Anyway, the reason I am writing this is to explore this candidate topic which was - conquering fear of rejection. He looked like a confident young man with a stable family and a father who was in the military. He intended to pursue a career with the air force. He painstakingly explained to me this new therapy which was "reject before being rejected". Said "No" before "No" was said to you. We had a fairly argumentative discussion where I was trying to dispel the notion that if you never gave it a try, you would never know. He argued that rather than being rejected and disappointed, he would prefer to take the risk of never knowing. Hmmm ... I honestly could not convince this young man that sometimes rejection was needed to help one cope with disappointment. It actually helped in our growing up process and handle disappointment. I asked why not just ask and the worst you would get was a "No". He hated that word ..... interesting. Someone so young but so insecure. That was why he was talking about this new study of how to handle fear of rejection. Good luck to him .... and he was such a good-looking, attractive young man. What a waste for the girls .... :-]))
Even though coordination could be so tiring mentally, it was interesting and challenging. I had to keep up with the latest teenagers' interests so that I could discuss with them whatever topics they had chosen. Some students were so nervous that I had to stop them and told them to take a deep breath, istighfar and selawat before they tried again. This was for Muslim candidates. Then there was the over confident and cocky students who just wanted to challenge you such as with the topic "George Soros and why he was my idol". The weaker candidates were not able to express themselves due to lack of vocabulary as their command of the language was poor. They could understand my questions but they could not express themselves with the limited command of the language.
Sometimes I wonder where had we gone wrong with these future generation. If they could not even answer simple questions regarding the topic of their choice, imagine when they join the workforce. In 2016, English is a compulsory pass for the SPM candidates. If spoken is already a hurdle, imagine the written paper.
During the oral coordination for the private candidates, there were community nurses who had to take the English paper again just to be promoted to staff nurse. One of them had a twelve years working experience and attached to a specialist clinic. Yet, due to her failed English at SPM level, she could not be promoted any higher than what her position now was. Thus, there would be no increase in salary or allowances. Another was a policeman. He wanted to go up to the rank of an officer i.e. Inspector. He needed a credit for English at SPM level. He had served the police force for ten years. There were also the handsome, smart young men from the Air Force who came in their smart uniforms. They needed credit in English to "fly" otherwise they remained ground crew. The store keepers of a supermarket needed English to become the supervisor or clerk. The list goes on ..
The importance of English at our own home ground. No need to look far ahead - most of these people do not even dream of the bigger picture. Just every layman's hopes and wishes to get a better position in our own country. Not elsewhere but emphasis is put on passing or a credit at least in the English subject. Stress the importance in our own turf and not telling most of these youngsters in schools that English is an important subject as it is a universal language. Drum it into their heads that English can take them far ... farther than they can imagine possible.
Looking at these private candidates and school candidates from the feeder schools ...while the premier schools have no problems .... where do we, as teachers, have gone wrong? The system? The syllabus? The ever-changing ministers and their policies? The creator of policies or the implementation of them? Thus, who will be at the losing end????
