A friend's view on life in Terennganu

Here is the link: http://jordanholliday.com/collections/writing/fresh_835_explanations.html

This was written and performed by one of the guys that lives just North of me for our mid-year meeting a month back. I thought he did a great summary of life as a Terengganu ETA.

The Global English

Earlier this week I attended a course taught by a Wisconsin woman named Renee who was invited by the American embassy to teach us about teaching English as a foreign language. She started out by stating some facts that really struck me as important. She said that the majority of people in the world who speak English speak it as a second language. Even more the majority of teachers teaching English globally do not speak English as their first language. She followed this up by saying that the English language is rapidly evolving due to all of these non-native English speakers communicating in English through informal channels like the Internet.

In Malaysia they say they learn British English and I’m discouraged from using American English in the classroom so that I don’t confuse the students too much. However Renee talked about how my students will end up using “Global English” as they communicate with others in the future. Renee talked about a “Global English” as an English that is less focused on specifics of grammar and more focused on comprehension. Can the two parties speaking understand what the other party is trying to communicate?

These comments though made in passing during an all day course stood out to me because it is something I have been thinking about a lot since I saw the midterm results of my student’s English scores. They didn’t do very well. Now I am purposely placed in a school that is struggling with their English, a school where the students rarely use English in a practical setting, but I know my students. I am able to communicate with a good amount of them, but their exams are very specific grammar based questions.

It’s frustrating for me as a teacher to see my students progressing to speak and understand English, but to see no improvement in their exam scores. Now before I talk about my conclusion I want to preference it with “I do not study English or languages and I do now that grammar is important.” With that being said for my last 4 months teaching I’ve decided that I’m going to let go of the little bits of grammar I’ve been trying to get my students to pay attention too. Instead I’m going to focus on getting my students ready to communicate in “Global English” with the European tourists that frequent their islands and their online penpals/ their random Facebook friends.

Last week, I posed the question to my upper level students “Would it be better if the world only spoke one language?” And I guess I’ll leave it there, because I don’t really have an answer to my own question.

Oh, wait. One more thing. Here is an interesting videos that one of my fellow ETAs shared.
 http://www.ted.com/talks/jay_walker_on_the_world_s_english_mania.html 

The Women of Terengganu

After the mid year break I held my first over night English Camp with 5 other schools, 6 other ETAs, and 120 female students at a beach in Dungun, Terengganu. We called it “The Women of Terengganu English Camp” and it has been in the works since January.

We noticed right away that our female students tended to be very shy and passive in class. So we decided that we wanted to take some of our top female students somewhere special to work on their self-confidence in English.

All of my girls before getting on the bus to go home.

As a part of the camp we mixed fun activities like cooking s’mores and slack lining with confidence building dance and drama competitions with a little bit of seriousness in the form of a ‘Love your body workshop’ and small group discussions about relationships. We packed the two days full of activities and the girls really seemed to respond. It was a lot of fun hanging out with the girls in a place where they felt comfortable to be themselves. By the end of camp the girls were making speeches (in English) in front of large groups and performing their own dance routines in front of 100+ people. Definitely things I never would have expected out of my girls who use to hide behind their hands while speaking in class.

Climbing the rocks at the end of our morning beach hike

Since our return to school I have noticed that the 20 girls I brought with me have begun to open up more in class and every once in a while running up and giving me hugs in the hallway. Hopefully this won’t fade overtime, but instead spread to their friends. One can only hope. Now it’s time to stop writing blogs and start planning for camp number 2! Any suggestions on favorite camp activities would be more than welcomed.