Mind Your Language :)

*breathes in*...aahh...it's finally friday, and i finally have a breather from my CELTA. we all didn't know what hit us the first week, really. from 9am to noon we sit in and observe real teachers in action, and then had really great theory lessons, and after lunch it was lesson prep and actual teaching. i find the theory part really useful, although the crash-course in grammar was a bit bewildering cos you know lah, english learners our generation mana lah tahu all these technical stuff like past participle, present perfect continuous, gerunds etc etc...? really! even my mat salleh coursemates plead ignorance to all these stuff (actually we learnt that this is even more so for native speakers). oh, and today was Phonetics/Phonemes Part 1 and dear god...it's like learning how to read/write in a totally new language altogether....

my coursemates are a great bunch. in my group i have corrine, an Aussie-Italian Italian language teacher, louise and paul (2 Aussies), Jo from england and cynthia from brazil. we learn so much from all our past experiences and classroom observation put together (we teach 2-3 lessons a week with our group and tutor sitting in, observing and making assesment. how scary is that?). cynthia's just amazing to watch; i enjoy all her lessons and even learnt some aspects of grammar all over again. i love her easy rapport with the students, her clear concise language, and her animated gestures in illustrating a point. and of course, that slight brazilian lilt in her speech.

for the first 2 weeks we teach a pre-intermediate class of 16 - a free english language class for foreigners who are or not studying at Curtin. and what a great bunch they are! there's the Chinese, Japanese, South Koreans, a Vietnamese, a Lebanese girl, 3 indonesian guys, a Saudi and a Dubai fella. and Azheen, a blond avril-lavigne-looking patriotic Kurd who's proud of where she comes from. i think not many people caught where she came from until she explained Kurdistan is near Iraq (and then "aaah..." and saddam comes to mind). i was really intrigued, and upon some googling realise that a famous Kurd would be the great Salahuddin Al-Ayyubi, otherwise known in the West as Saladin.

and so of course you sort of get the typical stereotypes, which i've come to realise boils down a lot to cultural learning styles. the east asians are very diligent but quiet leaners who come armed with electronic dictionaries, the indonesian guys quiet and smiling. the arab guys are a hoot to teach, though! they are so expressive and confident and make the class so lively and relaxed. they volunteer for everything and are not afraid to make mistakes while speaking (learning better in the process). and they're so funny! our tutors concur that arab males make great students with their enthusiasm and participation. and another interesting observation by the tutors - the east asians are not confident speakers but have better writing and grammar, while the arabs are charismatic and confident but (to quote Chris Symons my tutor) "simply tragic" in their written english. why ah?

our students come under interesting circumstances too. some of them are academics in their own countries (Gunawan is a chemical engineering lecturer in jakarta, lily has a PhD in applied physics from china). azheen is part of Kurdistan's effort in building up an educated society (from what i understand from her the government sends students overseas to study in various fields). some of them are on spousal visas while their spouse study/work here. i must say it's great teaching a class of willing adult-learners as compared to a class of reluctant teenagers who'd rather be somewhere else because basically discipline is not even an issue, and they want so much to learn.

i had my own issues in the beginning; i was worried students might prefer a native-speaker, cos why would they come all the way to Australia to learn from a non-native one, right? and what would it be like teaching with Arab males around - you know, the male-female thing in Islamic culture and how they'd take to having a hijabbed non-native female standing in front of the class teaching them. but hey...it all worked out fine, because firstly, native or non-native they want a good teacher, and secondly my tutor told me that maybe being non-native and an obvious muslim lady has its advantages in striking similar chords with certain cultural groups who might regard me as being more familiar and understanding (and hence put them more at ease). so no worries, hey? :)

putting all that aside, i love The Hasbern and Ilhan so much for being so understanding while i'm taking this course, since i'm away from home from 8am-7pm mon-fri and bogged by assignments and lesson planning the rest of the time. *eh? wait a minute. that sounds like my typical day in singapore..haha!* The Hasbern has been playing the role of home-maker very well, and i've been coming home to a nice hot meal the past week - i suddenly miss Banquet and its hainanese chicken rice and voila! i came home to hainanese chicken rice on the table on Thursday! ilhan pun good boy "ee-han cayik ibu tapi ee-han tak nangis" and i reckon he's enjoying the bonding time with his baba. he's got a new Ranger and Ranger mask in the process...hmmmm...

3 more weeks to go!



 

of comings and goings

been very lazy updating, with June being super busy and all. firstly The Hasbern was busy with his assignments and exams, hence there was a restraining order (me versus the laptop). secondly, we had 3 streams of visitors one after another, and i had to play guide-driver most of the time.

it was a wonderful experience, all the familiar faces and company bearing familiar things from home. and i got to know Perth roads better, getting to jauh-jauh places i've never been to; the hills to Araluen Gardens where we took part in tulip-planting,

and Darlington (pun tersangat lah ulu) to take kids horse-riding. very nice, this horse farm. for $30, kids from 3 years get a 30-minute trail-ride through the bushes. Ilhan and Marini's kids got to ride on miniature Shetland ponies. I held the reins myself, cos i was afraid he'd get scared halfway and want to get off, but this little guy got the hang of it and was really enjoying himself (although you can't really tell by the way he looked so solemn on Cassie). i might go back for the $40 hour-long adult trail ride.



and so June is almost coming to an end after several forlorn goodbyes at the airport. tomorrow i start on my CELTA course at Curtin - that's 4 weeks of gruelling 9-5.15pm lessons and teaching practice. but quite exciting to get this brain back moving. plus ilhan gets to spend quality time with Baba *muahahahaha*.

i was just in the process of painstakingly filling in some forms, and to make it even more painstaking, one section required me to furnish details of all my trips to all other countries for the past 10 years. like....very painstaking ok, considering we used to go JB every few days to makan or isi minyak. very very painstaking.

and as i was looking through all my passport stamps, it was nice to see all those stamps from my backpacking days. countless stamps from various entry/exit points in Thailand, and visas from Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, and the 30-minute stamp into Myanmar (the cheap thrills of straddling borders and being in 2 countries at the same time). and then the stamps at the Chunnel, the "Giris" and "Cikis", and i just realised entah berapa kali dah aku keluar masuk bintan.

ah...my days of wanderlust.

'self-radicalised'?

do you believe everything you read in the papers?

this is too familiar and too close to home.

when hounded by the press, what kind of picture do they want us to paint? what do they expect us to say?

what to believe?

why?

i pray's ab's family's holding up well.

dan Allah selalu di pihak yang benar.

where are we?(again)

i've been busy the past week because....

my atok and nenek and bibik are here...

i'm having a lot of fun showing off my new skills...

...and feeding the birds....

...and climbing trees...

....and chopping wood....

...and flying around on Harry's broom.

will be back when i've settled down in a while. thanks for dropping by!