A team of teachers from Keningau Vocational College has won the 2022 GoAbroad Innovation Award in the Innovative TEFL/Teach Abroad category. The winners of every category in the prestigious competition were announced on the website of the organizer, GoAbroad.Com, on 3rd June 2022. The team has made history by becoming the first Malaysian entry to make it to the final round of the competition and ultimately win a category. The team comprises four members and they are Larry James, Alvinah Tony, Akmal Rosimun dan Sirhajwan Idek. The announcement of the winners was made on the webpage: https://blog.goabroad.com/2022-goabroad-innovation-award-winners-announced/

The award-winning project named “Omiyage” which can be translated as souvenir in Japanese was inspired by Japanese traditions and trends. The aim of the project is to guide students to learn some selected aspects of Japanese social inventions and culture such as haiku, pechakucha, manga, keitai shousetsu and daruma otoshi in order to improve their mastery of some basic skills such as writing and presentation. Some of the students have developed their own artistic and academic work using the elements of Japanese culture like haiku poetry and elevator pitch in pechakucha format. The college director, Mr. Johari @ Jaibet Bin Sabin, lauded the team’s creative project which enables the students to gain more cultural awareness on foreign countries while enhancing their skillset so that they can be more confident and innovative in what they do.