The Learning Teacher

I got an sms informing me of Michael Jackson’s death this morning. It was a little odd. It was at 6 something in the morning! News like this is usually sent to me when a friend or relative dies. it was sad news nonetheless.

Michael Jackson was a public figure and the world never really knew the private man. We may have got some glimpses of him when his eccentricities emerged in the media. Yet we were led to believe that we knew the man.

I grew up on MJ’s music among others. Even as news of his death reached me, the first of his songs that rang in my mind was ‘Ben’. A lovely song which was my favourite as an adolescent … the words “you got a place to go” meant a lot to me then and it still does. The bizarre thing I discovered even then was the song was written for a movie about rats on a rampage!! Much later in his career, his song, ‘You Are Not Alone’ became a personal favourite. There are a whole lot of other favourites but these remain my all time special MJ songs.

MJ is dead. I guess most people either liked him or hated him. There would be a few who would have been indifferent to him. But I guess we never knew the man. We only saw the artist and the performer and that is not really him … just a part of what was projected to us by the media circus.

I just heard someone say: No more Michael Jackson. Not sure if that is true. MJ is dead. But stories will emerge and he will continue to fascinate those whom he had enthralled.

For his music and brilliance we should be grateful. Maybe now that he is dead the world will be less severe on the man for what we were led to believe of him.

Hope he finds peace in death which seemed elusive in life.

Many of you will be surprised that I am blogging about my dogs. Well, be surpised, then!! Little change from ELT!!!

Just as we were getting into a nice routine with our first dog, Princesse, we decided to adopt a second. We found our first puppy, Princesse, in a playground new our house.  She saved us a trip to the SPCA. Princesse had been abandoned because of her gender, I am quite sure.

Princesse is about 18 months now - her actual age we will never know but treat 8th  Dec as her birthday as we found her on that day. Life has never been the same since that day for all of us!

Princesse is a friendly dog and loves people. We had hoped that she would be our guard dog but we call her a watch dog as she loves watching people go by or stop and play with her!

Since Princesse has been such a dismal guard dog but a wonderful pet, we decided to take a friend’s advice that if there were two dogs, they will be less afraid and would make good guard dogs. So we decided to get a second puppy.

We found our puppy through a website called www.petfinder.com We saw his picture and decided we will adopt him. His owner unable to keep him had placed him with SPCA.  We picked him up on a Saturday and a new life began for all of us!

We have called our new doggie addition Duke - a great companion for a Princesse surely! He is a great puppy - full of energy and mischief. The last few days have been spent getting him to understand some basic ground rules - the waterbowl is for drinking water  not to play splash! And that water plants should be left alone. Education is a slow process.

I was at the MELTA conference in Johor Baru and found it to be both stimulating and enjoyable. I really enjoyed listening to the MELTA Patron HRH Raja Zarith and found Prof. Dato Ibrahim Bajunid’s talk stimulating and thought provoking.

I also want to congratulate the MELTA committee for its MELT-A Heart community project! It was good to see so many generous participants of the conference give so generously. Won’t it be wonderful if a book distributor or bookseller is willing to donate by matching the number of books donated by the general public? It would be excellent if corporate sponsors come forward and support MELTA’s efforts to raise the standard of English in Malaysia. I hope this campaign will grow over the years and new dimensions will be added to it.

It was also good to meet up with my ex-students and ELT colleagues from all over the country and world. Having attended the MELTA conference over the years, I could help noticing a younger and different set of Malaysian presenters at the conference. I am not sure if it was the location or was there a change of guards going on.

I was glad to meet many of my students from years ago who were at times surprised I still knew their names and many were gracious when I could not put a name to that once familiar face. It was both a time for reminiscing and networking for the future - so that was great!

It was good to be at the MELTA conference and not worry if the presenters were in their rooms or if the LCD projector had broken down  ….. after many years of organising the conference, it was good to see others taking on the responsibilities and doing such a great job.

It is easier to be amused at the antics of participants and presenters when one is not an organiser. I was at the Conference Secretariat when 2 foreign presenters tried to wrangle their presenters’ certificate without having to present their papers! They claimed they had to go to their embassy to vote (like they did not know when the election day was before they came to the conference). When they were told they will not be given the cetificates, they somehow managed to solve their voting problems and present at the conference.  There are  more tales to tell about presenters  …. I will just narrate one more … there are also presenters who expect MELTA to be hospitable and feed their spouses and family members (they claim they do it in their country - great but MELTA cannot afford to do it!!!) Good grief (am not using my usual b-h-word!) Why don’t these people understand that food is catered according to paid registered participants and MELTA is not a rich organisation or the late Mother Theresa who might want to want feed all and sundry who decide to accompany the presenters to the conference!! 

It is not easy organising a conference and I appreciate the work that goes into planning and carrying out a successful conference. This has been a particularly difficult year for getting sponsorship. But all seems to have worked out well for MELTA and am happy for that.

There is so much talk about the need to improve the standard of the English language in Malaysia. It will be great if more sponsors will come forth and support voluntary organisations like MELTA who work for this cause. Words come easy but many corporations don’t put money where their mouths are! 

This is the conference season. There are ELT conferences happening all over the world and Malaysia.  I am sure I will be meeting more colleagues as we travel to Bangkok in August for the Asia TEFL Conference.

See you there, if not here.