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Published: June 12th 2006
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Poh at the Temerloh rest stop
Lots of food here unlike the highway rest stops in the US While I was in the US, I found out about a conference on English language teaching and research that was going to include one of the giants of second language acquisition, Stephen Krashen from USC. I sent in a proposal to present and it was accepted. The conference was in the KL metro area in a city called Shah Alam. Jo’s brother Cheng Poh agreed to go with me on a road trip across the peninsula to the capital and Shah Alam. This trip only took about 4 and a half hours with the last hour and a half getting through the mess of KL traffic on a Tuesday afternoon during rushhour. The drive across was fast thanks to the new 4 lane divided highway (tollway) that heads to the capital from Kuantan. The old highway is a two-lane road like the one we drove up on from Singapore. Those roads are open access, which means you get motorbikes, bicycles, kids, cows, and even monkeys along side the road or crossing it. The tollway, was a nice drive; I think the total cost from Kuantan to Shah Alam was around 28 ringgit (about US$7.75). I drove the first half and Poh
MY CASELT conference goers
Some friends I made at the conference drove the second half into the city as he’s familiar with it having worked many years there.
Jo’s sister again managed to set us up for free in the Sheraton Subang for a free two nights stay near the conference. It was a nice place with breakfast and all. It was only about a mile away from the conference venue, but in the city that means 15 mins of car time. There is no easy way to walk either because there are lots of barriers and highway flyovers, so Poh was kind enough to shuttle me around those few days.
The conference was worthwhile. I got to hear Krashen speak and even got to meet him and have a photo taken with him. There was no waiting in line either, after his speech their was a tea break and remember what I said about Malaysians and food, well, most deserted the room to get the food leaving only a few of us to pester professor Krashen for his time. He was very nice about it. It seems he is from the Midwest too, he’s originally from Chicago he said. He picked up on my Midwestern accent and wasn’t
More conference goers
A group of uni profs from UiTM Johor at the conference. surprised when I said I was from STL. The amazing thing was that he stayed around for the next three days attending the conference, though sadly he didn’t attend my presentation on fluency first and how we implement it at our college in St. Louis. I had the chance to meet quite a few Malaysian professors of English and share stories about teaching. I’ll save the telling of those for the ones who are really interested, don’t worry. One professor even invited me to come and speak at here school in Malacca in two weeks or so. I think we’ll take her up on the offer, as we’ll be over on that side of Malaysia in two weeks anyway.
The night before my presentation our free nights ran out so we shifted over to the conference venue, the Holiday Glenn Marie Resort (everything over here seems to be a resort…the last resort maybe!). It’s actually a smancy golf resort with lights for night time golfing if you desire. We managed to get a room overlooking the fairways for RM180 (50 bucks); too bad we don’t’play golf. The room was a lot nicer than anything I’ve paid fifty dollars for
Krashen and me
After the third time he asked, I finally agreed to let him have a pic with me. in the US, or more for than matter (see the blog about the trip to Cincinnati for the marathon). I was able to wake and relax before my presentation knowing that I only had to walk down the corridor to get there and not brave the traffic. My presentation was in the second round of the morning talks at a bright and early 8:30am. It was supposed to have been 9am but they shifted the time due to it being Friday and the need for prayers in the afternoon. I didn’t mind, 6 people did manage to make it to my talk. More came in at 9 when I had finished and wanted to get my handout. It was then that I was able to meet with some of the organizers from UiTM (Universiti Teknologi MARA) and learn more about the school.
Friday at lunch time, my presentation under my belt and with lots of contact names written down, Poh and I left the conference and headed on a tiki tour around KL. Our first stop was the Universiti of Malaya, the large all races uni in KL. It seems that UiTM is only for Malays. Anyway, we hit
Our view of the links
Too bad we don't golf. It looks like a great place for a run, doesn't it! the bookstore at UM as it’s got lots of variety much more than any public bookstore in Malaysia, more the type of books I was looking for too. After 2 hours at UM we drove by what used to be the world’s tallest building. I managed to snap off lots of pics of it before we headed back home to Kuantan.
Overall, the trip went well and I got to see a bit more of KL and its environs. I think I prefer Kuantan, a busy yet relatively quieter place. It was good to get back and see Jo and the kids after almost 4 days away.
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Mary
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HI Keith you rblog pages are most interesting adn I am enjoying reading them. Only have to get ALan to have enough time to catch up. Please give my regards to Jo and the children. Love from your NZ Mum