EVALUATION ON LEARNING VCD (FUN AND MAGIC ENGLISH)

We have chosen a “Fun and Magic English” VCD volume 1 where the contents of the book and the complimentary VCD are similar. This VCD was published by Wholesale Mart Business Point (WMBP) Sdn.Bhd. There are six items contained within this VCD which are happy magic ABC, happy ABC song, happy basic English, Review, happy bedtime story, and vocabulary. This VCD is presenting children’s interactive educational software. Also, this VCD is for general viewing where suitable for all levels of society.

At first, each letter is pronounced first, followed by the examples for each. There are three examples for the alphabets. For example, the letter G is given examples with the words of glasses, goat, and guitar. VCD will spelling the words together with pictures so that children are easy to understand the usage for each alphabet. They teach each letter is used for what. For example, A is used for apple.
From our point of view, these learning activities are good since it is not too fast. Children can follow with clear explanation and instruction. Also there were provided with clear features and graphics so that children are hard to get bored. The music is played continuously but not interrupts the process of learning.

However, there is weaknesses about this VCD where sometimes gives the long and hard word such as jelly-fish, mushroom, and xylophone. For level 1, it will gives the students difficulties to learn and hard to spell and understand. Lack of understanding will cause them lost their attention and interest to continue with their learning. Producers should encounter this problem where they can give simpler and easier words for this level. This section is end with letter M.
We found that the setting for part two is different from the previous where stage is used as a set. They continue with letter N until Z. This setting gives different view so that children can keep learning with fun and enjoy. For this part, VCD shows the usage of the word or the situation of the things where students will get more understanding and can imagine for certain things that they have learnt. For example, letter R is for rope. VCD shows the pictures where rope is used to tie a stick. This is good for children improve their capability to remember all about what they have been shown.

This VCD put an interesting song for part three. This song is repetition of the alphabets and there are children’s voice follow the song. This kind of instruction is quite interesting because they are entertaining while they are learning. Besides, it is easy to remember about the song because there are easy to follow that song since the song is repeated for several times so that they can follow after the song.
Section two which is happy basic English where story telling about “friends”. The story tells that there many types of friends such as friendship school, friendship of neighbourhood, and friendship with internet. There are five characters in this story which are James (the tortoise), Peter (the rabbit), Henry (the squirrel), Paul (the bear), and John (the dear). They are all friends. Since they are friends, they have a lot of activities. They also do activities together such as running, playing, and dancing. They also go to school together. After the story, VCD is considered asked the children to tell about their friend. Here, children may use their creativity how they want to introduce from one to others.

There is preview in this content where the VCD is shows what activities are done by those best friends. Such as the characters are given like James, John, Peter, Henry, and Paul. Here, there are descriptions of each character and what are they doing together with their friends.
For happy bedtime story is about the monkey and the fisherman. It can be used for children as entertainment after learning as well as can improve their literature in English and take a lesson from this story.

The last section or part is about vocabulary. As an example, village brings the mean small town in area. Means, this VCD gives meaning of the words and show the right position of the words. Like village, it was said that there are two monkeys live happily each other in the village. So, the children know and understand the usage of the words. Besides it is provided with illustrations and graphics so that can interact the children to keep learning until the end of the activities.
However, this program does not provide an activity such as game after completing each activity. It is hard to know whether they reached the understanding or not for the activity. Also, this program does not provide and maintain appropriate levels of challenge. So it won’t increase levels of difficulty with progress.

In conclusion this VCD is suitable for children to learn at the beginning of their ages. It gives interaction for them to continuously working with this VCD. This VCD is produced just for learning, without provide any exercise for them, means they just have to follow all things that provided in the VCD.