The semester has drawn to a close, and as always the students feel a need to celebrate after completing their final paper.
It is a time of joy and happiness. A time where they get to know that their sleepless nights studying and completing assignments has paid off.
Here I am, at the KFC in Jusco here in Taman Universiti, with a group of my First Year TESL students, having the time of my life talking with them about how the semester had been for them. We all joke about and tell funny stories, recollecting the good and the not so good times we had during the semester... And then to wrap things up, they ask me to make a formal speech.
Everyone pipes down and focuses their attention to me.
I look around the table, focus on each smiling face, and suddenly feel myself transported to the times when I was in class with them...
They were a mixed bunch, some very good, some good, some not so, and some quite bad in terms of language proficiency and ability to analyse literature. I remember pushing them hard in class, in their assignments, in their presentations, even in their social network pages. Sometimes I was at wits end just trying make sure they were able to analyse, interpret, and substantiate their views, because they were just so used to very superficial analyses practiced in secondary schools. In every class I was always on about how they had to go deeper into the text, to analyse the text inside and outside, to form matured opinions and be able to express them like adults, instead of schoolchildren...
But in the end they made it...
And my consciousness flashes back to the present, to the smiling eyes waiting for me to speak. Each pair a filled with promise and hope, to fulfill their destinies as future builders of the nation's future.
I am so proud of them.
I smile, and start my speech...
Comments
and cik lah, you are always a good lecturer and now, i think i can understand how you feel. ^_^
My Mama said how come she didn't have English literature back when she was studying at UTM? It was more or less like what she studied at secondary school, lucky she went to a good one, or else.... hahahaha... purrr...meow!
Cat - that's cos ur mama didn't take TESL..hehehe...
Well, the literature works well for the romantics. Perhaps there should be a greater emphasis on romanticism. But again, we don't have to be romantic to under what romance is.
Hilmi - yarra pleasure... Hehehe... Indee my students learnt about Romanticism and the Romantic Period... And were they shocked to find out that it had nothing to do with trashy novels.. Haha!!