A Mission to Entertain and Educate: Mini Monsters
Mini Monsters is a Singapore-based company that is changing up the way language is taught.
Mini Monsters started off in 2008 as the education outreach arm of TV production house, Dua M Pte Ltd. The company gave a new lease of life to the way Malay language is taught in Singapore by amalgamating education and entertainment.
Rilla Melati grew up on set with Radio Television Singapore’s children’s workshop helmed by the Malay production department in the 70s. The set became her classroom where she learned to read, write and act for an audience, even before she went to kindergarten! This shaped the way she viewed education — it has to be interactive and fun in order to be effective and impactful.
What inspired you to start on this educational business venture?
I was a young mother when I realised what a huge deficit there was for good quality, Malay language educational materials in Singapore. I was looking for materials for my son and I could find nothing. So, I had to fall back and use materials that my father had created for me in my childhood. He was a teacher for over 40 years and he was well versed in language and pedagogy.
The lack of locally produced Malay educational materials was creating an over-dependence on Malaysian educational materials and books. What was happening was: Singaporean teachers would purchase Malaysian books and attempt to simplify the material to teach students with. After a certain point, those books don’t help because the way kids in Singapore learn and speak Malay is completely different from the way Malaysian kids do it. Malaysian books are not localised to suit the needs of Singaporean Malay language students.
What makes Mini Monsters unique?
Firstly, we make our content across different media forms. And secondly, everything we put out there is locally developed and seeded in Singapore. I’m the one who writes most of the books here and my dad is one of our editors because he is a specialist in language. We do also work with an early childhood educational consultant, a creative producer, and experts in related creative industries.
You’re a public figure in Singapore. How has that influenced the way you run your business?
I think that’s a plus point that I come with a public personality and a marketing narrative. People have known who I am since the 70s and they know my background well enough to understand where my passion comes from. When I started all of this, half the advertising had already been done. What remained of the job was for me to put together a team and to combine my public persona with the Mini Monsters image.
And because I’m running Mini Monsters, I have to be very particular about the TV programs I choose to be on these days. It’s got to be something meaningful, so I don’t do entertainment programs or game shows, unless I’m involved as a judge.
What are the challenges you faced while setting up Mini Monsters?
I was already servicing schools when I realised that there was a market for Malay content. It was 2005, I was conducting Speech & Drama workshops in schools, and it was very clear to me that young children are not picking up the Malay language. I saw a lot of kids who couldn’t speak in Malay and that sounded off alarm bells for me.
The challenge was that we were way ahead of our time. When I started Mini Monsters, people weren’t ready to ride our wave. We were still working on convincing the community that this problem exists. When the community finally caught on to this problem — when Mini Monsters became relevant — the preparatory groundwork had already been laid because we had the same realisation so much earlier.
We’ve also been ripped off, and I’ve come to accept the fact. When the community is this small, there aren’t a lot of role models and we kind of end up as the benchmark for this content. We’ve just learnt to swallow this bitter pill and tell ourselves that because we’re good at what we do, we’ll always have copycats watching us.
On the flip side, this is very interesting for us because when we started, there was no benchmark; there was nothing to indicate standard or quality of our content. We did a lot of the R & D. We were down on our hands and feet, and trying all sorts of new things. I told myself that if we’re going to do something, it’s not going to be just for a year or two. The shelf life of whatever we produce needs to last for a long time.
All Mini Monsters language courses are customised and based on locally authored Malay storybooks with original Singaporean content. Mini Monsters offers children a vast ecosystem of media, in which children get to see the language and stories come alive on tv, radio, online, and on stage.
If you liked this interview, drop by the Mini Monsters Facebook page and say hi to them!
