Sensei Michael

Another story from the Mistress’s Child series. It was another of those long banquets that her father liked to invite prominent people to. The Mistress’s Child had never liked them, preferring to spend the time with her ailing mother. She never felt like she was part of the family, though she sat at the family table. All around, the talk was on the family business, on the happenings within her father’s family, of the successes of her brother. Nobody talked about her mother, not even her father. Nobody talked about the small textile factory she had been assigned to manage by her father. And so she was caught by surprise when the Businessman came by and asked her what she thought about the family business. The table suddenly became quiet. Mistress’s Child had learnt by then to be very careful with her words. She still remembered the slap she got from her father. “As usual, father, I will listen to my brother, and follow his wishes in the family business.” What the Businessman said shock...

When I first started teaching more than 13 years ago, I remember parents complaining to me that Singapore Mathematics is more a test of the child's language abilities than his mathematical abilities. I must admit that what he said has more than a grain of truth. The two word problems below illustrate how a single preposition can make a world of a difference in the solution. Ravi has 20 balloons. He wants to share them with 4 of his friends. How many balloons will each of them get? Ravi shares the balloons with 4 of his friends, resulting in 5 persons sharing the balloons. The Mathematical statement should be 20 ÷ 5 = 4. Each of them gets 4 balloons. Ravi has 20 balloons. He wants to share them among 4 of his friends. How many balloons will each of them get? A simple switch of prepositions has changed the scenario. Ravi is not sharing in the balloons, he is sharing them among his 4 friends. The Mathematical statement should be 20 ÷ 4 = 5. Each of his friends gets 5 balloons. As a te...

Another story from the Mistress’s Child series. The entire household at the rented house was caught unprepared by the arrival of an unexpected visitor – the Brother. Alfred, the oldest, most dignified, and calmest person amidst the household, was the one who welcomed him, quickly giving instructions to get Little Mistress over. The Mistress was still sick in bed, and it would not be good for her to have her sickness aggravated by a meeting with Young Master. The Mistress’s Child rushed over from the factory, where she had been supervising the workers. What business has her elder brother in her house, she wondered. He had vowed never to recognise the legitimacy of the place, as part of the family, and refused to even acknowledge the presence of the place within the family. Why was he there? “Let’s make it quick. I’m a busy man, and my father has a meeting with me later.” She could feel the edge as he placed extra stress on the phrase “my father”. “Due to the economic conditions, we hav...

Another story in the Mistress’s Child series. It was another of those days when Alfred was at the Mansion, sipping tea with his old friends working there. He was there on an errand for the Old Master, who would not be back till the afternoon. All employees of the Old Master, however, were instructed to only take the designated Mansion Ferry Coach that took a designated route around the various places it would stop at. Because the coach stopped at the Mistress’ place in the morning, Alfred hopped on to the coach, amidst great unhappiness with his Little Mistress. She had wanted him to finish off some work in the morning before going, but hiring another coach in the afternoon was out of the question, with the household expenses being cut further. While happy to see him there, his old friends really questioned how he could be away from his work for an entire morning. He could have done so much with his time, rather than sipping tea with them. “So you guys are jealous that I’m here sippin...

My wife and I took on a translation job recently (we translated a Chinese novel into English). As usual, she did the first translation draft, while I polish up the prose (some Chinese concepts and words do not translate well to English, so prose changes are necessary in such changes). In the process of translation, she encountered many cases of the use of  lie , which has also confused my pupils in the past. I had to keep making changes when editing her translation. Now, when are all the  lie ,  lay ,  lied  and  laid  used? The hurdle to cross in understanding how it all works lies (yea, a pun) in this one very important concept -  lie  and  lay  are words which are homographs within of themselves. When  lie  is used to mean "tell something untruthful deliberately", both the simple past and the past participle form is  lied . Johnny has lied before to his mother and he lied again to her yesterday. Yes, he lies. When  lie  is used to mean "relax on one side of the body...

Yet another story from the Mistress’s Child series. The Butler had a  wonderful day out  drinking (tea of course) with his friends at the Mansion. As he opened the main door of the rented house and entered, he saw the Mistress’s Child holding on to a letter, her fingers trembling as she read. He sensed that something was wrong. “Are you alright, Little Mistress?” “Alfred…it’s a letter from my father. He…he’s inviting me to the Mansion for lunch…” The Butler could sense the fear from the girl. She had not forgotten how she was treated during her  last visit to the Mansion . “Maybe I shouldn’t go. Maybe I should just tell my father that I’ve fallen sick, maybe…” “Little Mistress,” the Butler interrupted her, “May I say something?” The pale but beautiful face of the girl before him looked in surprise. She was probably expecting him to just agree with her. She nodded, “Please do, Alfred.” “Your father is about the same age as me,” the elderly man had a glimmer in his eye as he spoke, “It ...

Recently, I received a mail from one of my Chinese colleagues (in English of course) stating that I said something  will  be done when in fact I said nothing of that sort. I corrected her, telling her that I did say something  can  be done, so if she had said something  may  be done she'd be correct too. But I cannot accept the  will  in the statement. This is also a common problem in Singapore too, where many pupils either did not listen when English was being taught, or else the teacher who taught them did not take the effort to correct their mistakes. In my 7 years of teaching, I kept getting pupils who would ask, "Mr Chan, can I go to the toilet?" I know my American friends are going to be laughing away - to you, the toilet is the part you sit on (we Singaporeans will say the "toilet bowl"...yucks). But since the pavement is for cars in the States (it's for pedestrians in Singapore), I will not correct my pupils on that. Context and culture should be all...