inferiority complex thy suffer…

The title was inspired by the textbooks.
It was instant culture shock. The moment i step in class is to behold a melting pot of culture from different generations.Some is even older than my parents.

There’s one Venezuelan girl who speaks spanish EXACTLY like in the telenovelas we  watch on TV.The SAME accent , the SAME gestures( remember how they love to move their head up  when they speak, mcm action kite buat bile kite cakap " well, you know me!") and check this out, she ’s downright georgeous she must have played any watak sampingan in those telenovelas.

Apart from her, theres one Korean woman, a taiwanese couple, A middle -aged man from argentina, one chinese from cheras, one Thailand guy who came to malaysia for british council purposes only( his name was very hard to pronounce), and a bunch of boarding school students fom SEMESTA, MRSM,RMC and SAB.

The teacher is a very tall guy with sandy brown hair and glasses like aijud’s.

" Good morning everyone, my name is Nathan Lomax from Wolverhampton, UK.theres nothing there but a couple of factories.They called it Mid -England, kind of like Middle -Earth."

The way they learn english here is very unconventional, but in a sort of way of not trying too hard to be one, not childish at all.( think alah…buat ni lagi…).
I mean, they have to, note that the class come from various age background.takkan laki umor 40 tahun nak buat cheer kot?

Think unconventional, u’ll be expecting a lot of presentations, group discussions and Q&A right?
Well its kinda the same thing but everyones loosens up doing it, some might say spontaneous yet nonchalant.Not too unformal where everyone shouts but just going with flow.Nobody is trying to impress anybody, completely no air of hidden competiton among ourselves mcm yg kite slaloo rasa dlm klas kat skolah..
Relaxed, is the right word.

There’s no dread in the stomach in fear of being chosen for a presentation and theres no anxiety of who should start first.

Remember when a teacher asks a question and request a volunteer, we have this queasy feeling in our stomach pits?
I dunno how nathan did it, but  that particular feeling that is supposed to be there  didnt even exist.
Which is good, becoz nobody is calling anybody a show-off, even hiddenly.
You can actually feel that theres no tension among us.No one felt left alone or lagged behind.
And it never felt so good .

I remember being mildly surprised when a group got the most points correct, we (other losing groups)were all clapping in a celebratory mood.The main contributor ( Lynn,a nice young lady from Taiwan) was flailing her arms in the air.
Theres no grudge at all, no people talking (eleh! beza 2 jer) at the back which is sooo typical malay-mind set, and we were genuinely happy for the group.
I cant remember the last time i went to an academic class in this kind of atmosphere.
And of course, no inferiority complex.

Touching on other subject,what british council did to me was not teaching me english, but rather correcting them so it can be acceptable in the international arena, where everybody around the globe will understand.

So i have to forget evrything i picked up in malaysian english conversations from as simple as

1."Dont wash your car first "  to   "Dont wash your car yet"

2."Last time, there werent many cars in KL"  to " In those days/In my time/…, there werent many cars in KL."

3."My brother works in Kajang "            to      "My brother works in kajang"
"Is it? My brother too!  "                                "He is? So does mine!"

And i love to use this( note the Italic phrase)…which i have no choice but to forget my love

4."I’m going to pasar malam tonight."     to    " I’m going to pasar malam tonight"
   "Is it? Me too! "                                             "Are you? So am I."

The phrases in Italic and Bold are not blatantly wrong but only technically wrong in terms of conversation usage . In malaysia, it might be acceptable but when u travel abroad, they might sound inaproppriate.

By the way,The White Board is so cool.
Its an Active Board , a cutting edge technology where when the projection is on from the computer onto board, u can write with a special marker on the projection screen. macam pen PDA yg boleh tulis2 atas skrin 2.
marker tulah mouse, drag, penulis, boleh tuka kaler,nak alih skrin hitam pon pakai marker tu.Konon nya black screen 2 langsir, tutup bile jwb soalan pastu mcm ader lobang kt tepi skrin yg bile marker letak kat situ , boleh bukak langsir utk tau answers. cool tak?

Fine. Enough bragging.
lessons’s over .Chop! Chop!

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