Blair Daly - English Teaching Assistant to Malaysia
Home Institution: Whitworth University, Spokane, WA
Grant Dates: January 2011 - November 2011
Going to Bat for Mutual Understanding: Teaching English and Coaching Softball in Malaysia
Blair Daly coaching his team at Tengku Ampuan Intan Secondary Schol in Malaysia
Surprisingly, neither my year of prior experience in Malaysia nor my basic proficiency in the Malay language has opened the most doors to cultural exchange for me as I carry out my duties as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant. The key, out of left field, has instead been my background in baseball, a sport alien to most Malaysians, especially those in the quiet countryside of Terengganu state.
Tengku Ampuan Intan Secondary School (or SMKTAI, pronounced “SMK Tie”) each year achieves outstanding academic results, and its volleyball team is near-dominant. Baseball and softball, however, had never been offered here before. Although softball is technically an official Malaysian school sport, very few schools field teams, largely because of a lack of coaches. After conducting a quick survey to gauge interest, and having confirmed that the school did indeed possess gloves, balls, and a bat, I declared my intention to start SMKTAI’s first-ever softball team. In doing so, I extended a legacy of introducing Malaysian students to the American pastime, which stretches back at least forty years to a U.S. Peace Corps teacher named Richard Schatz.
Schatz was one of just three faculty members to open a new rural secondary school in 1966 in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, northern Borneo. In addition to teaching, he coached basketball and – amazingly – horseback riding, but his main focus was on the softball team. The school could not afford gloves, so the athletic American trained his infielders to use their bodies to knock the ball down and then zip it over to first base. Schatz always cherished those years coaching softball in Malaysia, and in 2007 he joyously reunited with his former players while there as a Fulbright Specialist.
It was the following year, in 2008, when the country of Malaysia entered my radar for the first time – through Dr. Richard Schatz, Professor of Economics at Whitworth University. He interspersed lessons on macroeconomics with enchanting and often comical stories from his Peace Corps days in Malaysia, a land which increasingly interested me. With the help and encouragement of Dr. Schatz, I studied for a semester
in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak in 2009. Upon my graduation from Whitworth University, I accepted a 2011 Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship grant to Terengganu, Malaysia.
At SMKTAI, coaching a boys’ softball team in the afternoons has been a wonderful way to supplement the teaching of English and to build meaningful relationships with students. The extra hours of informal English listening and speaking while playing softball are equally if not more valuable than our forty-minute sessions together inside the classroom. Because softball/baseball-derived terms and idioms pervade American English, the coaching of softball and the teaching of English language and American culture reinforce each other. The SMKTAI softball players have not only learned to play the game but have also mastered common baseball-inspired expressions, watched movies like The Sandlot and Rookie of the Year, read baseball-related comics and magazine articles, and sung “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (a famous baseball song sung at many major league baseball games in the U.S.). They love to “root, root, root for SMKTAI” and perform their best umpire impressions as they holler, “One, two, three strikes, YER OUT!” I even prefaced our team tryouts by reading the children’s book “The Berenstain Bears Go Out for the Team” and discussing how, in Sister Bear’s words, “It’s only a game, and the worst that can happen is that we don’t make the team.”
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| Daly and his team watch as an SMKTAI batter hits the ball. |
The cultural gleanings have gone both ways, as simply being on the field with these twenty-odd guys has provided me new insights into Malay behavior and customs. For example, during one of the first practices I got angry with the players as they suddenly and without explanation quit running and even sat down on the field – right in the middle of a drill! I was caught way off base when it was pointed out to me that the azan, the Muslim call to prayer, was sounding, and they needed to stop all activity for its duration out of religious respect. In addition, I have visited homes and met families of several players who are eager to reciprocate my sharing about America by linking me to their own way of life. In their villages we’ve sipped from fresh coconuts, barbecued spicy chicken, splashed around in waterfalls, and “raced” on our motorbikes. Their hospitality is impeccable, and my Malay language skills enable communication with non-English speaking members of their communities.
Having grown so close to the players during our months of practice, I felt apprehensive entering the district tournament. I feared that our hard work would not be enough to secure a podium finish. Whereas the three other teams had years of experience and were comprised mostly of 15-17 year-olds, this was our team’s rookie season and our players were all 13 and 14. After overcoming nerves and emerging victorious from our first two games, we faced off against the district’s top team in the tournament’s final game. At the end of regulation time we were locked at eight runs apiece; to extra innings (overtime) we went. Here, unfortunately, my boys’ greenness showed through, and a couple of base running mistakes cost us the gold. Their disappointment with falling short was evident, but these young Malay boys – Amzar, Izad, Jufri, Ikwan, Zafrul and others – certainly had something to be proud of. When they received their silver medals on stage at a special school-wide assembly, they held their heads high, the pioneers of softball at SMKTAI.
To the U.S.-Malaysia Fulbright Program