.    Learn from your mistakes. Do not repeat the mistake. This makes an e-mentor unhappy. Horizon Lanka will be following your progress and hopes that you will be improving with every essay.

13. Refrain from sending unnecessary attachments, chain mails to your e-mentor. Respect the e-mentor’s identity and do not divulge his/her email ID to anyone else other than the assigned staff member.

14. Do not divulge your date of birth, etc. which hints that you expect a birthday gift. If the e-mentor is happy with your performance and wants to reward he/she will first contact the assigned staff member before doing so. Treat the e-mentor as the gift and do not expect any other gifts.

15. Once a healthy relationship is built through emails, you will be asked to use IM and VOIP. Never misuse these opportunities.

We thought of publishing the guidelines online so that the other students in Sri Lanka also can be benefited through similar schemes.

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“e-Mentoring” Horizon Lanka students

January 22, 2008 at 2:38 pm (Education)
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Horizon Lanka students want to learn perfect English. This is becoming a reality because Horizon Lanka decided to revive e-Mentors Project which it started sometime back under the guidance of  Mr. Lionel Balasariya of USA. Mr. Balasuriya helped us to find some e-mentors. Now some of the students have e-mentors. We need more e-mentors and hope those who have good English skills will volunteer to become an e-mentor for Horizon Lanka students.

The students write essays or posts for their blogs in English. With their friends, they try to correct the English as much as possible. Next, they will email the essay or blog postings to their respective e-mentors as MS Word files. The e-mentors can correct the grammatical errors and language patterns of the essays and send students their comments and corrections. Using “Track Changes” feature in MS Word will be ideal for this. The students are able to see the mistakes they made on the corrected essay or story. This program helps build the children’s knowledge of English very effectively.

In this program our students, as well as improving their English, can learn more about the foreign countries where the majority of the e-mentors live. This project has developed  students’ English and communication skills extremely well. Diaspora and the foreign professionals can help improve the students’ English skills. Those who are prefer to become an e-mentor please contact info@horizonlanka.org.

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Action Plan of Horizon Lanka Academy for the Year 2008

January 22, 2008 at 1:39 pm (Education, General)
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Objectives

* To ensure a smooth year of academic work at Horizon Lanka Academy without being hindered by activities of Horizon Lanka Foundation, the mother organization.

* To enable the grade 11 students to register good results at the G. C. E. O/L 2007.

* To mould a group of about twenty students who will excel all others in English, ICT, presentation skills, etc.

* To ensure that all sports activities and other special and other co-curricular and extracurricular activities are held as scheduled.

* To try out e-learning via MESH network.

ICT

The following activities have been scheduled for 2008

* To hand over ICT education to a reputed ICT teaching institute to enable the students and the youth in the area to follow standard ICT courses and get a quality ICT education with a globally accepted certificate.

* Introduction of the new ICT syllabus which caters to both the ICDL and the GCE (O/L) Information and Communication Technology syllabuses.

* Hiring qualified instructors to handle this section.

* Conducting tests on completion of each unit of the above syllabus.

English Language

The following activities are scheduled for the year 2008

* To implement the two syllabuses: primary syllabus and the secondary syllabus

* To involve the students in more online lessons to improve their grammar knowledge

* To implement the e-mentoring project effectively for a selected number of students.

* To conduct special night classes for a selected number of students in order improve their presentational skills

* To conduct periodical evaluation programs to identify the progress of the students.

* To use multimedia lab effectively to improve the English speaking skills of students.

* Recruiting two permanent English teachers

* Finding a suitable computer program to conduct evening lessons via the mesh Internet network.

Pre-School

* Pre-school will run methodically under experienced Mrs. Soma Sooriyage
* Children will be given basic ICT skills
* Multimedia driven education will be encouraged
* Activity driven education will be encouraged

Sports

* Forming teams for the following games and continuing practices leading to tournaments during the year. .

Volleyball

Soccer

Cricket

Rugby

* Training the students in the following indoor games leading to an indoor tournament in December

Carom

Chess

* Giving an awareness of the rules of all the above games
* Hiring coaches for the  above games

Martial Arts (Karate)

The following activities have been planned for 2007

* A short-term training programme under a national instructor
* A short-term training under an international instructor
* Referring the players to recognized Karate tournaments.

Recruitment of Students

New admissions will be entertained from January onwards. Students will be admitted only after a screening interview following a formal application

Scholarships

Scholarships for students will be considered only after six months of probation at Horizon Lanka Academy. Depending on the satisfactory performance of the students in both academic and extra-curricular activities the authorities will prepare a hierarchical list of students and seek the help of donors to fund scholarships. Those who are willing to provide scholarships can do so through Global Giving website’s dedicated link to Horizon Lanka.

Teacher Salaries

The following teacher salaries should be recovered for the year 2008

1. Montessori Teacher   (Full Time)        10,000 LKR X 12 = 120,000 LKR
2. English Teacher 1       (Full Time)      20,000 LKR X 12 = 240,000 LKR
3. English Teacher 2       (Full Time)      20,000 LKR X 12 = 240,000 LKR

If anyone can sponsor any of these teachers, please communicate with us through info@horizonlanka.org or can directly contribute through your credit card via Global Giving website’s dedicated link to Horizon Lanka.

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EXPANSION OF HORIZON LANKA’S ICT EDUCATION

January 22, 2008 at 3:08 am (Education)
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Youth

Horizon Lanka Foundation is happy to announce that it will tie up with a reputed ICT institute of Sri Lanka which is a franchise of an international institute from the academic year 2008. From February, the ICT academic activities will be taken over by this new entity and standard ICT courses will be offered to the students in Mahavilachchiya and the suburbs on an affordable fee. Those who find it difficult to pay the fees will be given scholarships through Global Giving scholarships program. You can help students in Mahavilachchiya to get a quality ICT education by contributing to this fund.

The proposed company offers many other areas of training such as BPO, English Language, Soft Skills, Business Administration etc. The company is also the licensee in Sri Lanka for Australasian Education & Training Services (AETS) and the Australian Center for Languages (ACL) through which a wide range of internationally accredited training products are offered.

Await more details on this new venture in our website soon. There is a big demand for the Mahavilachchiya youth in the job market since the students have shown outstanding talents in ICT, English and presentation skills so far. With the advent of the new partnership, the village students and youth will get a wide range of options to follow while in the village. We will start with a pilot in early February and then go for the expansions.
According to the agreement, the profits of the new venture will be shared on a 50-50 basis with the proposed company and Horizon Lanka Foundation so that both parties will benefit and Horizon Lanka Foundation will be able to gain self sustainability while producing more youth to the job market from Mahavilachchiya.

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19. Going Back to the Past – Trip to Polonnaruwa – 2003

January 11, 2008 at 4:18 am (Field Trips)
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Final video clip – summing up the trip to Polonnaruwa.

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