30 Jun 2009

End of Literature class



Its the last day of class and I invited my 'children' for a bit of home cooked lunch. Dilshore, Kudret and Ikram came in their own car but Isil, Liang and Marilynn came with me. Tim could not make it because he was working. A pity that. I wanted to keep in touch with him because he interests me, that boy. I like his quirky humour, his irreverent personality and his independence, which is quite typical of the average American boy I think. The Turks are close knit and shy but always tries to take advantage of you when you least expect it. Liang the girl from Beijing was very shy at first but warmed up towards the end but her poor English and worse pronunciation made it difficult for her to be understood. I wonder what she'll do if she fails this semester. Dilshore, from Uzberkistan is very hardworking. He's older than the boys from Turkey and more mature too in his attitude and thinking. We had a number of interesting discussions while waiting for the others to turn up in class because he is always early. One topic we talked about is the attitude of many Malay students - he could not understand why so many still find it difficult to speak and understand English after learning it for 11 years. Well,neither can I - its something I've questioned time and again. And now that the government is emphasizing English once more, the Malay zealots are once again protesting - to protect the sovereignity of the Malay language it seems! When will they realise that without English we cannot go far in trade and commerce and that to progress we all need to be proficient in English?

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