Musings of Eric Chong

Mr. Yong celebrating with a student in 2005 Last week, I received news that one of my long-serving centre managers of Erican Kepong, Mr. Yong, was suffering from cancer. Mr. Yong was not just a good colleague, he was a good friend of mine. Upon hearing this news, I said to myself, "I must pay Mr. Yong a visit as soon as possible." Earlier today, I had a meeting with another colleague of mine from Erican Kepong, Ms. Soo Ken. She told me about how Mr. Yong had found out that he had pancreatic cancer just a few weeks ago and how fast he had been deteriorating ever since. I immediately detected a sense of urgency and I decided not to procrastinate any longer. As today was Friday, I said to Soo Ken, "Let's visit Mr Yong as soon as I return from traveling next Monday. We'll pray for him and give him our best wishes." However, just moments ago... I received news from Soo Ken that Mr. Yong had passed away. I was very saddened. I was saddened because I had delayed my...

. I had the fortunate opportunity to meet up with some very interesting people whilst I was attending the MELTA Conference 2010 in Kuching on 17th & 18th June, 2010. Some of them were veteran linguists, while others were educators who have played significant roles in their respective academic organisations. Everyone I met at this conference clearly had a strong passion for English education and worked unceasingly to contribute one way or another to the development and betterment of ELT as a profession. Of all the incredible educators I met in the past two days, allow me to simply touch upon a few of the interesting individuals whom I would like to thank for having enlightened me and added value to my four day stay in Kuching. This list is naturally not exhaustive, as it would take me another three days if I were to count all the fine hard-working people that I met at the conference. Myself with Dato Leela Mohd Ali 1. Dato Leela Mohd Ali - Dato Leela is a woman whom I have always re...

Greetings one and all! I was privileged to be invited to speak at the MELTA ( Malaysian English Language Teaching Association ) Conference, which was held in Kuala Lumpur today at the Royale Chulan. The topic I was asked to present was "Entrepreneurship and Social Contribution in Language Education" , something that as you can imagine is quite close to my heart. While I might share some of the contents of my reading at some point in the near future, today I’d rather discuss some of the other presentations that impressed me during these last two days. To start the conference off, the Royal Patron of MELTA, HRH Raja Zarith Sofiah binti Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah gave us all a good sound royal lecture. Her Royal Highness spoke candidly about her concerns over the decline of English standards within Malaysia. HRH's speech was most enlightening and it gave this great event an intellectually stimulating kick off. Just think - if the voices from the top are even calling for ‘imp...

Some of the newer visitors to my blog (which at this point of writing, means all of you), may wonder why I am using "Erican Chong "as my name in blogspot, rather than my more commonly known name, Eric Chong. The answer lies on the great World Wide Web. You see, I recently - on a whim - googled 'Eric Chong' just to see how many Eric Chong's there are out there on the internet. Well, let me tell you - there are thousands! !! After browsing through the various search results for over an hour, I came to the conclusion. There are so many Eric Chong's out there that I believe any type of search for any one 'Eric Chong" would become very time consuming indeed. In business, we like to talk about product differentiation. "Don't sell the same thing in the same way as everybody else does," many business gurus often say. Taking this advice to heart, I have decided to avoid being confused with all the other 'Eric Chongs' in the world and s...

Greetings Friends, far and near... This entry represents the first of what will become many blog articles. They say the first time of anything is always most exciting. It is absolutely true in my case. Although blogging has been around for quite some time, as a first-time blogger I find myself having a bit of self doubt... maybe lacking in some confidence. However, I am - above all - curious and adventurous. I can assure you that mere traces of self-doubt will not stop me from communicating with you all across the world, to share my thoughts with you, and to hear your thoughts too! With that said, I shall close this starting prose and bid you all a very good day...at least 'til next I post! Keep Going Beyond Limits! "Life is about constantly going beyond limits!" - Erican Chong