from an email to Elaine Bent in Texas.
E: I am glad you have met and are involved with some theatre people - both Chinese and American. You need to have that involvement to feed the special talents God gave you. Are the people in your class Chinese, Americans, or mixture?
K: All Singaporean Chinese. They speak English, but don't have the breadth of vocabulary we use. They've all learned a lot, and so have I. Expectations were a little high. No emerging playwrites out of the bunch, but every person grew creatively, and in their understanding of plays, and were glad to have taken the class. We'll see what develops in the future.
E: They are so lucky to have you to teach them script writing. I wish I could be there for that class, too. When you "go off" to write, do you have something special already in mind?
K: Usually some seed of something...theme, issue, conflict, circumstance. A few times we did helpful "flash writing" exercises. One we did was just like acting improvs. Everyone submitted character ideas, conflict, place, and positive and negative character qualities. Then they drew these slips and had to write a scene. It just got them writing about something. Which was the hardest for them to do - just START.
E: I can't believe BOTH of your boys are in school! They do grow up so quickly. Do they go to schools which are taught in Chinese? (I am assuming that Singaporean use Chinese for their national language. Am I correct? I really don't know.) Do you have to do some teaching of your own at home?
K: My boys schools are in English - and that is the National Language! (The English isn't always completely STANDARD English, but pretty good, just a strong accent, especially their classmates). They each have an hour+ of Chinese each day as part of the curriculum. All children must take Mother Tongue (one of three languages offered in the schools). Tyler says, can't I just call English my Mother Tongue and forget about Chinese? He and Cameron are both doing well. Their verbal skills are better than many of their classmates, and Tyler regularly scores in the high 80's on his exams (many of his classmates fail! - can you imagein faling a subject in 1st and 2nd grade?)
E: Do have a TV?
K: We have cable which offers a few extra stations. Cartoon network, National Geographic, etc. We're pretty well off in what we can get here. I have my mom tape The West Wing for me when she can. We are starved for intelligent conversation and bright friends with bigger vocabulary than most here, so we get our stimulation from having vicarious relationships with this TV President and his liberal staffers.
