Najibu the video game journalist?

All my life, I've had little choice in determining my own future. Almost everything was set by my parents. I wanted to be an artist. But NO, said my parents, and here I am today a teacher. I don't begrudge them for that. I'm sure all they want is a better life for me, and as a matter of fact, I'm doing pretty well. But ultimately, this isn't what I REALLY wanted for myself.

Having almost completely giving up on arts, my only interest now is video games. Saying that I'm 'interested' in video games, however, is a gross understatement. It's passion. Naturally, I'd want a work that I can channel my passion into. So when I heard GameAxis, the only real video game magazine in the country was looking for a writer, I knew I had to give it a shot.

I haven't heard anything back since I sent my resume for about a month, so I figured I must have not made the cut. Yet on one inconspicuous Friday, after a less than thrilling day at school, an unknown number rang up my phone, told me he was the editor of GAX, and that had been shortlisted to be interviewed for the job. I had to restrain myself from jumping in joy lest I bring down the shaky wooden house I live in.

Flash forward a week later, on the morning before the interview, one Brian Ekberg, an editor from Gamespot whom I used to admire just notified on twitter that he had resigned for another job. This post he left on his blog, which seemed just perfect to amp up my motivation for the interview, seemed to me to either be a really good coincidence, or that God was telling me that I am on the right path.

Later that day, I was there at the WriteOn Media office where I was to be interviewed. My wife, all the way with me has been very supportive and patient enough to wait at the lounge for the duration of the 2.5 hour interview. I can't thank her enough for that. Inside the interview room, that much time passed without me even realising it. I was talking to Terence Stephen, the editor-in-chief of GAX, a man who, like myself is deeply passionate about the industry. He was quite surprised to find out I am a teacher, but then again, he had had interviewees who are even lawyers and architects. There I was, in an interview for a job, and the interviewer was asking me questions like, "what's your favourite game?" It was surreal.

As part of the interview, I was tasked to write an article about a game, any game, between 500 to 800 words in about an hour. As much as I like writing about games, juggling between work and play had not left me much time to be writing a lot of game related stuff lately, so pulling off a well written article in an allotted amount of time was actually harder that it sounds. After giving it some thought, I decided to write a review of Blur, a game which I had intended to write a review for but never had the time and commitment to actually sat down and write.

Now all that's left is for me to wait. As much as I want this job, I don't think I'll be devastated if I were to be rejected. I'm a greenhorn with zero experience in journalism after all. However, Mr. Terence was kind enough to inform me that they're still looking for freelancers aside from the one full-time writer they will choose from the interview and the fact that I got shortlisted from god knows how many applicants was already pleasing enough for me. Regardless of wether I get the job, the interview was an experience that I won't likely forget... but man, it sure would be nice if I do get the job =)

Movie day with students

During the past 1 year, this beginner English teacher has been trying different methods to get students' attention, to get them to like, even, this language that is seemingly unnecessary to them. So today I've tried something that I've never attempted before. I called them for a special lesson. To watch an English movie!

Out of the 44 invited students, merely half of them decided to show up including 3 or 4 who stayed at the hostel. Most of them were from the A class, and only 2 of them were male.

The movie was 'Horton Hears a Who', a movie which I had watched for more times than I cared to count and had enjoyed tremendously. I also find the movie very suitable as the language used weren't too hard and there was narration peppered throughout the movie. It's also fortunate that none of them had ever watched the movie. For the purpose of learning, I intentionally put the English subtitles on, despite urges from the kids to switch to Malay. Not that I had that option in the first place.

It was supposed to start at 9.30, but some technical hitches and glitches stalled the showing time for about half an hour. Being the IT savvy person I am, (heh!) I got the situation under control. And so the movie played on.

It was an awkward moment I tell you. There were scenes which were supposed to be funny but the room was just completely silent. They only responded to joke which has to do with gestures. The ones that involve dialogue - none whatsoever. It's clear what the problem here is.

Teacher, cannot understand!!

By the mid point, I find that I was about the only one still giving a crap about the movie, as most of them were either busy with their expensive cellies or just having a forum with their buddies. Some even left midway through the movie. I didn't try to stop them as I didn't made this session compulsory in the first place.

At the end of it, there were about 14 students left and I did get some good feedback from them. They didn't get a whole lot out of the movie, but they at least learnt a few new words. It's not significant, but it's meaningful enough to justify having another movie day in the future.

My only big disappointment is that I could have used that 3 hours playing more games!(and by extension, more achievements)! I only hope the students can appreciate this sacrifice I made by giving me money doing well in their coming tests.

A foreshadowing, maybe.

If this is a sign of things to come, I already know that I'm going to absolutely LOVE going out on meetings this year.

Last Sunday, I was reluctantly forced to get off the island in order to attend a PMR registration briefing in Rompin the following day. So I had all the things that they told me to; a laptop and a list of names for my school's PMR candidates.

It wasn't until the night before the briefing that I realized that I was just carrying an over-sized paperweight. The laptop wouldn't boot! Stupid government laptop. What was I to do...

OK, so here's the plan I came up with: Just bring the laptop anyways. Pretend that I didn't know it was broken, switch it on, and then *gasp!*, play the role of an innocent "I didn't know what happened" man. Well, turns out that the was hardly a need to bring a laptop in the first place, since they gave us a CD with everything we need in it.

The briefing was scheduled to end at 12. Great, that meant I could still catch a boat back at 1. 12.15 came but still there were no signs of the briefing ending soon. I was already tapping my foot impatiently. By 12.30, I mustered my courage and told the guy in charge that I had to leave lest I couldn't get back in time. Lucky me, the good man understood my circumstances.

The trip from Rompin to Mersing would usually take an hour if I didn't want any speeding ticket - and of course I wouldn't. Keeping in mind that the ferry NEVER leaves on time anyways, I decided to give it a shot.

I did arrive just in the nick of time. At 1.20, the ferry was calling for boarding. Walking triumphantly towards the thing, I figured that I had indeed made it. I was so wrong. The ticket guy said that it was full! Despite my pleas and convincing, he wouldn't let a single poor teacher on. I swear, I should've resorted to threats.

Hopeless, I thought it would be best if I returned to my hometown, which was only 2 hours drive from there. I woul've stopped at the Seng's house, but I didn't want to wait until he gets back from school. That night, I learned that his school had switched to morning session, so he was actually at home at the time. Danked!

Ah... one misstep after another. Meetings, please don't treat me as mean next time, I really want to start liking this job for once.

What I've Done

The PMR trial results from all the schools across the district have been gathered a few weeks back and I've received words of the analysis.

For the English subject, my school managed to place no 16!

16, as a number isn't bad at all. It's just a digit away from making into the top 15. It's also within the top 20 so that's still a rather good feat.

16, when put into context of there being only 17 schools in the district however, becomes decidedly less flattering.

It wasn't just the students who failed. I failed as well.

Maybe next year, I should just ditch all those story books, songs and 'English is fun' stuff altogether for a more 'do exercises til you die, you maggots!' approach. They didn't seem to work anyways.

Teaching English - Futile

Note: I have noticed that my brain is functioning much slower lately. I have been in instances where I had to think before a word comes to my mind. So, to exercise my degenerating mental prowess, I have took it upon myself to produce an academic writing during my free time at school. The result is the following, my personal opinion of the teaching of English in rural schools, or to be more specific, the school in which I am teaching in. I wasn't too pleased with the outcome, but as a mental exercise, it serves it's purpose.

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Meaning-focused input, form-focused instruction, meaning-focused output, and fluency. The four strands that I was constantly reminded during my student days as the core components of language learning. Through my experience teaching so far (which, admittedly isn't that long), I have come to notice that there are much more factors that come into play before it is even possible to reach the four strands. One tha stands out most to me is not on our part as the educator, but rather on the students and their role in language learning.

One: The first being, the students' own willingness to ingest the input given by the teacher. I have tried my best to use English in my classroom. English, which I gone through a lot of trouble to dumb down to more suit my learners; level. Yet so day, my teaching in English had resulted in futility simply because there is a mental barrier set up in the students' conundrum, almost as if there is a switch that automatically registers English words as unrecognizable gibberish.

The mental barrier condemns the students' language learning to their submission to "I don't know English". strangely enough, I get that sentence (gramatically correct, I might add), so often that proves their statement wrong. One has to wonder that the real situation isn't that they do not understand, but rather, they refuse to understand any input they receive.

Two: The next factor stems the issue that (my) students aren't at all keen in using English. Not in class, and most definitely not outside of it. Without having a consciouss choice to actually practice what they've learnt (also, considering that nothing might have been learnt in the first place!), there will not be a chance for neither meaning-focused output nor fluency practice to take place.

These two factors I propose come from a deep-rooted issue which I have come to identify - the source of why English learning seemed to be such an impossiblity. A point, that I will discuss in my third and final point.

Three: I have conducted a semi-formal interview with a number of my students in my school. The following were the three questions that I asked:

1. Do you watch English movies/shows?


2. Do you listen to English music?


3. Do you like English?

My findings revealed that the vast majority openly voiced their dislike for English movies, even those with feature Malay subtitles. English music fared a little better but the bombshell was that about 90% of them plainly admitted that they do not like English at all (of note, they didn't seem to like most of the other subjects either). Interestingly, my two best students - whose 'best' is most probably comparable to 'mediocre' to the better schools out there - are those who rather enjoy watching and listening to English materials.

It's a clear fact - and I know that my colleagues are surely aware of this - that there is a very strong relation between the students' own interest in a target language and their capacity to learn the language. So perhaps, instead of wasting the effort on actual language teaching, the first step would be by winning the students over to liking the language. The killer question is 'how'. I've tried from storybooks to videos to songs and nothing worked so far. I am at the point where I start to wonder if there is any hope to teach English to (most of) my students.

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Another work related rant

So I went to this 2 day course which bafflingly calls itself a 'pedagogy course' last course last week. Funny, I wonder what exactly is pedagogic about having to give x number of exercises is y amount of time all in the name of ensuring A.

One of the highlights of said course was a 40 minute discussion on whether students should be penalized for writing a title for their summary. For me, it was like whatever man... we want to test theit summarising skill so let their summary be the judging point, but if you wanna punish 'em, OK, why not, sure, whatever you like... Oh it was totally maddening being in there...

Thank you for the fish

[CONTENT HAS BEEN DELETED]

The teacher I was pissed off with apologised. Maybe she felt bad about it. Maybe she noticed me being glum about it. Whatever the case is, as a show of good will, I'm going to forget all about it and delete what I've written in this post. So there.

St. Anger

If my 8 months experience of teaching had taught me something, its that classroom is a battlefield, anger is the weapon, and victory and respect are earned through fear.

Now, I do not get angry easily. Perhaps even unhealthily so. I’m just not the type to shout at people. Heck, I can’t even talk smack properly. Being at school, my patience had been tested to its very limits time and again. If I were to have a limit break gauge, I’d say it’s been filled up more times this year than the last 22 years combined!

A few weeks ago the worst I could do was just vent my anger through verbal means. Last week, I smacked a in the back kid for fooling around in class and today, I pulled a kid’s ear for not listening to me in class, pretty hard too. Lately, I’ve been getting angry pretty more and more often, and I started to realize; you get angry one too many times and anger becomes you.

I hate getting angry… It drains the energy out of me. It makes me feel bad about myself..

But, I have been able to control the class much better these days. The kids are paying attention in class like they’ve never been before. So, I’m completely torn now. Should I put a cap on my limit gauge and go back to the likeable teacher who everyone ignores and eventually forgets, or do I let the rage consume me and be a teacher everyone fears but will be remembered for the rest of their life, in a good or bad way.

And then there’s that other option : be done with teaching and start a video game retail empire!! Mwahahahahahaha *coughs*



*Title inspired by Metallica's St. Anger, from their Some Kind of Monster album. Wicked

Nothing Box

So I was made in charge of a certain co-curricular body called RIMUP (Rancangan Integrasi Utk Perpaduan, for the unitiated) recently. The teacher who was previously in charge of it told me how last year was the best and about the many activities they he had carried out last year. He went on and on talking about how I should handle it...

I think at least half an hour passed...

at the end of that oh-so-tiring-I'm-not-even-listening-1 way conversation, he told me not to worry about anything and look at last year's file to get me up to speed with my latest position..

He also gave me all sorts of books related to the job.

Later that night, I went to get said file from the office.

There was nothing in it.....

Nothing Box performed by Hypnogaja, was the 1st song I heard from Hypnogaja and I really like it. Good song.

Too much, too young, too fast

So much work, so little time.

Thanks to these administrative jobs I'm 'offered' 24 hours is no longer enough. On a normal day, I go to school around 10a.m and return home at 7, rest for a couple of hours and then back to school until 11p.m at the earliest. Overtime has simply become routine.

And the best part is that most of the so called 'work' I do doesn't even involve teaching. I barely have time to really sit and think how to teach in my next lessons. It really makes me rethink my line of profession. Am I a teacher, or am I a clerk? Maybe a teaching clerk??

Oh,I think the best answer is a zombie.



*Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast is a song that, if memory serves, performed by The Airborne. It's kind of messy but its alright. 3 stars