Previously… Day Three Postscript: Port Dickson Before heading up to KL, we took photos at the A Famosa fort (from a distance), the submarine museum (just the exterior), and stopped for some keria which were super delicious when still warm. Especially in the rain-cooled air. As we headed north for Kuala Lumpur, we passed the Melaka Zoo! That was a delightful surprise. However, we did not stop. When Irfan took the wheel once more, I fell asleep when we entered the PLUS Highway. Apparently I was asleep for almost an hour. When I woke up we were back on the Federal road somewhere in the sticks in the state of Negeri Sembilan. Ain and Irfan were navigating their way towards Port Dickson. It was touch and go because we were running out of fuel. Suddenly a Shell station revealed itself, which we found to be located at the southern end […]
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Work Excursion to Melaka
Previously… I was invited by the English Department of Pay Fong Middle School in Melaka to run RPGs and give a talk during their English Week programme. With my RPG gear in tow and Ain and Irfan as my support team, I was ready to for the events in the next few days on behalf of UniMAP. Day One: Year Zero Mini (2023-07-27) Because we were due be at the school after lunch, it allowed us time to recuperate from the drive the previous day. The storefronts along the beachfront road were closed except for one Indian Muslim restaurant, so we had lunch there. After Zuhur/Asar jama’ prayers, we headed there to meet with my contact there, the English teacher Kelvin. Thankfully, school traffic was not as jammed as the previous day. We easily found a parking spot. Then we went to the school’s language lab, where I ran Year […]
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Build-Up To Melaka Work Excursion
Before the Storm The last weekend we made an officially sanctioned work excursion to Melaka. Gray of KakiTabletop initiated a communication with Pay Fong Middle School in Melaka. From there the school sent me a formal invitation via the workplace. I had been invited to run some TTRPG sessions for the secondary school students for their English Language Week. And Saturday Morning, I was slated to give a talk about the benefits of TTRPGs in language education. Melaka is even further south than Kuala Lumpur, which gave me pause. After a quick discussion with the home team, we figured that we could pull it off. Plus it would be a new experience for me. The last time I ran games for secondary school students was back in the 1990s. However, because of personal reasons Gray was not able to make it with me, so it would just be Irfan, Ain […]
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Multi-Reunion at Mando Mayhem
Sometimes, being away from old friends can be an isolating feeling. Not this past weekend though. We travelled to PJ on Gray‘s invitation (with Imeel, another GM) to run Star Wars RPG sessions at the Star Wars Malaysia Fan Club‘s event entitled Mando Mayhem. I did not know what to expect as I have never gamemastered in public for visitors before. How fun would it be? Would I need to explain the rules too much that it detracts from playing? Would there be people who would not enjoy the sessions? The four sessions I GMed have been chronicled in another blog post. Day One at Jaya One Besides the new friends I made like Imeel, Hanna, James and Syed, a whole bunch of old friends also dropped by. For the first time, I had three different circle of friends showing up and interacting with each other. There was the old […]
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EOTE: The Mando Mayhem Sessions
Here are the actual play write-ups of the four sessions I ran at the KakiTabletop booth during the Mando Mayhem event organised by Star Wars Malaysia Fan Club. You can read about the reunion of friends during the two-day event in this blog post. Session 1: “UNION TROUBLES” (Saturday 2023-05-20; Rebellion Era.) DRAMATIS PERSONAE: 41-VEX, Droid Colonist (Hanna) Lowhhrick, Wookiee Hired Gun (Imeel) Dash Pash, Human Smuggler (Jason) Story resulting from Session 1: Upon landing in Mos Eisley, Tatooine, Dash Pash, Lowhhrick & 41-VEX are apprehended by Imperial sandtroopers. Apparently, three weeks earlier a YT-1300 freighter named Millennium Falcon launched from Mos Eisley and broke through a blockade. Dash Pash’s ship Cash is also a YT-1300 but painted with shades of pink. The Cash had landed safely in Landing Bay 41. Before they could object, the Imperials threw them all in a holding cell in a security office across the […]
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Artificial Intelligence in Education
Last Thursday and Friday, my entire department and I travelled by bus to Hotel Neo+ in Penang. Instead of being a participant, the management slotted me in to present about the effect of ChatGPT in assessment and evaluation of students. Being mostly early adopter of a lot of online tech – except LiveJournal and TikTok – the management thought it was up to me to tell my colleagues about how prevalent artificial intelligence (AI) will change — is changing — the education landscape. The first workshop was about assessment and evaluation in general, ran by a person from UUM. My workshop was scheduled for after dinner. I began by going through my AI-generated slides. A few days before, I used beautiful.ai, a site that uses the ChatGPT AI to help users automatically generate full slides! It was not perfect, but it was enough for a fake presentation. Then, I moved […]
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BELSA 2022
Recently I was invited to join Phase 2 of BELSA 2022, the Basic English Language Camp Satun organised by the Language & General Studies Department at our university. The Fun Begins We welcomed them for the first day with a sukaneka, followed by a “Create Your Own Island” activity later that night. Check out the gallery below to see all six entries. They assigned me to Group Two. The students of Group two were quite creative in my opinion. They even planned their island and flag using a IbisPaint X on a tablet. During the event those who were more proficient in English helped those who were not. The next day, the students had to fill in the blanks in an English song lyrics. They needed to listen to a song that was played thrice. Also, the groups had to create their own storybook cover and write microfiction using a […]
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SCALLOP’s First Programme
And so it came to pass, a bunch of us teachers came together to form a team to do CSR for our department at the university. It took some time, but ultimately we came up with a group name: SCALLOP, short for Strategic Communication And Language Learning Outreach Programme. Our First Thingamajig Our inaugural site for our CSR programme was the secondary school Sekolah Menengah Sains Tuanku Syed Putra here in Kangar. We made arrangements with the teachers and administrators to have our event with the school’s Form 2 students. On the morning of the first of October, our team gathered at SMSTSP and proceeded to greet the students, then we split into three huge groups for further things to do, such as ice breaking. Irfan was on site to help me with photography. The big event was Creating Your Own Island, where the students get to use their imagination […]
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Visit to MAHSA University
Several weeks ago, I received an email from MAHSA University in Selangor. They would like to know more about using tabletop RPGs as teaching and learning tools, especially for their language classes. I set a date to meet with their faculty members earlier today, as we would be on vacation in Sepang. I also called my former student and current research assistant (not mine, actually) Aidil and we went for the meeting. Meanwhile, Irfan drove and waited in the car. During the meeting I introduced them to the world of TTRPGs by bring with me a bunch of books and starter sets which included maps, cards and pregenerated characters. Aidil helped a lot in explaining. No, I did not run a game for them, but I did explain to them how I ran RPG session in my classrooms with students. A request by them for me to talk in an […]
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A Book Writing Project on Pulau Pinang
And so it came to pass that I was invited on another project. This time we were to write and edit an elementary-level English language school book for Perlis. The team consisted of workplace colleagues and a selection of Perlis’ primary school teachers. We had to produce both English and Bahasa Malaysia books, so we split into two groups. Like the previous month, we headed to Pulau Pinang to do our work. On the First and Second Day… I mostly worked, except for when we had to dine together as a team. We stayed at Copthorne Orchid Hotel, at Tanjung Bungah and the view from the hotel was gorgeous. Check out the photos below. Also, in the early evening after my work was done for the day, we went for a stroll at the beach. Previously we were unable to bring Irfan along as he was stuck in his polytechnic […]
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A Translation Project on Pulau Pinang
And so it came to pass I was invited to participate in a project for a team of researchers at the university. My role there was to translate and edit the document they wrote from the research they made. Day One On the first day, we went off the PLUS Highway and took the old Federal road from Gurun all the way to Butterworth, then swung about to take the Penang bridge towards George Town. But before we went to the town, we had brunch at the nasi kandar cafe at USM. Ain thought that USM could be a great place for Irfan to further his studies. Later. Maybe. InshaaAllah. After some photos taken at the university, we headed downtown to Cititel Hotel where we checked in. Later that day I started my translation work with the research team. Day Two On the second day, we had quite a big […]
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Picnic by the Bendang
Yesterday, a group of colleagues organised a trip away from the bustling metropolis known as Kangar (mm-hmm) to nearby Pokok Sena for a picnic in the sticks. By sticks, I mean the beautiful, recently-launched Loqsakri Agro Farm. First we rendezvoused near Arau along the road to Jitra. Then we formed a convoy towards Jitra, then Alor Setar for brunch at a local kopitiam. After picking up Faten, Zaki led the way towards Loqsakri. The agro farm was welcoming, beautiful and was not even finished yet. There were bamboo huts constructed beside a little canal that separated the landscaped guests’ area and the bendang (the rice field). Although the sun was blazing above, the wind was a cooling, soothing force to be reckoned with. We appeared to have visited just as the padi was at the most vibrant shade of green. The owner of Loqsakri is a cordial, welcoming person who […]
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With Students in Songkhla
For the first time since joining the Centre, the International Soft-skills and Leadership (ISoL) camp programme committee invited me to chaperone students for two nights in Songkhla, Thailand. The camp was a joint programme between UniMAP and Rajamangala University of Technology Srivijaya. I thought we would go as a family (along with Syamril, the other language teacher on duty) not just to escort these young minds for their event, but also to learn from the trip. Not only did we learn quite a bit and gain new experiences, we also made new friends there. Add this event to things I never thought 5 years ago that I would be doing. We stayed at the Lake Inn Hotel with the students. Some day we would like to visit here again. Here is a short video on our trip there. However, there were more activities that were not captured on video. There […]
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Convocation Duty
A couple of years ago, I was assigned to be present for Convocation Duty as a staff member. I did not at all record down the event. This year though I was prepared. Although they prepared breakfast, Ain, Irfan and I consumed some early breakfast before I departed for the main hall. There was not a lot of photos of me in the hall during the ceremony itself, but here are a number of photos from before we marched into the hall. It is not determined if I would be doing this again next year, but I would not say no to another invite.
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Once More Unto The Nasyid
Once again, I volunteered to participate in the interdepartmental nasyid competition in order to make a lot of noise without being arrested for disturbing the peace. A team was formed. We rehearsed for weeks. We obtained funds for costumes and such. Then the day came. For some reason, we won first place! The theme of the nasyid programme was “adaptation”. So adapted a song to be sung. What song did you ask? Watch the video of the performance below to find out:
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DnD: Winter at Stonehaven
We have visitors this week. The language educators from Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University, Thailand are on a three-day working visit of Universiti Malaysia Perlis. There are a number of activities that the Centre for International Languages scheduled from them. One of the activities is a tabletop role-playing game session. I was given a table to set up books, dice, maps and paper miniatures for a mini-exhibition. Before me, my colleague Yuzy (who plays the teenage spy Jijah in our The Laundry (Malaysia) RPG campaign) ran an ice-breaking session and demonstrated how online learning tools like Quizziz and Kahoot were run in class. After Yuzy’s activities were done, I began my segment with a short slide presentation. The presentation summarised what a tabletop role-playing game is, what games exist in the market and how it could benefit language learning, especially in an ESL environment. Not to mention how it could improve […]
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