Franchise Asia APRIL 2015

Interview
■ Can you briefly describe what Eye Level
is about?
Angie Chee: Eye Level is a supplemental education program that
originated in Korea. The education is for children aged 3 to 15
tailored to an individual child’s strengths and weaknesses. We
start a child at a level where the child understands. To do this,
we give a test to the child first to see which level he or she is at
and only then assign an appropriate level for the student, at a
pace the student is comfortable with. This way, Eye Level helps
to nurture problem solvers, critical thinkers and lifelong learners
with a study path tailored to the students’ abilities. At Eye Level,
we focus on mastery of concept, speed and accuracy, as well as
mental calculation.
■ Eye Level is said to be Malaysia’s leading
Critical Thinking & Blended Learning (Online &
Offline) Education. Can you describe what is so
special about this type of education?
Angie Chee: Let’s start with Eye Level math program where we
have Critical Thinking Math (CTM) and Basic Thinking Math.
Basic Thinking Math is simply the one taught in school. CTM on
the other hand is not taught in school. The CTM program helps
to develop student’s spatial sense, problem solving, patterns and
relationships, measurements and reasoning skills. The degree of
difficulties in our program is gradual hence ensures success as
our students learn at their own pace. Through survey conducted
we found that our students are able to understand their lessons
better through our program.
To keep our programs updated according to the learning styles of
the education trend, we improvise our program from time to time.
And to help us do this is our research institute in Korea that looks
into developing all Eye Level programs’ curriculum.
Carolina Keong: Not surprising, CTM is a program that both
parents and children look forward to when attending Eye Level
classes. In our program we‘ve various teaching tools to aid
children with better learning experience; tools that the instructors
use which go hand in hand with the math work sheets that are
handed out to them.
Angie Chee: Blended learning is something new that we started in
Malaysia with the aim to provide new learning experience and to
boost students’ learning effectiveness. As the name implies, it’s a
combination of online learning and offline (face to face) learning.
In online learning, we allow the students to do their homework at
home via online so that they can repeat as many times as they
want. They can repeat four times per book, which is a lot compared
to just using physical papers. Online learning is fast and easy. Once
they finish their work, they can just press their answers, and the
results will be prompt and will be automatically calculated. This
way, children will know where they stand and this gives parents
to check results instantly and monitor them as well. On top of
that, besides learning, children also have games where they can
compete healthily with other Eye Level students worldwide with
a scoreboard showing their names and results. This new hybrid
teaching and learning methodology benefits students as we instill
excitement in students to focus for longer period of time and
curiosity in learning.
■ Eye Level is based on an educational principle
of Self-Directed Learning (SDL) where students
learn at their own paces. Why is this important?
Angie Chee: SDL has two separate “Learning” and “Thinking &
Practicing by myself” areas. Learning space is where the instructor
coaches a student after which the student will go into an individual
Thinking space to practice the lessons taught. This practice
inculcates independence which will be invaluable when the students
attend university or later in life as they will be more self-reliant.
This method is opposite to the ‘spoon-fed’ culture rampant in
today’s school children. At Eye Level, after learning a new concept,
students are encouraged to do their assignments first through
Eye Level materials that are designed in small incremental steps.
Only when they don’t understand, they ask their coach. This is
the value we want to instill in our students. What SDL does is
that it helps the child to learn, then review, examine and solve
problems by themselves, initiating their own actions guided by
instructors as coaches. The benefits are many folds, including:
• Understanding of questions and mathematical process
• Improve mathematical thinking and problem solving skills
• Master concepts each step of the way as they progress
through the curriculum
• Retain what they have learned for a longer period
• Have instructors as coaches instead of teachers
• Instill values to be proactive learner in acquiring knowledge
• To focus and think out-of-the-box
■ What are some other programs offered at
Eye Level?
Angie Chee: We offer five programs altogether. Eye Level Math
(online & offline, for 4-15 years old), Play Math (3 years old), Eye
Level English, Happy Talk (Situational English learning program –
both online & offline), as well as Eye Level Chinese Junior.
Franchise Asia • 2015 Vol 27
29