I believe that English saved my life. How, you might ask. In high school, I really didn’t have anything that I was good at. Not sports obviously as the school doesn’t really have any sports program. We had PE once a week for 45 minutes where the teacher wears high heels to the field and pointed imperiously for you to fetch the ball or something idiotic like that. Most of the time, though, we just sat in class while the teacher catches up on her lesson plans. So it was safe to say that the sports program, at least for girls at that school was non-existent.
I wasn’t good at math or science. My brain just isn’t wired that way or most likely that my cognitive maturity was lacking for the math and science work that we did at that school because I remember understanding with perfect clarity what I learned at Form Three when I was in Form Four. Things ferment in my brain until I get around to understanding them. Luckily, I was smart enough to memorize things without understanding them. Otherwise, who’d know what I could’ve become. So that’s how I got along at school. I’m not saying that I was stupid but I had no passion for anything they were teaching at that school. In class, I was a little bit above average but in my heart I knew that there were more in me than that.
When I was in Form One, there was this Bruneian teacher who taught Arabic. I flourished and I aced every test- getting above 90 percent all the time. Unfortunately she was doing her practical teaching training. So she was there at most for 5 months and a Troll took over the class when she left and the way he taught was horrible. I don’t think he did any actual teaching. He came into the class, and told us to answer questions from the book one by one. If you answer it wrongly, you keep standing and if you get it right, you can sit down. That went on until the the period ended. If you were standing, and your turn came and you got it wrong, you stand on the chair and if your turn came again and you got it wrong again, you stand on the table. Guess who got to stand on the table? Yep… until I wised up.
The classes were divided into 3 and they were streamed according to our ability in Arabic and I was in the last class. All my life I’ve always been in the smart group and if I were a bit hypersensitive, it would’ve killed me. But it did leave some kind of insecurity complex that I wasn’t as bright as the others but since I was the brightest in the pool of stupidity, it didn’t get to me too much.
So how did I get wise up? I got the answers before the class but since the people I asked weren't exactly geniuses at Arabic, I got to keep standing on regular basis for old times' sake, but just on the floor. Not on the desk or even on the chair. That’s how I survived my Form One Arabic class.
We kept each other’s spirit up by thinking that it will be over at the end of the year and in Form Two, the best Arabic teacher would be teaching us. So bright eyed and bushy tailed, we waited breathlessly for our nicest Arabic teacher to walk in but no, the Troll strolled in, no pun intended. The second year slaughter continued. In Form Four, I was useless by then, we got the best Arabic teacher but the damage has already been done. I developed a resistence for anything Arabic. I tried to flunk it at the National Examination that we had to take at the end of the third year so that I could transfer school but couldn’t even manage that.
Back to the thesis statement that English saved my life. In Malaysia we learned English since we were 6 years old. That didn’t do me any good as I went to school in a rural area and nobody around me spoke English. Neither of my parents speaks the language. So I concluded that I sucked at it too.
My eldest sister (by 5 years) loved reading. She had a subscription to the Readers Digest and I couldn’t understand how she could read it. It didn’t have any interesting picture, the font was so tiny that it gives you headache so I told her so in the most scathing manner (the insolent idiot trying to look down her nose at something she didn’t understand). She tossed casually, “I challenge you to read that and understand it. I’ll bet you can’t.” I was speechless… because I couldn’t—as she says.
I walked away thinking, “I’ll show you!” but I had nothing to show. I didn’t understand the language. I was in Form 2 then I think—14 years old. I went to the library, looked at English books that I could understand most of the words. I started with big thin fairytales with large prints that you give to 5-year-olds to teach them reading. When I finished those, I was good enough to understand most of the words of a slightly more complex books so I borrowed those and that continued with books with increasing difficulties. So basically I brought my proficiency up from poor to very good for my age group in a year. I went to the library before class started to borrow a book and read it from start to finish by recess when I borrowed another book that I would return at the end of school. I read when the between periods while waiting for the next teacher, when the teacher was not teaching, when there was no teacher (the teachers in that school sometimes, well a lot of times, had to attend to something or the other so we had a lot of free period and especially when the teacher teaching bored me. Plus, I hated being in that school so reading became my escape from the oppresive world around me then. So found my passion. I LOVED READING!! Wow! How cool was that! In addition to that, I developed the ability to speed-read without having to pay someone to teach me how to do it.
I started getting A’s in English and developed the reputation to being a walking dictionary. Being good at English in that very conservative environment wasn’t easy. They want to stay on your good side because they need to ask you to help them with their homework but I was also weird because how in the world could this girl with no discernable talent become so good at something that they are not plus it’s the language of the Colonist… yes, they did think like that.
In addition to that I had teachers whom I adored in Form Two all the way to Form Five. That really helped. I’m an emotional learner. When I learn anything, I have to be engaged emotionally by my teacher to stay motivated. Thus, Arabic was never my strong point to put it mildly, with the Troll making my life miserable.
In Form Four, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to take TESL and become an English teacher. And I did….
See, English did save my life. It gave me an escape route during my darkest time (that’s what I consider my highschool life to be), gave me self-esteem and gave me a job.
I wasn’t good at math or science. My brain just isn’t wired that way or most likely that my cognitive maturity was lacking for the math and science work that we did at that school because I remember understanding with perfect clarity what I learned at Form Three when I was in Form Four. Things ferment in my brain until I get around to understanding them. Luckily, I was smart enough to memorize things without understanding them. Otherwise, who’d know what I could’ve become. So that’s how I got along at school. I’m not saying that I was stupid but I had no passion for anything they were teaching at that school. In class, I was a little bit above average but in my heart I knew that there were more in me than that.
When I was in Form One, there was this Bruneian teacher who taught Arabic. I flourished and I aced every test- getting above 90 percent all the time. Unfortunately she was doing her practical teaching training. So she was there at most for 5 months and a Troll took over the class when she left and the way he taught was horrible. I don’t think he did any actual teaching. He came into the class, and told us to answer questions from the book one by one. If you answer it wrongly, you keep standing and if you get it right, you can sit down. That went on until the the period ended. If you were standing, and your turn came and you got it wrong, you stand on the chair and if your turn came again and you got it wrong again, you stand on the table. Guess who got to stand on the table? Yep… until I wised up.
The classes were divided into 3 and they were streamed according to our ability in Arabic and I was in the last class. All my life I’ve always been in the smart group and if I were a bit hypersensitive, it would’ve killed me. But it did leave some kind of insecurity complex that I wasn’t as bright as the others but since I was the brightest in the pool of stupidity, it didn’t get to me too much.
So how did I get wise up? I got the answers before the class but since the people I asked weren't exactly geniuses at Arabic, I got to keep standing on regular basis for old times' sake, but just on the floor. Not on the desk or even on the chair. That’s how I survived my Form One Arabic class.
We kept each other’s spirit up by thinking that it will be over at the end of the year and in Form Two, the best Arabic teacher would be teaching us. So bright eyed and bushy tailed, we waited breathlessly for our nicest Arabic teacher to walk in but no, the Troll strolled in, no pun intended. The second year slaughter continued. In Form Four, I was useless by then, we got the best Arabic teacher but the damage has already been done. I developed a resistence for anything Arabic. I tried to flunk it at the National Examination that we had to take at the end of the third year so that I could transfer school but couldn’t even manage that.
Back to the thesis statement that English saved my life. In Malaysia we learned English since we were 6 years old. That didn’t do me any good as I went to school in a rural area and nobody around me spoke English. Neither of my parents speaks the language. So I concluded that I sucked at it too.
My eldest sister (by 5 years) loved reading. She had a subscription to the Readers Digest and I couldn’t understand how she could read it. It didn’t have any interesting picture, the font was so tiny that it gives you headache so I told her so in the most scathing manner (the insolent idiot trying to look down her nose at something she didn’t understand). She tossed casually, “I challenge you to read that and understand it. I’ll bet you can’t.” I was speechless… because I couldn’t—as she says.
I walked away thinking, “I’ll show you!” but I had nothing to show. I didn’t understand the language. I was in Form 2 then I think—14 years old. I went to the library, looked at English books that I could understand most of the words. I started with big thin fairytales with large prints that you give to 5-year-olds to teach them reading. When I finished those, I was good enough to understand most of the words of a slightly more complex books so I borrowed those and that continued with books with increasing difficulties. So basically I brought my proficiency up from poor to very good for my age group in a year. I went to the library before class started to borrow a book and read it from start to finish by recess when I borrowed another book that I would return at the end of school. I read when the between periods while waiting for the next teacher, when the teacher was not teaching, when there was no teacher (the teachers in that school sometimes, well a lot of times, had to attend to something or the other so we had a lot of free period and especially when the teacher teaching bored me. Plus, I hated being in that school so reading became my escape from the oppresive world around me then. So found my passion. I LOVED READING!! Wow! How cool was that! In addition to that, I developed the ability to speed-read without having to pay someone to teach me how to do it.
I started getting A’s in English and developed the reputation to being a walking dictionary. Being good at English in that very conservative environment wasn’t easy. They want to stay on your good side because they need to ask you to help them with their homework but I was also weird because how in the world could this girl with no discernable talent become so good at something that they are not plus it’s the language of the Colonist… yes, they did think like that.
In addition to that I had teachers whom I adored in Form Two all the way to Form Five. That really helped. I’m an emotional learner. When I learn anything, I have to be engaged emotionally by my teacher to stay motivated. Thus, Arabic was never my strong point to put it mildly, with the Troll making my life miserable.
In Form Four, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to take TESL and become an English teacher. And I did….
See, English did save my life. It gave me an escape route during my darkest time (that’s what I consider my highschool life to be), gave me self-esteem and gave me a job.
posted by Joy at 10:42 PM
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