When we got our time table for the second module (Masters in TESL programme UPM) and as I scanned through, my anxiety level suddenly went up. Oh no… EDU 5276 Teaching young adult literature…I think this is going to be a very tough subject for me.
Teaching Literature? I don’t know. I have never taught literature before (I did learn literature during my school days and also at tertiary level- but I was never good at it). I don’t really like the ‘playing with words’ style. I am not good with metaphor, personification, and what not. It’s just not me.I love reading story books (especially the romance novel when I was a teenager)but I don’t go deeper than reading to know what the story is all about. Of course, I don’t really read poem (except the ones which were made compulsory for us during my studies). It’s just not that appealing to me. I guess it’s more because of my failure to understand what it means (or perhaps because I’ve never tried to make an attempt to understand it). I was a science stream student. I always go for fact, for the denotation meaning. I do not bother to interpret connotation meaning which had always been a problem to me when I did literature during my schooldays.
But anyway, this year, I’m all set for it. I’m prepared to appreciate literature more.( I know somewhere there’s a Shakespeare in me). I’ll let it out. I’m ready to learn. Perhaps I found it difficult because I have never given it a chance.
I need to change my mindset and think ‘beautifully’ about literature this time. I guess there’s nothing to lose. After all, life itself is an art- a beautiful thing. (I ready need to think positive in order to lower my anxiety level and get through the subject successfully. amin.)
1 comment:
hmm, similarities. I used to be in Science Stream, & a Residential school too! Unfortunately, the English Shakespeare (we were really into the BM Shakespeare Plays in primary School) was introduced to me in my Social science friends' books. I can still recall, in Hamlet, a cobbler explained his profession, teasingly , "I mend soles, My Lord." Seconds later, delighted with my NEW DISCOVERY, I had realised that SOLES have the same sound with SOULS. Hence,if "I mend SOULS, My Lord"-that shows the great power of the simple cobbler. Double meaning, Play with words. I knew then the POWER OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
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