UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies

This is a qualitative case study of four smart schools’ teachers using purposive sampling. The study unveils the implementation of smart teaching and learning strategies in pre-writing activities in Bahasa Melayu (Malay Language). Pre-writing activities include reading, free writing, brainstorming, mind mapping, and listening. These activities revolve around student centered learning, thoughtful learning, group work, and also media in the implementation of teaching and learning. There is Integration of Learning Theories based on Brain Based Learning Theory in the prewriting activities. Qualitative data are derived from triangulation of data from non-participant observation, interviews, document analysis as well as vignette and concept maps. Validity is documented through six segments: triangulation from multisources, experts’ review, long-term observation, peer checking, investigator’s position, and collaborative ties with participants. Reliability is determined by the researcher, who uses triangulation and an audit trail. The key findings of the study are as follows: First, prewriting activities include brainstorming activities and mind mapping, reading and interpreting data from print and electronic media. The ability to convey information helps to develop critical thinking. Second, the efforts of smart teachers strengthen learning and teaching which inculcate analytical and critical skills to solve problems. Third, a cyclical model is created from the interviews and observations made during the prewriting activities. Efforts to make smart teaching and learning a success require teachers as well as students to think creatively. Fourth, smart characteristics are related to the integration of brain-based learning theory.

Bibliography and data provided as a handout to accompany keynote lecture at the joint UCLA-UC Berkeley conference on Languages of Southeast Asia, held at UCLA January 30 - February 1, 2009.

Selected abstracts from the UCLA – UC Berkeley Joint Conference on Southeast Asian Studies, Friday, January 30 - Sunday, February 1, 2009, 314 Royce Hall, UCLA Campus. A forum for presentations of new research and the exchange of ideas to create fresh conversations between scholars and teachers of Southeast Asian languages.

This essay discusses the distinctive features of the writings of Epifanio San Juan, Jr. with special reference to his interpretation of postcolonial theory. After demonstrating the significance of postcolonial theories from a Japanese perspective, San Juan’s approach toward postcolonial theory is critically examined. By doing so, positive linkage between postcolonial studies and the new directions in Philippine studies is sought.

The Islamic resurgence that has engulfed most Muslim countries today has thrown forth different levels of tension and competing ideologies within these societies: what Islam, whose Islam is the right Islam? Very often, it is the status and rights of women that have become the first casualty in this battleground. The struggle for equality and justice for Muslim women must therefore be placed within the context of women living in Muslim societies where Islam is increasingly shaping and redefining our lives. Very often, it is the Muslim women who are targeted to reflect society’s renewed commitment to the faith in ways that are often discriminatory and oppressive.

This essay was originally written by Yoshiko Nagano in 2004 in Japanese as a commentary to an edited volume where Japanese translation of eight essays by three Filipino historians, Reynaldo C. Ileto, Vicente L. Rafael and Floro C. Quibuyen - originally written in English – are compiled. Originally the essay was written for Japanese readers, then translated into English by Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes. The essay analyzes the contributions of the three Filipino authors to Philippine historiography, to post-colonial studies broadly, and to post-colonial studies in Japan in particular.

Texts of Philippine literature are marked by a desire for movement and mobility - moving away of epic heroes to fight battles, tricksters in folktales outdoing the powerful, return of the male hero (in Rizal's novels) to the homeland and their nostalgia for the ideals of European liberalism, diasporic literature's melancholia (including Filipino American novels) for the mother-nation, among others. These parallel the culmination of a national desire for diasporic movement and mobility as eight million Filipinos presently assume the identity of the overseas contract worker. The article examines diaspora as a historical and political trope in Philippine literature, a way to trace the cultural politics behind the present intensive movement of Filipino labor worldwide.

This essay discusses the transnational tensions that emerged in recent Japanese translations of studies of Philippine history. It focuses on an anthology of eight essays written by historians Reynaldo C. Ileto, Vicente L. Rafael and Floro L. Quibuyen, as well as on the Japanese edition of Reynaldo C. Ileto’s seminal text, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910. By reflecting on the process of translating the works of Filipino scholars into a Japanese context, this essay shows how translation becomes a kind of transcultural intellectual battlefield, revealing the different stakes of Filipino and Japanese writers in their approach to Philippine history.

This paper is a preliminary essay thinking about the concept of an Indonesian Islam. After considering the impact of the ideas of Geertz and Benda in shaping the current contours of what is assumed to fit within this category, and how their notions were built on the principle that the region was far more multivocal in the past than the present, it turns to consider whether, prior to the existance of Indonesia, there was ever such a notion as Jawi Islam and questions what modern Indonesians make of their own Islamic history and its impact on the making of their religious subjectivities.

The Renovation literary movement in Vietnam began in 1986, reached its peak in 1988-1989 and had no official conclusion. The concept of “post-Renovation” used in my talk refers to the period from the mid 1990s until today.Up to the mid 1990s, the legitimate parameters of the literary field were marked by invisible flags which Vietnamese writers had been well trained to perceive. This field was the most spacious that Vietnamese literature had ever enjoyed with two important exceptions: literature from the late colonial era of 1930 – 1945 and Southern literature prior to 1975. In the post-Renovation era, the basic rule is that: “You can do whatever you want as long as you avoid politics.” This clever agreement facilitates living together in peace and allows both sides to avoid the kinds of conflicts that occurred in the past and that neither side wants to repeat. This rule allows writers to commit themselves completely to art, a position which used to be criticized and was even banned for a time. In Vietnam, the practice of segregating literature from politics has a stature akin to the separation of church and state.