By: Dhia Iwana
Kuala Lumpur: With a zero background and knowledge of a foreign language, Nor Shahira Ismail did not take it as a stumbling block in pursuing her interest in studying a foreign language.
She completed her study at Beijing Foreign Studies University for five years and now she becomes a Mandarin Language Teacher at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and an online Mandarin class.
Nor Shahira, 27, better known as Sha Laoshi said that learning a new language was not just about practicing a daily conversation, but it also helps you to access more things about others' cultures as well as ruining the language barrier between people.
This Penang -born child stated that since primary school, she was exposed to Arab Language, and she fined it interesting to keep learning something new.
“Honestly, learning a new language is not hard as we are expected. I can say that if you love to learn it, it means you will automatically willingly memorize it. No matter what the language is, as long as you have the determination, then it should be fined,” said Sha Laoshi.
Not only capable of Mandarin Language, but she was also capable of some foreign languages such as Japanese, Russian, Korean and Arab Languages and now she planned to study in Turkish Language.
During the interview, Sha Laoshi shared her degree experience in Beijing.
“I joined some clubs and met someone from Russia, and from there we started to make friends. During that time, I found that it is quite interesting to study this Russian Language, and I started to explore more about it,” said Sha Laoshi.
FAMILY BACKGROUND IN LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE
In her family, she was the only one who know about Mandarin and some foreign languages. But now she has three nephews that know about this third language.
Sha Laoshi is married now and both of them are blessed with a boy.
“I am very grateful to my husband as he always encourages me to explore a new thing including learning a foreign language, and now I am planning to take a Turkish class,” she said.
Her husband was also graduating from Beijing University, so it is quite easy for them to understand each other’s passion for exploring a new language.
CHALLENGE AS A LANGUAGE TEACHER
“I remembered during my early times handling the online class, sometimes I do call my student’s name, unfortunately, I didn’t receive any feedback from them. So, I was down during that time,” she said.
As a teacher, she was struggling with the Internet Connection and her student’s attitude during the class.
But eventually, she kept thinking positively about them.
“I talk to myself, it’s okay Sha. It’s not because they did not interest in the class, but maybe because of their internet connection,” said Sha Laoshi.
Along with that, I managed to ask about her challenges as a language teacher and at the same time as a mother.
She once again tells that she thanked her husband for understanding her commitment to the classes.
During her class or study time, they both will manage time to take care of the family. If she was attending the class, then her husband will take care of their child or do house chores.
“Let's say if I didn’t have much time to cook (dinner), so he will take over it and after that, I will clean it up, so basically, we divided ourselves with all of these house chores,” she adds.
BENEFITS OF LEARNING FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Sha Laoshi reminded that it was always not too late to learn a new language. Despite getting the benefit in our future, she also added that learning a foreign language, it helps us keep our brain active.
She once shared a study from Old Folks Home in Florida, where the researcher found that people with Multilingual still have an active brain even though they have already reached the age of 60. Meanwhile, the person with a mono language, found out that the part of their brain was deactivated.
Based on this sharing, we can see the benefit itself to us if we are taking a foreign language.
SECOND INTERVIEW SOURCE
When we talked about languages, one of Sha Laoshi’s students from Jom Mandarin shared that learning a new language gives a huge benefit to us. As we can see each language has its uniqueness in terms of vocabulary, the meaning itself, and others.
“I agree with anyone who is eager to learn a new language. For myself, I have zero knowledge at all about Mandarin, but once I have been working with multi races, I realize that learning the third language is a bonus to my career development,” said Aimie Umielia.
She added that it is never too late to gain new knowledge including other languages.
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