The STAR Mariachi Van

We were on our way to Perlis for the SBP School Northern Zone English Drama Competition. We were heading north up the North-South Highway, following the bus from Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), which is only about 25 kilometers from our school.

Each SBP school usually has three school buses: A small van for getting sick students to the clinic or going to town, an older bus to get more students around, and a traveling bus. The traveling school buses for the SBP schools are not your normal yellow school buses. They are comfortable, with air conditioning, captain chair type seats, and a TV and dvd player. They are more like the overnight buses that go to Singapore or Thailand, than a school bus. Here in Malaysia, appearance is everything, and you want to make a good impression when going to a sister school.

One of the kids brought along a DVD of "Ghost Rider", and everyone settled in to watch it. Me? I was more interested in reading the Malaysian Star newspaper, and doing the Sudoku on the comics page. I did see enough of the movie to see that it wasn't worth the six Ringgit ($1.75) the student paid for it.

When we got up around the tollbooths near Butterworth, I put down my paper, and noticed a strange little vehicle between us and the bus from MCKK. We seemed to be in a convoy. It looked to be a van from another SBP school, but I couldn't really be sure. If it was, it was barely big enough to hold the fifteen students that would be taking part. There was absolutely no room for any props or backdrops. Hell, if they had any luggage, they would have to be holding it on their laps.

The paint was worn and faded, and the windows were open because there was no air conditioning. I was surprised that the back tires weren't wobbling like drunken belly dancers, or that there wasn't thick black smoke pouring out of the back.

In the back of the vehicle were a couple of signs: One saying, "Go Pablo", and the other, "Wowee" or something like that. One of the guys in the backseat was playing a guitar, and either had a big curly hairdo, or was wearing a wig. The others were dressed in colorful shirts. It gave the rather startling impression that we were following a destitute itinerant Mexican Mariachi band up to the Thai border.

We pulled up next to the poor little van during a rest stop, and it was from another SBP school- STAR (Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman), in Ipoh. This is a picture of it after we reached our destination.



STAR is an all boys school, like MCKK. That luckless group had to endure a four hour ride through tropical heat in a bumpy little van, with no air conditioning.

Once we got into Kangar, the driver from MCKK got lost, and we had to travel around on some dusty dirt roads while finding our way, and the poor guys from STAR had dust pouring in their windows. By the time we pulled into the school in Kangar, those poor guys really needed a nice long shower, and maybe a nice long hug from their Mommy.




Just to give you an idea of how small the van was, here is a picture of it sitting between the traveling bus, and the everyday school bus from the school in Kangar.

It was only after saying something to Mr. Wong, that I found out that we very well could have been doing the same thing. I didn't know that we had to sign up to use the school buses. Luckily, Mr. Wong has been at SERATAS for twenty three years, and knows how everything works. He reserved the nice traveling bus as soon as he knew when the competition was taking place. Otherwise, there would have been two van loads of dirty, sweaty students pulling into the competition, not one.

All I can say is:

Thank God for Mr. Wong!

He saves the day once again.

My Saturday Workshop

Here is a picture of the students for the workshop I had to teach today. I had to teach "Communication English". At least that was what was written in the meeting room when we had the ceremonial pre-class meeting. I didn't know that was what I was supposed to teach. Lucky I didn't know, because what the heck is "Communication English" anyway? I think they meant was "English Communication". It's hard to break the Manglish habit.

The two Indian guys are technicians, and the rest are office staff. There were supposed to be 21 in my workshop, but these 8 brave souls were the ones that showed up. The gardeners, cooks, and other workers were supposed to be there, but they stayed away in droves. They were obviously very self-conscious about their level of English. One of the gardeners did show up for five minutes, but obviously understood nothing that was going on. He discretely slipped out while my back was turned.

The level of the students varied. The Indian guys English was very good. The rest ranged from okay, to "I can understand most of what you say if you talk slow", to "I can't understand almost anything but I have to be here anyway because the boss says so".


I spent all week getting ready for it. Since I was busy getting ready for the English drama competition since the beginning of April, that was all the time I had. Now that it's over, I wish I had more time to get ready for it. It was kind of fun, and the students seemed to enjoy it, but I know if I had more time, it could have been even better.

I did some work on pronunciation, using a Powerpoint presentation I spent days working on. It explained the sounds of English, and had tongue twisters and jazz chants, and poems for us to read out loud together. After that, we did a running dictation, and some mime activities, which everyone enjoyed.

So what did I get out of it? An envelope with a nice ribbon on it. Inside? 100 Ringgit! (About $30), which was nice. All I expected was a fancy certificate of appreciation. I have about six or seven of those sitting in my desk drawer. I would rather have 100 Ringgit for each one of them instead of the certificates. The money is alot more useful!



(I gave him the award as the best student in the class.
He also got a fancy little envelope with a nice ribbon on it,
but I don't know what, or how much was inside.)

English Class Student Pics

The pictures above are of my students in the lowest set in Form 1. They are the ones with the worst English skills. I teach them three times a week.

Last year, the school didn't put the students into sets. The excuse was that there weren't enough teachers to do that. That meant the classes were all mixed levels, with more advanced students mixed in with ones that were barely beyond the beginner stage. As you can imagine, it can be a real challenge to teach mixed level classes. If you tailor your lessons toward the better students, the lower students can't understand what is going on. You end up with a bunch of students looking back at you with blank stares. After that, they will either turn off, or act up. If you tailor the lesson toward the worst students, the better students will finish early, get bored, and will act up. You can give them extra things to do if they finish early, but then they will wonder why they are being given more work to do. If you try for a happy medium, then they all hate it! In any case, you have to spend most of your time with the lower level students, helping them or explaining things to them over and over. That means the more advanced students don't end up getting the attention they might need. Basically, in a mixed level class, everyone loses- the teacher and the students.

This year, after pressure from the Ministry of Education, and CfBT, the NGO I work for, the Form 1 students were given diagnostic tests, and put into sets. I was given the ones who did the worst.

Worst means worst. One of the boys ended up getting a 3 out of 100! someone else got a 13- well, you get the idea.

These kids are definitely more comfortable speaking Malay, and will try to do it all the time if I let them. Of course, I don't let them. I will say in my fake angry voice:

"Is that English?"

And give them my fake one-raised-eyebrow-mean-scowl.

My students even wanted to know how much Malay I understood, to see if they could communicate with me, and forget about speaking English all together. My reply?

"I've been living here for over two years. What do you think?"

Their reaction? The usual:

"Huh?"

Sometimes I think "Huh" is their favorite English word.

Even worse than my students speaking Malay is their speaking Manglish, which is Malaysian pidgin English. That is because when they are speaking Manglish, they feel that they are speaking real English, and not some bowdlerized version of it. It doesn't matter that their word order is all wrong, their grammar horrible, and they are using a bunch of words which no native speaker would ever recognize. To them they are speaking real English! The real challenge of my job is trying to break them out of those bad habits they have from speaking Manglish. Hopefully, I can get them to recognize that there is a difference between what they speak, and what the rest of the world recognizes as standard English. If I can do that, then half the battle is already won.