It costs a few hundred pounds. I had to drag myself out of bed every morning and made my way to UCL (By the end of the week I was wondering how on earth did I survive 6 years teaching in a Singapore school). It took up 2 weeks of my summer holidays when I can be travelling or working on my dissertation. But this Summer School is probably going to be the highlight of my year in London.
First of all, I get to meet Mona Baker and Theo Hermans. No, they are not rock musicians, but the translation studies academic circle is so small that you basically know almost all of them. Not forgetting to mention Hephzibah Israel and Kathryn Batchelor, who I have never heard of before this program, but they blow my mind away all the same. The ease with which they explain and present sophisticated ideas and theories is so awe-inspiring.
And of course you get to meet fellow translation researchers from all over the world - Finland, Argentina, Mexico, Libya, Nigeria, Ukraine (of course there are more, but these are the more exotic ones haha). When you belong to a particular institution and you only talk to fellow classmates who all attend the same classes from the same few lecturers, sooner or later your perspectives become limited. This is where this summer school helped tremendously, listening to all the different issues which people from various language pairs and research interests are dabbling in. I certainly got a few inspirations for my dissertation and also my PhD research proposal, and I regret to say that they have provided my impetus and suggestion than my supervisor (who is MIA and nobody knows what happened to him) ever did.
I have fewer than three months in London now, and out of which I will spend one month or even more travelling. There are so many places to visit and things to do, stuff which I have put off indefinitely, telling myself that I am living in London for one whole year and there was no rush. Clearly I cannot afford to do all of these things now and I need to be more selective. And I have not typed a single word for my 20,000 word dissertation, although I do have a drawer full of research articles and readings at various states of completion.
Flying off to Scandinavia in three days time! Wanderlust which I cannot restrain.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
There is a post on FB about how a student, when asked in an exam to state a similarity between a bull and a lion after observing their pictures, was marked wrong when she answered that they are both mammals. The reasoning was that the question explicitly tests observation skills and the students are supposed to infer based on the picture and not based on their own general knowledge. Of course, angry parents denounced the question and expectedly people began commenting vociferously about the inflexible school system which we have in Singapore.
To me, the root of the problem is that it is difficult to state explicitly in the instructions what you want, especially when it is a question targetted at P3 students. The question is flawed, certainly, although I am not sure what is a better way to set the question given what the setter wants to test. What amused me more, though, was the insistence that this is a manifestation of our inflexible education system.
Examinations are necessarily inflexible. They are meant to be fair, impartial methods of assessment, where the same marks will be awarded to a particular answer regardless of who the marker is. Examinations have a place in any education system, and having inflexible examinations does not necessarily entail having an inflexible education system. The problem is when the education system is so centred around examinations at the expense of other assessment methods, or even worse, at the expense of teaching and learning. That should be what we are concerned about, and not over particular questions in examinations, which are just there to help a teacher assess how much a student has learnt.
Far too often, the criticism goes on to comment about how our inflexible school system results in students who are not creative and that teachers do not teach students how to be creative. My first response to that would be: I am not sure if creativity can be taught and it can only be, at best, nurtured by allowing opportunities. My second response would be: I am not sure if Singaporean students are ready for creativity and less examination-centred education system. Just look at how PW turned out. To most Singaporeans, creativity is just a convenient excuse which they use whenever they are unhappy with the education system. Having a more tolerant and less rigid marking scheme does not really help to nurture creativity. "GP teachers force us to write in a certain way! This inhibits my creativity!" I have heard this accusation far too often. All I can say is - creativity does not mean writing in any way that you deem fit. Academic writing has certain requirements which scholars and researchers all over the world adhere to, and for good reason. Writing a rambling, disorganised, irrelevant and poorly expressed essay is not being creative - it is simply an ineffective way of writing.
Another FB comment which caught my eye was this. "When I was in primary school, I wrote 'My age is nine years old' in a composition and my English teacher marked me wrong, crossing out my sentence in red and writing above it 'I am nine years old.' The English HOD of another school said that there was nothing wrong with my original sentence. My English teacher was just too rigid and inflexible."
Yes, there might be nothing grammatically wrong with "My age is nine years old", but I cannot imagine any circumstance where a native English speaker would use this sentence. Even if I were to ask you "What is your age?", it is very unlikely that the answer would be "My age is X years old." It is an unnatural construction which signals prominently the fact that the speaker is really not very good at using English naturally. It would be irresponsible of the English not to point this out to the student. Language learning is far more than not making grammatical errors and expressing meaning accurately, a concept which seems to have eluded the English HOD and the person who posted this comment.
To me, the root of the problem is that it is difficult to state explicitly in the instructions what you want, especially when it is a question targetted at P3 students. The question is flawed, certainly, although I am not sure what is a better way to set the question given what the setter wants to test. What amused me more, though, was the insistence that this is a manifestation of our inflexible education system.
Examinations are necessarily inflexible. They are meant to be fair, impartial methods of assessment, where the same marks will be awarded to a particular answer regardless of who the marker is. Examinations have a place in any education system, and having inflexible examinations does not necessarily entail having an inflexible education system. The problem is when the education system is so centred around examinations at the expense of other assessment methods, or even worse, at the expense of teaching and learning. That should be what we are concerned about, and not over particular questions in examinations, which are just there to help a teacher assess how much a student has learnt.
Far too often, the criticism goes on to comment about how our inflexible school system results in students who are not creative and that teachers do not teach students how to be creative. My first response to that would be: I am not sure if creativity can be taught and it can only be, at best, nurtured by allowing opportunities. My second response would be: I am not sure if Singaporean students are ready for creativity and less examination-centred education system. Just look at how PW turned out. To most Singaporeans, creativity is just a convenient excuse which they use whenever they are unhappy with the education system. Having a more tolerant and less rigid marking scheme does not really help to nurture creativity. "GP teachers force us to write in a certain way! This inhibits my creativity!" I have heard this accusation far too often. All I can say is - creativity does not mean writing in any way that you deem fit. Academic writing has certain requirements which scholars and researchers all over the world adhere to, and for good reason. Writing a rambling, disorganised, irrelevant and poorly expressed essay is not being creative - it is simply an ineffective way of writing.
Another FB comment which caught my eye was this. "When I was in primary school, I wrote 'My age is nine years old' in a composition and my English teacher marked me wrong, crossing out my sentence in red and writing above it 'I am nine years old.' The English HOD of another school said that there was nothing wrong with my original sentence. My English teacher was just too rigid and inflexible."
Yes, there might be nothing grammatically wrong with "My age is nine years old", but I cannot imagine any circumstance where a native English speaker would use this sentence. Even if I were to ask you "What is your age?", it is very unlikely that the answer would be "My age is X years old." It is an unnatural construction which signals prominently the fact that the speaker is really not very good at using English naturally. It would be irresponsible of the English not to point this out to the student. Language learning is far more than not making grammatical errors and expressing meaning accurately, a concept which seems to have eluded the English HOD and the person who posted this comment.
Sitting in front of the counter in Mekong, my favourite Southeast Asian takeaway, waiting for my food to be ready. A group of three walked in and started ordering their food, three feet away from me.
"Hey, what's that?" one of them pointed to my pipa bag lying against the counter. It was one day before SOAS Music Day and I was lugging the pipa from SOAS home to practice.
"Oh, it's a pipa - erm ... a Chinese traditional musical instrument".
"Oooh show us what it is like!" The other two guys were also looking at my direction now.
I unzipped the top of the bag - exposing the carved head of the pipa with its unmistakably Oriental design.
"Shit, how cool is this?" the first guy commented to his friends. "Is it very old?"
"Hmmm.... the instrument has a long history - but this particular instrument is probably not that old"
"Is it made by hand?"
"Erm .... maybe the carving and the finishing? But most of it is probably machine made and mass produced." I feel like I am disappointing them by pointing out that the instrument is not a handmade relic from some ancient Chinese dynasty.
"Why don't you play us something?"
I hesitated.
"Come on! Show us!"
I decided I cannot afford to disappoint them further - so I took out the whole pipa and played a verse, without bothering to put on the artificial nails which will probably take me a good ten minutes. Dance of the Yi people - with its characteristic sliding notes evoking the Orient.
"Shit, how cool is this?!" the guy repeated.
"Ah - I recognise the sound. It sounds very Chinese or Japanese."
I smiled. The Vietnamese girl who took our orders has reappeared from the kitchen, realizing that there was a mini-recital happening in her small little takeaway shop.
"This is traditional music... yes? I am Italian. We love and respect our tradition too."
Our food orders are ready. I started to put the instrument back into its bag.
"Your playing was great - good luck and cheers!" The three of them smiled broadly at me before they collected their food and left the little shop.
Music is a wonderful way to connect with people. Much of my social life in London revolves around the SOAS Thai Music Society, the Silk and Bamboo Ensemble, and the community orchestra at St. Silas Church. In fact, many of my friends were musicians who had played and made music together with me in some point of my life, and I have joined more musical groups than I can count. Sadly my last few years working as a teacher prevents me from taking part in music as actively as I would have liked. I am sure it will not stay this way after I go back to Singapore.
"Hey, what's that?" one of them pointed to my pipa bag lying against the counter. It was one day before SOAS Music Day and I was lugging the pipa from SOAS home to practice.
"Oh, it's a pipa - erm ... a Chinese traditional musical instrument".
"Oooh show us what it is like!" The other two guys were also looking at my direction now.
I unzipped the top of the bag - exposing the carved head of the pipa with its unmistakably Oriental design.
"Shit, how cool is this?" the first guy commented to his friends. "Is it very old?"
"Hmmm.... the instrument has a long history - but this particular instrument is probably not that old"
"Is it made by hand?"
"Erm .... maybe the carving and the finishing? But most of it is probably machine made and mass produced." I feel like I am disappointing them by pointing out that the instrument is not a handmade relic from some ancient Chinese dynasty.
"Why don't you play us something?"
I hesitated.
"Come on! Show us!"
I decided I cannot afford to disappoint them further - so I took out the whole pipa and played a verse, without bothering to put on the artificial nails which will probably take me a good ten minutes. Dance of the Yi people - with its characteristic sliding notes evoking the Orient.
"Shit, how cool is this?!" the guy repeated.
"Ah - I recognise the sound. It sounds very Chinese or Japanese."
I smiled. The Vietnamese girl who took our orders has reappeared from the kitchen, realizing that there was a mini-recital happening in her small little takeaway shop.
"This is traditional music... yes? I am Italian. We love and respect our tradition too."
Our food orders are ready. I started to put the instrument back into its bag.
"Your playing was great - good luck and cheers!" The three of them smiled broadly at me before they collected their food and left the little shop.
Music is a wonderful way to connect with people. Much of my social life in London revolves around the SOAS Thai Music Society, the Silk and Bamboo Ensemble, and the community orchestra at St. Silas Church. In fact, many of my friends were musicians who had played and made music together with me in some point of my life, and I have joined more musical groups than I can count. Sadly my last few years working as a teacher prevents me from taking part in music as actively as I would have liked. I am sure it will not stay this way after I go back to Singapore.
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