SHAH ALAM - Ahmad Shahrul Azhan Ibrahim or better known as Sir Asai, breaks the mold of traditional teaching.
To him, "forget boring lectures and dusty lectures" as he replaced his classroom with an atmosphere akin to that of a "celebrity's" domain.
"My students see me a "celebrity" and this fuels their motivation to learn. They usually anticipate my classes, knowing that it will be filled with fun activities I have planned.
"Some even aspire to follow my footsteps and become successful content creators," he told Sinar Daily.
Having served as an English teacher for 23 years, Sir Asai incorporated technological advancements to make teaching effective.
He employed real-life scenarios to craft captivating TikTok videos that resonated with his students to make learning more engaging and relatable.
"This way, students are more attracted to being part of the learning process and when we have their attention, the next step is to keep on making the lessons enjoyable by incorporating fun activities," he added.
Born and raised in Kelantan, Sir Asai, who has been actively creating fun learning contents on TikTok and Instagram emphasised the importance of students being able to relate the lessons to their everyday lives.
Through this approach, he said it would ensure that learning something new each day remained interesting and engaging for students, rather than becoming boring for them.
"I would make sure that my lessons are effective and always offer valuable takeaways for my students, making them both meaningful and impactful," he said.
The TikTok Awards Malaysia 2023 winner in the Education category acknowledged the convenience of modern technology as a teaching aid and commended the use of TikTok by students to access educational content, including his own on his TikTok account, @sir_asai.
"Students can learn something new every day by scrolling TikTok and teachers get to improvise through the new knowledge and skills via social media contents, so online content utilisation makes learning and teaching much easier and fun as students and teachers are able to explore different ways of doing so," he said.
He said the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) also made learning more fun as students were able to enter a different world of learning.
Despite the advancements in teaching technology, he said traditional methods still held value, particularly in aiding students with memorising phrases and sentences.
"Drilling and exercises are sometimes effective for students who will sit for important examinations.
"Meanwhile, modern technology such as usage of a smartboard or simple teaching methods using softwares, PowerPoint and videos from YouTube can add more value to our lesson as they are much closer to the students' interests as students use social media on a daily basis.
"The latter always gives the students the "wow" factor as they learn something new about technology," he said.
To ensure his lessons were truly effective, he said he often reminded himself to persevere and try again if he failed.
He said he would always encourage his students to assist those who may be struggling with the lessons.
"Students will need to reflect and share their thoughts about the lesson to assess their understanding, while also providing feedback for me to imporve in areas where I may be lacking."
"I always tell myself, if you don't succeed, try again and again," he said.
He said feedbacks like the lesson being boring, confusing and hard to digest would motivate him to improve himself.
In his message for Teacher's Day tomorrow (May 16), he highlighted the significance of teachers appreciating their students first in order to be appreciated in return.
"Listen to them, be attentive and try to understand them. Build personal connections with them to learn their preferences. By practicing this, we will become part of their world and they will start to respect us and think that we are "cool."
"This is how they will appreciate us," he said.