This phrase was too familiar when I was back in my school days. The teacher would set a ground rule for the class, by saying, "If you want to go to toilet please ask for my permission. Don't simply go out." And when somebody approach the teacher and said, "teacher, toilet.." he would get scolded or possibly get a slap from the teacher. It should be something like, "Teacher, teacher, can I go to toilet?" or with a more polite phrase, "Teacher, may I go to the toilet?". Well, those were the days.
As I browsed through my seniors' dissertation papers I found out that majority of local primary students had the urge to learn English because they were not confident enough to face their teacher, particularly when they want to go to the toilet. And toilet is one of the basic necessity for every school chidren. Imagine if you have to wait for an hour so that the Malay Language teacher would come and you can finally say, "cikgu nak pergi tandas". Even so, if you express it wrongly, you might as well caught up in the same situation as when you were with your English teacher. Who wouldn't be mad when somebody calls you a toilet? (Cikgu tandas..)
Sometimes, when it comes to asking permission students must also be aware of who they are talking to. There are some phrases which can be offensive to people, but there can also be phrases that causes laughter. For whatever reason the phrases should serve, students have to learn the language so that they could get through all the troubles and go on with their lives. See how important language can be in expressing one's thought. It may seem like a simple matter when we are in school, but imagine if you are somewhere in the high-class English speaking community, and you don't have the vocabulary. You may have to force yourself to learn the language too.
But by saying that it doesn't mean you can't be confident when you don't have certain knowledge of the language. We used to simply say "teacher, emergency" and ran away when nature waited for no one. You don't really have to struggle to learn that phrase. And the teacher won't slap you for that.
hahaha ya you are right !!!! these phrases were used constantly but now the time has been changed for us.. now i can use my english but still didn't complete my dissertation and getting some Dissertation help by some resources..
Posted by: Dissertation help | 06/18/2010 at 12:46 PM