Sugiana Ngyakan knocks on my office door, and shuffles in. He looks terrified. I don’t blame the poor boy, after what turned out to be the most grueling lesson two days ago.

At first, we had attempted a simple comprehension passage on the computer. After that, I got him to read the passage aloud. It was about a shopping list, things you had to get before a picnic. He had read the passage-hesitatingly missing most of the ‘S’es and giving incorrect emphasis to certain words. This young Indonesian boy is a Night Cleaner, sweet and shy but rather dreamy. Again and again, I pointed out his mistakes but he had only smiled and repeated them over and again. I had let him be. Then, I had asked him to jot down some vocabulary that I think might be useful. I dictated the words and he jotted it down without a word. When I reviewed his sheet, I realized that he couldn’t spell. And even after I corrected his mistakes, he was still confused. It then dawned me that he doesn’t know the correct pronunciation to the alphabets.

“Okay, the alphabets in English. Now, repeat after me. A, B, C…”
The problem was, he couldn’t remember his Gs and Js and K’s. The hour wore on with me drilling into him the English Alphabet system and him, looking more and more miserable each time. By the end of it, we were both exhausted and there was no progress. He couldn’t remember all 26 of them and neither could he pronounce H, J and K. He cowered under my impatience. I softened after seeing his inevitable confusion. Perhaps he was a slow student at school.
I had relieved him from the class but I made him promise that he’ll memorize the alphabets.
“Miss Ying, you erase board after this? I am shame. Still learning A, B, C,” Sugiana pleaded. I nodded and then he had left, with his head hung low. I had felt awful but it had to be done.

Yesterday, he passed me by at the corridor and he said, “Miss Ying-when is next lesson? I want to be good in English.”
“Tomorrow. Don’t forget what you’ve got to do.”
Today, I had the whiteboard filled with all the alphabets but left some blanks for him to fill in. Slowly, he pronounces each and everyone of them correctly and does not leave a single alphabet out.

“I did it!”
“Yes, indeed you did it. Now that you know the alphabets, shall we continue?”
He eagerly nods. His eyes now gleam with keenness and enthusiasm.

Me teaching

One of my favourite students, an Animator, working on past tenses