Sir, May I Go Out?

"Sir, may I go out?" I think that is the first serious phrase that I could remember from the days when I was in standard one or so. Why so important? Because that was the key words for me to ask a permission from the teacher to go to toilet during english class.

English subject is part of the syllabus taught in school. It is a second language for me and my other malay friends. During my time english stream was no longer exist as a choice. My sister's era a few years back was the last batch. Came from non-english educated family background make it a little tough for me to master the language. In fact I was blank. In 'penilaian darjah lima' exam, I only managed a C for english.

Then during my secondary education days at a boarding school, I still lacking behind a few kilometers from my friends on the subject. In fact grammar is still my biggest problem until today. Not to mentioned my present tense, past tense & past continuous tense all mixed up without the right formula. I kind of 'bulldozed' my way through. Not really master the right rules or technics. Every now and then you can find the errors popping up at will. My SPM result also reflected poor performance for english subject.

My undergraduate days, even though in the USA, still did not make me well verse. Partly because at my University, Malaysian's students community were the largest among foreign students. End up I stay with my malay friends and talk and walk malay most of the time. How to improve my English like that?

I remember in my working life, in one of the high profile project, I was assigned to take up minutes of meeting. The project at the time was in a very critical stage. Thus the weekly minutes of meeting suddenly became a very important piece of document. The customer was quite fussy and very critical. "You are giving us a piece of junk!", I recalled one of the nasty remarks from Mrs Farida their project director, one fierce iron lady, about the minutes of meeting submitted to her.

Before that in a few occasions I have told my project manager that I'm not the right person to take up and write the minutes as my english was terrible, but was ignored. I told him that the arrangement can make thing worse in the already strained relationship with the customer. My project manager Mr Ho who graduated from UK, patiently guided me through. Taught me the right words to use, the correct annotation, grammar, spelling and all the stuff. Thank you Mr Ho for sticking with me. Perhaps he has no other team member to replace me at the time anyway, and wished not having to write the minutes himself. For that reason as well, my transfer request to other project was rejected a few times. It really gave me lots of pressure writing minutes of meeting week in week out.

One year later (after 50 volume of MoM or so) when the project stabilized or should I say towards the end of its life cycle, my wish to be transferred to other project was granted by him. On the day he broke the good news, I remembered he told me something that caught me by surprise. I'm not sure whether he told me the truth or just bluffing or just want to please me. "I think your english is quite good. Your sentences were creative in nature."

Thinking back, maybe my english is not too bad after all - writing, reading and speaking. But to be honest I still screw up in term of grammar and those tenses, and spelling sometime. But I think I can survive. In my line of works, I feel comfortable communicating and doing presentation in front of full audience. I enjoy reading TheSun free morning paper and TheMalayMail free afternoon paper distributed at Masjid Jamek LRT Station every working days. TheStar also remain my favourite paid newspaper that I seldom missed. Pitty to whom that cannot read english because the free paper circulation at the LRT will means nothing to them. I also can understand (without reading the sub-titles) all those english tv programs and news which I think took more than 50% of the daily airplay. Also I could 'ear pick' all those conversation in the LRT among the pack commuters, who mostly using broken english anyway.

So my kids, learn english, read english books, novels and newspaper. Speak, and don't be shy. Write in english. By the way, teaching science and maths in english, somehow help to improve english I think, or at least give the kids some 'broken english' skillset. And at university level, most books and reference materials are still hardcore in english.

Eventhough the Japanese, the Koreans, the Chinese, Thailands, the Frances, Germans, Spains, and others reach far excellence without english, still I feel no harm to master the bloody english language. I always admire the english of Pak Mat, and Mat Anom, very sharp and details. Maybe because they came from the 'english era' of the 60s & 70s, hmmm maybe.

What about my classmate Dr Nordin? His english also high power one. Oooo forgot he got PHD maaa. Anyway keep learning english as our second language as it give us tons of benefit. The EPL live commentator also in english right? Whats on this week? Chelsea vs Arsenal?

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