Masa – It has indeed been an honour and a privelege to have a student such as yourself in my class. I think you have benefited the most by far, as you have acquired a lot of language skills in the short time you were at Turning Point. I do hope that your new job is treating you well in Ashburton, and that you will come back to us in Christchurch again in the near future, perhaps to start the Upper Intermediate course?
Good luck and keep in touch!

The English teacher for me in NZ is Mr,Abdullah.
He has many sort of ways teaching English In funny ways.
I have not been taught such interesting approaches before.
It may be because of his personality.
He is a teacher and also a student in University,so I mean ,He has big motivation about How to teach ,
How to make every student memorizes deeply into bottom of our brain by interesting ways.
His teaching skill is great enough but He can not stop making progress.
He seem never satisfied with studying about teaching.

I am really happy to see him .
He certain is great teacher ,I know that but You know?
sometimes I feel He is not just teacher like a friend who I can depend on.

If you had a chance to be taught by him . You will see everything I said in this comment .

I am a shy parson as many Japanese are .
but To be honest my time I spent with him in school is my life time precious.

Abdullah , Please keep your big effort and nice character.

Masa

Thanks Abdullah!

Hafiz

You do paint a very realistic picture of what I believe is happening all over the country.

I find it to be very interesting that you mention the move the government has carried out to relocate students with higher proficiency to your more rural settings. It is interesting in the sense that the move can be seen as a two-edged sword, the first edge being to improve the standard of English by providing a better learning model and more opportunities for the rural students to learn. However, as we all know, the reality would actually be closer to a backlash, where they local students become intimidated and may even totally switch off as they feel threatened by the more proficient compatriots.

Nevertheless, we have to try to make the students see the other side, which is a better chance to learn. I believe that the first thing that has to be done is to level the playing field. This does not mean bringing the more proficient students down, but it does mean bridging the psychological gap between the two groups. This can be done by focusing on things the ‘weaker’ group can do, or even just by creating a learning atmosphere where students all feel comfortable with one another.
Heightening the sense of solidarity will do wonders in lowering the affective filter of the students, making them more susceptible to learn.

What techniques have you tried thus far in overcoming the problem?

I would say that trying to make students speak English in class will be the most daunting task an English teacher would have to face in my school. This is even more apparent within the context of preparing the students for the Malaysian University Englist Test, where one of the component requires them to speak individually and in groups.

Normally, I would prepare them early – usually within the first few months of the initiation of the whole semester. And again as mentioned, ‘persuading to’ and ‘making them’ speak early in the beginning of the semester is so difficult. Many would not take it seriuosly as the reason is that the examination is still ‘far away’.

So here it seems that there is indeed another ‘illness of norms’ that has befallen our students – the tendency to wait until the last minute to study, which I am sure is also most rampant in many schools all over the country.

In addition, the complexity and seriousness of such matter are sometimes aggravated by the fact that recently, as the government has made the place where I am teaching ‘more accessible’ to people, there have been sudden influxes of ‘smart students’ – students who have to follow their re-posted parents from towns and cities. These students could be easily identified by the bright, vivacious complexions that they have as opposed to the rather gloomy, sullen ones of the native students. And of course, being born and raised in cities and towns, their quality of English is so much better.

As a result, such situation indirectly affects the native students’ confidence in using the language. Many of them would feel rather intimidated by the rather higher level of mastery shown by the ‘smart’ students that they choose to surrender or remain non-chalant in class, especially during speaking lessons, where obviously, they are concerned about being laugh at if they make mistakes.

Then of course, to aggravate the problem of lack of confidence, there exist the ever-so-familiar rural norm where sitting or studying too close with someone of the oposite sex is inappropriate. Inter-gender communication in class is often kept to a minimum, and disapproving expressions and grunts normally appear when they are being asked to group up or pair up with members of the opposite sex.

However, I would not blame the students for the apparent scenario in perhaps every schools in Malaysia that they are just so comfortable being spoonfed. The education system, sadly, is to be blamed. As with the context at hand, the students are generally eager to work independently, but they just do not know how as they have not been trained to do so.

In addition, there is also the fear that what they independently learn might not be in-line with what is needed to answer the examination questions correctly in order to get as much As as posssible. Clearly, the students will never achieve the true aim of learning a language if their main objective is merely to get an A for English.

So here, perhaps a more ’rounded’ an efficient testing method is necessary to ensure that learning English in classrooms in Malaysia does not, in one hand, prepares the students to get the highly-cherished A in their examinations, but on the other hand, defeats the real purpose of learning a language.

The second step of my evolution as a teacher was that I went towards Type B, but not being a complete doormat. Believe it or not, I would usually schedule a ‘meltdown’ somewhere in the middle of the year so the students do not forget who is boss. It sort of looks like I am in a rage and I lose control, but in actual fact it is all premeditated. Just a classroom management technique that had helped tremendously when I was teaching in school hehe… In university I usually employ another tack. I use a dominant style of Type D: The Comedian mixed with elements of your Type C and the other 2 types as well.
I use humour to entertain the students, and I also use cutting humour to reprimand the students, so they remember their episodes of ‘public humiliation’ on a very controlled scale.

There are actually a few more types to choose from aren’t there? At the end of the day, one always has to experiment to see which works best.