another second breathe

Venue:
Lastnite's tutorial, 2000 hr-2200 hr

Event:
Azlan was reading the story of "Jall the Tall Boy"

Objective:
To familiarize the students to the pronunciation of the words ending with "all"

Note:
The way to pronounce "all" is quite the same with the malay pronunciation of "ol".
e.g. sekolah

Cronology:
(Voice over: Teacher Nurul)

--start of event--

page 1: Title - Jall, the Tall Boy [pronounciation check: Jall (/) tall (/).] - Good start

page 2: Jall is a tall boy [pronounciation check: Jall (/) tall (/)] - Orite. He gets the idea now.

page 3: He likes to play ball [pronounciation check: ball (/)] - Doesn't seem so hard, rite Azlan? ok continue...

page 4: Jall likes to shop in the mall too [pronounciation check: Jall (/) mall (/)] - Orite. go on..

page 5: Jall also likes to play ball in the hell

.....

sub event:-

Teacher Nurul menundukkan kepale dan melepaskan gelak yg x tertahan. tindakan reflex, totally. dlm kepale mengimaginkan Jall playing ball in the hell ....





suare dari blkg: teacher, kenape teacher gelak? (Nidal)

Teacher Nurul agkt muke n tgk Azlan terpisat-pisat kompiuss..

Teacher Nurul: Azlan, how to pronounce this? (pointed at the word mall)

Azlan: mall (as in mol)

Teacher Nurul: Orite good. if u pronounce this as mall, then how would u pronounce this? (pointed at the word hall)

Azlan: (pondering......) aaa... h a l l ? (as in hol)

Teacher Nurul: yess... hall. not hell orite.....?

Azlan: (nod+tersengeh sengeh)


--end of event--




thru out d next 45 minutes diz line keeps playin' in Teacher Nurul's head:

she's in the saturday's class.
cute girl, chinese-look, soft spoken (so soft i barely hear words she said). has 2 ugly-yet-kiut gigi kapak n dats d 1st thing dat i notice when she opened her mouth. nice girl, very nice. d kind dat u'll like d 1st time u lay eyes on her.

nway..

despite all d kiutness, she's a little bit of a daydreamer, tulis lambat, lambat pikap, pasif so as to say. one second u pull your attention away from her and off she goes to her lalaland..n u have to ketuk kuat sikit in order to get her back on her 2 feet n continue wher she'd stop.
so, since day 1 i am being a little pushy on her, extra attention on her as compared to d others, n have to always double triple check on her

"umairah, r u orite?"

"umairah, did u write down d definitions?"

"umairah did you hear what your friends say?"


and on and on...

but d kiutness still ther, no matter how garang teacher turns out to be.
still, at the end of d class, take my hand n kiss it n tell me 1 or 2 of her little world stories.

"teacher, hari ni kan, umairah dgn umi nak pegi swimming pool..dkt precint 16. teacher xnk pegi ke?"

"teacher, lastweek ade sportsday dekat sekolah sbb tu umairah xdtg tutorial"

"teacher, haritu pegi sekolah baba ade hari keluarge"


and lastweek, i promise to God had i known d truth i won't be dat hard on her. turns out all diz time i thot she is 10 years old. so i always compared her with her friends her age.

lastwik, as usual, i assigned d students with a number of new words n they have to look up for d definitions in dictionary. it's a good train for them 2b acquainted with the dictionary n d right way to use it. n to my suprise after 10 minutes, most of d students had finished at least 60% of d assigned words, but umairah hasn't found 1!

dat was my 1st day handling a 2-group session, d seniors and d newcomers so i'm putting in double efforts to cover both groups' syllabus. so when i saw dat umairah hasn't yet found definitions for any of d assigned words,

...............................................................................................................................................................

humph!

cut d story short, i asked ashran, a 7-year old newcomer to look up d word 'wok' that umairah was looking for(wic she spent more than 10 minutes lookin' 4 it), and within seconds ashran managed to find it.

i said to umairah "ashran pon boleh jumpe, die darjah 1, umairah darjah berape?"

"umairah darjah 2"


momentarily halt.


"umairah darjah berape?"

"darjah 2"


monolog: darjah 2? bukan darjah 4 ke? jap3..umairah....darjah 2...?

ya Allah....



with dat heavy-with-guilt heart, i let d monolog goes n showed her d step by step process on how to look up words in dictionary and even write down the sequence abc till z on d paper to ease d look-up process. (evrytime i ask her if diz letter comes b4/after dat letter she'll softly reads abc sampai z then onli she can answer. pity innocent little girl)

stil monolog running: umairah darjah 2...ya Allah. i m being very hard on her all diz time


n @ d end of d class, i hug her, n apologize..

n giv her extra homework (still) n pesan to tell her umi she has homework 2b submit nextwik n ask her 2 ask 4 her umi's assistance

still with d kiutness, she took my hand, n kiss it. n she left.

i hope i get d chance to c her next wiken.








tibe2 dari arah belakang:

"teacher, teacher, macam mane nak buat gaye dragon?"




not 2b continued with dat stori. intentionally left hang ther. haha.
1 thing 4 sure, dat question caused me a 30-minutes silent treatment from the person. aisshhhh...