My Kids - take #2

My Kids - take #2

As dictated by Faranza Syns

I'm thoroughly fascinated by the amount of foreign children who go to KUMON. Okay, it actually takes less than the fingers of 4 hands to count down their numbers, but it's still a lot.

Foreign Kid #1 (OMG, I totally forgot to ask for his name)

I was teaching Aiman (the brother of the kid) when I first saw him. He looked nothing like Aiman (and I'd never seen him in the English section) so I sorta ignored him.

Until he opened his mouth.

You know, how I wish I had a voice recorder then.

I was going through the flashcards with Aiman (who scored 35/35 for both sections. *hidung kembang with pride*). Since he did so well, recording his achievement was easy-peasy (I didn't have to count the number of mistakes and blah blah blah). As per usual, kids were hanging around my table. I eagerly ticked off all of the words Aiman had said.

And then I heard a voice with the same colonial accent as Aiman (whom I adore).

"It makes it so much easy, eh?"

Very, very cute accent. I can't talk to Aiman much, since he's still so young and rather shy of strangers. But his brother was eager enough to talk.

Me: Where're you from, actually?

Him: (somewhere I don't quite remember)

Me: Oooh.

Him: But I was born in Scotland though.

Me: *uber excited* Ah! Speak Scottish!

Him: *shakes head, grinning* Can't. I only lived there for three years. Can't even remember it even.

Me: Oooooh.

Him: My dad's an Iraqi, my mum's the one who's Malaysian.

Me: That's so uber cool.

It really is, considering their whole family looks so pretty. BIG eyes.



Foreign kid #2

Her name's Umulkhayr. Actually, almost all her siblings are studying at KUMON, except a sister who is currently sitting for her A-levels.

She was reading her assigned passage, and I corrected a few of her pronunciation mistakes. At THAT moment, I was actually REALLY glad I took linguistics and we've covered Phonetics.

Umul: "And they withdraw--" (what was written was "withdrew", but she said it wrong.

Me: Withdrew.

Umul: What?

Me: It's pronounced "with-drew"

Umul: But it's an "e". I thought words with "e" sound like "a"

And I started explaining to her all about sound and spelling. And how conked English is in relating writing with pronunciation.

Me: So where're you from? *marks her work*

Umul: Somalia.

Me: Wow.

Umul: Yeah. We're not Malaysian. *smiles* Obviously. You? Oh wait, you're - of course you're Malaysian.

Me: Haha. Yeah. Don't I totally look Malaysian?

Umul: Do you travel?

Me: *blinks* Not really. The furthest I've ever been is - pfft, Thailand.

And then Umul starts talking about the places she's been to. Tibet (she lurrrves Tibet), and some other places I don't remember. Only Tibet got stuck in my mind. She doesn't like Thailand though. Haha. Says it's too disorganized. But she loves Singapore and Johore. Quiet and tranquil.

We then talked about schools.

Umul: Do you go to an international school?

Me: ME? No. Just government schools.

It doesn't shock me as much anymore when people ask me that. Apparently my English sounds too English for a Malay.

It was nice talking to her. She grumbled a little about how hard it is for her to look for clothes that fit her. The thing about Umul is that she may be only 13, but she's almost as tall as a full-grown average western man.

Umul: I hate it when the clothes fit me, but they're too short.

Me: *snort* You're in shorty country. We're dwarves compared to you.

Umul: And I'm only thirteen!

She's adorable.

Her elder brother is too. LOL.

...Oh my God. I am totally a paedophile.