He would say Grandma on purpose, and I would nod. Not having had the opportunity to learn English growing up, my father placed a huge importance in having me learn the language from a very early age. It worked. To such an extent that hubby continuously makes fun of my Bahasa Melayu.
I don't enjoy the subject though, and when I tried to learn Arabic from an American friend who has a degree in Arabic, married to an Arab, and speaks the language, I struggled with the grammatical jargon.
"You can't teach Arabic in English," was what she would say, and I have to agree.
In desperation of looking for a job, a friend even suggested I take TESL so it would increase the chance of us landing a job in the middle east. I considered it, along with the other pile of 'ambitions' I have waiting to be achieved.
S has been doing her Grammar Usage and Mechanics by herself lately. I always feel guilty when they have to do school by themselves, as if I'm not doing anything to help them, but one recent incident pointed out the obvious: I was the one needing help.
She was on adjectival and adverbial phrases. Truth be told, I don't remember ever learning this back in 11 years of elementary and secondary schooling! So I had trouble understanding how to differentiate between the two. As I stared down at the page I was supposed to be marking, I hailed S, asking her to explain to me the difference. She explained, in her own very curt way. No big help. That was day 1.
The next day, I went ahead and marked her work, confidently gracing some of her answers with Xs. I called her, and when she looked at my Xs, she suggested,
"Let's look at the teacher guide."
Obviously the child didn't trust my grading!
She sat on the floor holding the teacher guide, and I sat on the swivel chair holding her book. She read out the answers and I marked them. Correct, correct, correct, correct, correct. The ones I had marked wrong were correct! She was right to not trust me.
The next day, she had to do a unit assessment on the subjects, and usual, she handed me her work wen she was done. I was still in the fog of understanding the difference between adjectival phrases and adverbial ones, even though I can recognize each one by itself. However, as I marked her work, it became somewhat clearer to me, and I marked with some degree of confidence. When I reached the end, there was a friendly 'note' waiting for me.
And to think I had considered doing TESL ...oy vey!
Nevertheless, this is what any homeschooler wants; a child who is able to learn by herself, and finally teach her parents, alhamdulillah!
7 comments:
hahaha lawak tul note tu.. yikes, i wonder what is waiting for me next few years!!
esp. dgn si hureen...
hudhud
LOL :D
salamullahi 'alayki
hey, i forgot to let you know i tagged you for this meme: http://themuslimah.com/?p=130 Hehe. I hope you do it.
was-salam
Asalaam Alaikum Sister,
Alhamdulilah! I think this is so true of homeschooling, far more than public schooling, sadly. I know far more homeschoolers who teach their children to learn on their own. Whereas it seems to me, that other school children seem to think that classroom time s the only time for learning. It is such an important skill to be able to learn on your own, and so many are not able.
Masha'Allah!
Aeryn
This made me think again of what language should be our main...like u living in an English-spoken country...English would be your priority and i can see u speaks English at home too..should i speaks Japanese at home since our environment is all Japanese??u see, my son nih lambat berckp..he already 2.3yrs but still cant make long full sentence!
hudhud..hahahah haah...canela agaknya si hureen ni nanti kalau skang pun dah ckp "sudah sudah!" hahaha
Oum ANas, nice to have you dropping by! :D
Ummlayth,
hey did you ever finish that blanket? wink
I will inshaallah..but maybe not anytime soon..kindof held up with stuff right now :P jazakillah khair for thinking of me :)
aeryn,
I share the same sentiment..alhamdulillah...i was worried they might hate school to the pint of not being able to do this but alhamdulillah allah helped us.
mommy hafiy
hmm it wouldn't hurt to have him learn a new language at this early age..it's evenbetter in fact...why dont one parent speaks japanese and the other speaks the other language be it malay or english..or if he can easily get japanese from the surroundings, the parents can do english and malay so he can trilingual! :D
Juliyo macaanto,
I am speaking Somali, Urdu, English (both American and Brits), and Arabic. I even boggle my head. However, my kids are only able to master (muster?) English.
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