A picture paints more than a thousand words

I'm surprised.

Hmmm

I'm very surprised.

Hmmm Hmmm

Ghastly.

Yes sir.

Shocked.

Indeed sir.

... sorry. Just had to say a couple of modified lines from the Gulp and Gasp drama in the form 4 literature component.

The reason why I mentioned those words was because I realised that my students who are born and bred here in the beautiful land of Sabah are not as Sabahan as I thought they were. I mean, of course they are Sabahans but I realised that most of them... no, no, A LOT of them have not been to the places that I have since I arrived here to teach English.

When I talked about the beautiful island of Mabul and Kapaalai, they were in awe and bespectacled by the pictures and images that I show them. When I talk about the hot springs and canopy walks in Poring, they listen attentively as though I was talking about a journey to Phuket. Seriously, though these kids might be citizens here, I feel slightly more patriotic than them about Sabah. I guess that's kinda weird but not completely surprising.

 A picture is definitely worth more than just a thousand words

Anyway, as the person who has been to those places, I thought I'd share with them the pictures of the places that I've been to in Sabah. I told them to pretend to be promoters of these places. In fact, I told them about how the people who are tourist guides and trekkers were pretty eloquent in communicating in English even if they were very lowly educated formally (I have to say formally because being educated is such a relative term).

They have to know that being highly educated is not the due credit to become proficient in anything at all. It is not entirely dependable on the things you do in class that lead towards the improvement of English. It is the embodiment of your entire commitment to embracing the need and desire to learn the language that makes you move forward. I'm not kidding here when I say, if you only want to learn English in the classroom and expect it to make you improve without any other form of experiential learning; there is very little future ahead of you.