UniSZA LANGLIT 2017 - International Conference on English Language, Literature and Teaching

Assalamualaikum and greetings, fellow readers!

Wow! It has been a very, very looooong time since I've last posted. I admit I've been very lazy to post anything new. Even though there has been an obvious lack of post for the past year, I've been actively replying all questions and reviewing all opinions that you, fellow readers, sent, especially on the Asasi TESL posts. To be honest, I feel like I should set up a page dedicated on all FAQs on Asasi TESL only. But that's a story for another time.

Now, off to our topic for today...

Last week, my friends and I joined this wonderful and amazing program called UniSZA LANGLIT 2017 or formally known as UniSZA International Conference on English Language, Literature and Teaching. It was held for two days at Primula Beach Hotel, Kuala Terengganu. As participants, we have to pay RM 200 each - me, Syakir (Syak), Shark (Syaqirah), Farhan (Paan) and Fadzly (Pali).

The first time we knew about this event was in Integrative Media class, where we were given a task to create a creative poster, promoting the event to the public (i.e. sharing it via our social media accounts). We used Canva, a free tool that you can find online to make posters, visual arts and others, to make the posters each. Here's mine:

At first, I was interested to join the event, but since you need to pay RM 200 as a participant (or RM 230 if you wish to be a presenter), I contemplated on whether to go or not.

Then, Shark approached me and asked if I want to join. I could see that she was really interested and was pretty much convinced to join. But, just to make sure if I did the right thing, I asked our circle of friends if they want to join too. Some of them wished to join but didn't have enough money to pay the fees, and some were just not interested to join such events. Soon, I made up my mind and decided to go anyway because:

1) I haven't been to a conference before, so why not give it a try now?
2) it's an INTERNATIONAL conference, surely I'll get to meet with teachers, educators and English practitioners worldwide;
3) I'm purely interested on all the 3 things they focused on this conference: English language, literature and teaching;
4) did I mention that I'll get to meet with people from around the world? Who knows, maybe I'll find someone whose as much a fan as I am of Hamilton: An American Musical (a Broadway musical I've been obsessed and listened to regularly and religiously since January, hahahaha)

Later, we both knew that we needed a transport to get there, so we reached out for Farhan & Fadzly, who were also signed up for this thing and were looking forward to see their friend and also one of our seniors, Puteri, who'll be presenting on one of those days during the conference.

The day before the event, Syakir suddenly made up his mind to join and I hurriedly assisted him to register and to pay the fees. Fortunately, there was still time to sign up. In the end, as I mentioned earlier, the five of us altogether were officially participants of the conference. Yeahhh!

DAY ONE

The tentative stated that the event will start at 9 am (I think), but registration starts at 8 am, so we really need to be there early. Not to mention, the road will be packed in the morning, full with people on their way to work. Though as much as we planned, we ended up to leave our house at 7.45 am.

Of course, it's a conference, so it must be a formal event. Hence, I donned a simple plain light-blue-almost-white-ish shirt (that I borrowed from my housemate), a black slack pants and blazer with a new pair of leather shoes that I bought the day before. Oh, and a black necktie (also borrowed from my roommate). All set and ready to go!

Before we left the house, Syakir showed a video of Jan Blake (one of the key presenters and 'highlights' of the conference) telling a story to a set of audience, whom I found very interesting and looking forward to see soon.

Upon reaching the venue, we checked in at the registration counter and was given a bag filled with a notebook, a university faculty magazine, a storybook courtesy of Scholastic Books, and a programme book as a schedule for us to keep track of the time and to see which presenters we wish to see.

The conference starts with a parallel session: presenters are placed in multiple rooms where participants can enter whichever room they wish to be in, in which the former will present their paper/thesis for 15 minutes, and another 5 minutes for Q&A sessions. Therefore, participants need to plan out which presenters and rooms they want to see and be in respectively.

I did this by looking at both the presenters and the title of their presentation. Preferably, I would the title that is personally the most intriguing and exciting, and would want to see my own seniors or lecturers presenting just to have the gist of it should I decide to present in the next conference (maybe, idk) or people with interesting names and titles (Prof Dr / Assoc Dr, cause why not, right?).

Up till the morning break, I was interested with these topics:

- Code-Switching: A Useful Foreign Language Teaching Tool in EFL Language
- Politeness in Interlanguage Pragmatics of Complaints by Malaysian Learners
- English Language Receptive Vocabulary Profile: A Case of Novice Business Undergraduate Students

Then, we have a 30-minute tea break - or breakfast to me. We were served (well, not served, it was a self-service buffet but yeah, you get it, right) fried vermicelli (bihun goreng) and coffee/tea (I chose coffee, and I like it black). After that, at 11 am, we had a plenary session with one of the key speakers, Prof Dr Alan Maley, as I may recall, an ELT professor and an author. He taught us on voice projection and how voice is a powerful tool especially in teaching profession. Honestly, I think he has that grandfather-like vibe, and he is 80 years old. He made us do some activities involving standing up, shaking our bodies, and shouting. It was fun.

An hour after that, we had a traditional opening ceremony, where one of the Terengganu's ADUN leader/representative of some sort (I'm sorry, I didn't focus well on this one) officially opened the ceremony. There were a group photography session and a press conference afterwards, and at about 1 am, we had our lunch. And it was amazing! The food was so satisfying. We ate in a regal manner (with napkins, spoon and forks and whatnot) yet in a bountiful amount, cause damn those food are delicious. The lunch break was about one hour and a half, plenty of time for Zohor prayer.

-to be continued-