I played the role of TESL Man in the sketch entitled 'The Superhero Gallery'

Pre-ESL Night is a show which consists of plays, sketches, songs, dance musicals and poem recitation. The show was organized and presented by the final year students of Pre ESL Matriculation in the University of Malaya. They organized the show because it was part of the coursework. The show took place on 19 February 1993 at the Experimental Theatre, University of Malaya.

The Pre ESL Night started off with a sketch entitled 'Tale from the other side of the brain'. This event probably took place in a mental hospital whereby the actors and actresses who acted as mental patients appeared on stage and portrayed their weird behaviour and insanity. Next, a group of boys sang a song entitled 'It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday' by Boyz II Men. The third item was a play entitled '3 a.m. Eternal' featuring a doctor who was willing to go to the extent of murder just to obtain eternal life.

Later in the evening, Miss EvaFira Fiza, one of the students rendered a solo song entitled 'Old Friend'. She sang without any background music. Bravo! Then, the third musical entitled 'Adam's Eve (East vs West)'. In this musical show, easterners and westerners tried to outclass each other by showing off their various dances in a night club. However, after trying to outdo each other, they finally came to a compromise and then danced together.

I was naive then but managed to give my best in acting and later obtained an A for Theatre Arts paper.

After that, two sketches were presented, one entitled 'The Superhero Gallery' and the second one 'Lembah Pantai 59100'. The first sketch saw a student writing an essay on ways to solve social illnesses. This student was helped and guided by three superheroes. The other sketch saw students dancing in tune with the song 'An Uptown Girl' by Billy Joel.

Students showed off their talents by reciting a poem taken from a famous play by Shakespeare. Last but not least, four groups of girls, representing the four seasons came onto stage and sang a song entitled 'Girls For All Seasons'. For the second time, all students came out on stage and danced before the show was over.

 Feeling satisfied for job well done! Wearing shorts was our lecturer, Encik Jamaluddin.

In conclusion, the Pre ESL Night was a success. The events, sketches, plays, musicals went along fine as planned. In my opinion, there is still room for much improvement. The students' acting needs more brushing up and a little more life. They should also throw their voices towards the audience, speak clearly and full of expression. Sad to say, some of the sketches contained little meaning. However, I do not have much to complain about the musicals that were presented. The singers were picked with great care, I think. Miss Eva, for example, showed some potential in singing and with a little bit more practice, she would pass a singer. The poem reciting was okay. Unfortunately, they too lacked practice. All in all, it was a night to remember and with more practice and effort, it would have turned out perfect, as we all know, practice makes perfect.

P.S. I screened the video of Pre ESL Night to my Form 4 Science 2 students while undergoing my teaching practice at SMK Vivekenanda, Brickfields, KL in mid 1996 and then asked them to write a review of the video. The above review was written by the best student in that class named Julie Tan.