We're Going to Be Stars

Things have been hectic and we have been very busy. We have a part time job! A short while ago a neighbour of ours (Rossy, a real estate agent, the woman who acted for our landlord) called to ask if we would speak with her husband. We agreed. When Burnett, her husband, called he asked of we would be interested in helping him revise some educational software his company produces. We met at their apartment one evening and Burnett showed us a multimedia program that he and an ex-pat linguistic professor from UK had developed. It was designed originally to assist Malaysian kindergarten teachers to teach English to their students. It worked and sold well in Malaysia and other ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) countries where the British form of English is spoken. Now they want to expand the market to countries where a preference for North American English is preferred. For example they are targeting Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines among others.

We liked the program and agreed to help out. We were then invited to a dinner the following weekend at which we met Gerry, the professor and a Henry Higgins type with a startling resemblance to Terry Thomas. We also met his Malaysian wife who is a doctor of linguistics herself. Once Gerry had checked us out we were off to the next step, attendance at a seminar they were conducting for some local kindergarten teachers. We were impressed with the presentation and particularly with how well Burnett captured the personality and practice of teachers everywhere.

Later that week (in fact just last week) Burnett invited us over and presented us with the script. Apparently our mid-Atlantic accent passed the test and we will be doing this. Our task is to proof read the script and translate British language and vocabulary to CNN style North American usage. Afterwards we will do the voice over of the adult characters for the NA version of the program. Finally, we will coach the children who do those parts of the program voices.

The program is divided into three levels (kindergarten ,one and two) of 26 lessons (one for each letter) and covers the Malaysian curriculum in English, Math Science and Morality. The need for the program arises from the fact that most primary educators here are not first language speakers of English and therefore have great difficulty with both pronunciation and fluency. This is a major selling feature as is the design; it is meant for ease of use by the teacher.

We weren't expecting to get additional work but the project is very interesting and - surprise, surprise!!! - they want to pay us. It's not a great deal of money but given the cost of living here it will pay for a couple of side trips.