Masa: 9.30 pagi-6.30 petang
Lokasi: Kompleks Dawama,
Lot 1037, Jalan AU3/1,
54200 Ampang/Hulu Kelang,
Selangor Darul Ehsan
Keterangan lanjut, hubungi: 03-4107 9037 atau layari http://www.dawama.com/
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It has been a while since I've gone to DBP Book Fairs. I used to frequent it often as a kid. The fair is usually held at the above-stated Ampang Hulu Kelang complex, so the distance was convenient for my parents to drag 5 kids along (In hindsight, I am forever grateful to my parents for instilling the reading habit in me and my siblings since young).
I don't know what happened but I stopped coming to the fairs. Until today that is. Being under the white tents and checking out the familiar Malay-language books bring back fond memories (they are still selling old titles).
One of the obvious reasons I studied TESL was because I love the English language. I love reading Enid Blytons as a child, followed by Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley series, Fear Street, etc.
And since I am going to be an English language teacher, I devoted much of my time to improving my English, to the detriment of my Malay. Being a non-NEST (Non-Native English Speaking Teacher) makes you feel inadequate about your level of competency at times. Complaints in the newspapers about incompetent English teachers exacerbate my feelings of inadequacy.
Though my conversational Malay is all right (it is my first language after all), my written Malay has deteriorated. I feel more comfortable writing in English now, as is evident in my blog. This is not something that I'm proud of, as I would very much like to be highly-competent in both.
My current imbalance state reminds me of a theory in bilingualism (appropriately called The Balance Theory); where a bilingual person is pictured as having two language balloons in his/her head. These two balloons are half-filled/less-filled. And if one language is "pumped" higher, the other language, diminishes in size. In contrast, a monolingual has one well-filled balloon.
Other theories have since supplanted this theory. Our brain seems to have an unlimited amount of "room" for languages. So, being a balanced bilingual (or multilingual) is not an impossible aim. The renown Adibah Amin is an excellent example of one.
So, though I originally didn't plan to have new-year resolutions, I'll make one regarding this; I plan to read more Malay books in 2009.
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*My long-deserted text-book: 'Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism' by Colin Baker came to the rescue when I was trying to recall and explain the Balance Theory.
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