UniMAP offered my English Theatre Arts co-curricular class once again this semester. This would be my third time teaching this class in which the number of participants have risen from just under 40 to 50 students. Like the previous class two semester ago, I started by giving the class an Introduction to Theatre Arts lecture to get them in the […]
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I’m clearly in red
Herein lies the collection of blog posts about my teaching English as a second language to university students.
Cthulhu Hack: The Woodson Estate
Cthulhu Hack The Woodson Estate Today at work I ran Cthulhu Hack for the first time. I have the rulebook with me for some time now and had not tinkered with it last weekend. Then, Irfan and I went through character generation and the dice basics, just to get the hang of it. Later I read several of Michael LaBossiere’s […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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First Diploma Class
Even before the new semester began, I had been assigned to take over one ongoing Diploma class. Thus began my first foray into teaching English language for the Diploma students. This was also the first time I would teach a language class in one of the mid-sized halls at the Lecture Hall Complex. I think the students sit too far […]
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Theatre Arts Class On Stage
Narrator: Previously, on Hishgraphics blog… After seven weeks, on and off my co-curricular class has come to an end. We ended the class by running a stage play presentation just like the last time I ran this class. At first, the students limbered up, rehearsed their lines and planned their staging while still trying to wake up at 8am. Everyone […]
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DnD: Five Sessions in Five Classes
Another first for me this entire week is the fact that I ran RPG sessions for every one of my English classes, using Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition. The students used Level 2 pre-generated characters downloaded from the DnD official site. I wish I was able to plan for more weeks, using the game to improve their speaking and writing […]
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A Meeting With A Poet Laureate
Another thing I would have never thought I would ever do if I were still back in KL was to meet A Samad Said, the national laureate, who was in town because of Perlis Book Festival 2019. The Centre for International Languages Bahasa Melayu team organised a talk with the renowned writer and poet. Because I had no classes at […]
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Students in the Amphitheatre
After two semesters absent, English Theatre Arts has been offered as a UniMAP co-curricular course once again. Like before, I am the course teacher. But unlike before, instead of less than 15 students I now have to handle 40 students. I returned to my course notes to adapt it for many. Thankfully, the students are very proactive and hands on […]
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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 […]
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It’s Still Chinese New Year Season
I guess everyone is still on vacation this week.
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DnD: Pretty Werewolves
Once upon a time at a time forgotten by lore, there was a city known as Big Dark Mountain. It was once a great mountain which had been hewn into a plateau. Humans, elves, dwarves and dragonborn came to build a city upon the plateau. Even a number of drow eventually settled there. Over the centuries, it grew into a […]
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DnD: Fallen Nation
Once upon a time, a cadre of wayward mercenaries – warriors lost without a kingdom – roamed around in search for adventures and a purpose. They hired themselves out to protect the common folk from a growing evil that has begun to stalk the land. Dramatis Personae Sage – Drow Rogue (Aminin) Mordred – Human Druid (Ganesan) Kaisa – Half-elf […]
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Interview at Asians Represent!
Late last month, I did an interview with Agatha Cheng and Daniel Kwan. It was for their podcast, Asians Represent! over at One Shot Podcast. The episode was released a couple of weeks ago. In the show, I talk about the benefits of using tabletop RPGs to teach students English here in Malaysia. Also, how RPGs can be indirectly used […]
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Students Comparing and Contrasting
For this entire week I had to teach the students compare and contrast essay. Additionally, the theme for the week was “Social Issues”. How should I get them to understand the structure of the essay and the framing for each body paragraph? Firstly, I got each class to list out the social issues that they knew about. (I highlighted the […]
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DnD: An Assessment of an Island Economy
Dungeons and Dragons in Class I ran Dungeons and Dragons for the first time… in a classroom. On Wednesday, I found that there was time to run a role-playing game session for the class while giving them a focused objective language wise. So I bought my D&D books. This class had never played any RPGs before, so I hoped that […]
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