Merlionsman
with Kevin Martens Wong, CSFP
COURSES & workshops
LISANG PRA GRUPU
FOR JUNIOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
PRA STUDANTI ANTIYUNI
where else you gonna learn about the stuff no one wants to help you learn?
Supercharge your GP via a unique hybrid experiential-immersive and online class focused on self-awareness that not only helps you secure that coveted A while developing your critical thinking skills and capacity for compassionate, intelligent and humane empathy, but also gives you the tools, confidence and strategies to talk about all the topics and current affairs that Singaporeans often struggle to talk about, even in the school classroom: race, religion, politics, sexuality, power, abuse and more. All this, too, through an active and immersive engagement with the two worlds each of us experience on a daily basis, piloted and refined in alignment with both the current and upcoming MOE syllabi and the internationally-recognised and indigenously-grounded pedagogy developed for the revitalisation of Kristang: the serene, natural world of Pulau Ujong and her surrounding shores, and your own beautiful inner world, waiting to be reclaimed and rediscovered.
agora
sempri
compatible with both the current 8807 syllabus and the new 8881 syllabus
with first year of examination in 2024
for JC1
'now' in Kristang
for JC2
'always' in Kristang
10x 2-hour sessions per module:
5x F2F experiential immersive content-building sessions at locations around Singapore
+ 5x Zoom drills and skills sessions online
+2x free optional individual consultation sessions
2023 term 1 schedule
agora
for JC1
2023 TERM 1 MODULE
merdeka
THE STATE & OPPOSITION
You've probably heard of the broad strokes, the stories, the codenames: Coldstore, Spectrum, Barisan, maybe even Lim Chin Siong. Cockles maybe even captured your attention, if not your heart, in 2020. But why on earth is Singapore the way it is today when it comes to politics? Just how did the People's Action Party come to and retain power, and why are Western observers perpetually critical of our approach to democracy? What are the mechanisms by which democracy is instilled, developed and preserved in Singapore and other industrialised nations, and how does Singapore stack up? Do the opposition's claims of gerrymandering and GRC reworking have any merit? And just what on earth is the difference between a Non-Constituency Member of Parliament and a Nominated one?
This module will get you started on figuring out just how on earth P1 and P2 work, and, in parallel, just how on earth Singapore works, providing not just a bird's-eye view of our city-state's fundamental political architecture and history, but an eagle-eyed awareness of lesser-known examples, events and details across the time and space of Singapore and the wider world critical for helping your P1 and AQ responses stand out. With your tutor's own negotiations and experiences with the state as a prominent individual in the public view, there's no better way to learn how to argue intelligently, politely and carefully, as Lee Kuan Yew himself always wanted out of the best of his Singaporeans!
Course name: Agora | Merdeka
Course code: 23AG01
Dates: Thu 5 January 2023 to Thu 9 March 2023
10 sessions, 2 hours each
Timing: Thursdays, 5-7pm
Venue: 5 sessions at outdoor venues around the CBD (exact venues will be released to you after you sign up), and 5 virtual sessions. All outdoor venues will be adjacent to MRT stations and public transport.
Course cost: $800 per pax
Max no. of course participants: 10
Prerequisites: None
Intensity level of activities: Mild; outdoors unless rain. All activities are designed for differently-abled participants to still be able to engage in them with a mild level of exertion as far as possible.
sempri
for JC2
2023 TERM 1 MODULE
Arkuiris
GENDER & SEXUALITY
After 377A, everyone wants to know where Singapore will go next with LGBTQ+ issues, and for you, as a member of the most diverse and gender-affirming generation ever to be born on the planet, the stakes can often be personal and still deeply painful. So what exactly does it mean to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, now, in the past, and in the future? Why do people in Singapore and around the world get so worked up about it? What is it like to come out, and what are the legal challenges and spaces for LGBTQ+ locally and globally? What are religious and ethnic perspectives on gender and sexuality, and the challenges for states around the world in negotiating their new dynamics? And most importantly: how do you as a JC2 GP student write about and express your own perspectives on them?
This module will drill and upskill your P1 and P2 abilities through the lens of gender and sexuality as experienced across space and time from our current vantage point in Singapore in 2023. Drawing on your tutor's own lived, often traumatic experiences as an LGBTQ+ Singaporean, and his connections with communities on both sides of the gender and sexuality divide, we will immerse ourselves in contexts critical to and critical of LGBTQ+ people in Singapore, and get to know the perspectives and stakeholders related to this complex, shifting and multifaceted issue. LGBTQ+ or not, we could all do a little more to understand each other's perspectives, and this is one of the best ways to do so.
Course name: Sempri | Arkuiris
Course code: 23SM01
Dates: Tue 3 January 2023 to Tue 7 March 2023
10 sessions, 2 hours each
Timing: Tuesdays, 5-7pm
Venue: 5 sessions at outdoor venues around the CBD (will be released to you after you sign up), and 5 virtual sessions. All outdoor venues will be adjacent to MRT stations and public transport.
Course cost: $800 per pax
Max no. of course participants: 10
Prerequisites: None
Intensity level of activities: Mild; outdoors unless rain. All activities are designed for differently-abled participants to still be able to engage in them with a mild level of exertion as far as possible.
H1 GP group pricing
I currently start from $800 per individual per entire Agora or Sempri module, with sliding scale options available. Please feel free to contact me for more details using the form below or by dropping me an email at
merlionsman at gmail dot com.
EXECUTIVE & PROFESSIONAL COURSES
LISANG PRA ADULTU KUNG MERKANSIA
Get your feet wet
Immerse your team, agency, institution or organisation in uncharted waters and exciting new frontiers with one of the most colorful offerings of courses, workshops and seminars this side of the South China Sea has ever seen.
nasang-nasang /
DIVERSITY,
EQUALITY & INCLUSION
MER-NN101: Diversity, Equality & Inclusion in the General Singaporean Context
With Singapore's historic repeal of Section 377A in August 2022 and more interest in identity, culture and inclusivity than ever before, especially among younger Singaporeans, how can your team, agency, institution or organisation better cater to the affective needs, identities and desires of a rapidly changing populace and workforce in the Lion City? Learn practical, actionable and equitable strategies, skills and language for developing a winning team that goes beyond simple tolerance for each other's differences and leverages on them for synergistic, collaborative and solutions-oriented outcomes that celebrate each team member's unique contributions and perspectives through an empathetic and EQ and CQ-raising examination of the axes of race, religion, class, gender and sexuality and ability in the current context of Singapore.
Target Audience: General adult
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (2 or 3 hours; one-off or series), short seminar-style course (1 to 3 days)
MER-NN102: Diversity, Equality & Inclusion in the Singaporean Classroom
Teaching the most diverse and identity-conscious generation ever to be born on the planet in the 21st-century classroom can be nothing short of a minefield, to say the very least, and with the instantaneousness of social media, one perceived microaggression can be all it takes to completely upend one's professional image and even jeopardise one's career. This course will not only introduce you to a vital and nuanced toolkit of skills and strategies to manage it all, but allow you to get up close and personal with the first-ever Singaporean educator to come out as gay and non-binary while teaching in a government school and also simultaneously being of a little-known minority ethnic background and religious inclination. Where else will you have the immensely rare opportunity to ask the challenging, inconvenient and politically incorrect questions about race, religion, sexuality and more? Go where few educators have been willing to tread, and supercharge your teaching with the empathy, sensitivity and courage needed to take your students and teaching to the next level.
Target Audience: Teachers, tutors, lecturers of especially secondary, pre-tertiary, tertiary and adult learners, although course can be tailored to other levels as well
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (2 or 3 hours; one-off or series), short seminar-style course (1 to 5 days)
MER-NN201: Pronouns: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
What exactly is a pronoun in linguistic terms, and why do people get so worked up about them in English today? Are so-called LGBTQ+ interests in reinventing the language really just a Western phenomenon? What about other languages across Southeast Asia and beyond? Get into the hard science behind how language works and what pronouns reveal about the diversity and plurality of human cultures across space and time, using a range of case studies and examples from the Nusantara and all around the world.
Target audience: General adult; also suitable for secondary, pre-tertiary and tertiary students
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (1 to 2 hours); hybrid or full online options available
MER-NN202: Gender in Southeast Asia and Beyond
My own heritage language Kristang may not yet have a word for gay, but it does have a term that arguably translates to non-binary: machu femi, or male-female. How have such divergent approaches to gender existed across languages and cultures in our region for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and why? With a firm foundation in scientific discoveries from the disciplines of anthropology and linguistics, discover what gender and sexuality can actually mean when we look beyond a Eurocentric perspective imposed upon our region by colonialism and its progeny, and extend your empathy and connection to not just other people, societies and civilisations, but maybe even to yourself as well!
Target audience: General adult; also suitable for secondary, pre-tertiary and tertiary students
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (1 to 3 hours); hybrid or full online options available
linggu kung papiakisa /
language & linguistics
MER-LN101: Linguistics for Professionals
We all know that language is an art, but how many of us are comfortable enough to also wield it as a science? A customisable course that introduces your team, agency, organisation or institution to the nuts and bolts of this new, pioneering field of study relevant to your particular context, discipline or market, and increases your overall analytic competency and linguistic awareness. Topics introduced can hence be tailored to your particular needs and interests, and can include phonetics and phonology (working with sounds and pronunciation), syntax (working with sentence structure and phrasing), morphology (working with words, especially new words and slogans), and sociolinguistics and language ecology (working with dialects, speech registers and how language interacts with different stakeholders).
Target audience: General adult
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (2 or 3 hours; one-off or series), short seminar-style course (1 day to 2 weeks); hybrid or full online options possible
MER-LN102: Linguistics for Language Educators
Let's face it: language teachers have some of the hardest jobs in the world, especially when you have been asked to teach language as a second or even third content subject that you yourself may not even be very confident of! This customisable course not only introduces you to the language-related terms, theories and concepts that you did not quite know could be so helpful, but gives you the latest developments in linguistics research that will help you refine your own ability to teach, identify students' problems and weaknesses, and connect the dots behind the often difficult to understand systems at the heart of the words that often come so naturally to us. Topics introduced can be tailored to your needs and interests, and can be customised for language teachers of any competency in linguistics and of a variety of languages (e.g. English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, the NTIL languages and more), though the medium of instruction must remain in English.
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (2 or 3 hours; one-off or series), short seminar-style course (1 to 2 weeks); hybrid or full online options available
MER-LN201: The Linguistics of Singlish
You know as well as I do that Singaporeans secretly love Singlish, despite what they may claim in public or when other people are around: it carries so much of our identity and our unique flavour as a people. Just how does this unique language work, though, and why do linguists consider it a language at all? Learn about the mechanics of Singlish and a little of the history, contestations and confusion around it in this hands-on workshop that is suitable for professionals of all ages.
:
Target audience: General adult; also suitable for secondary, pre-tertiary and tertiary students
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (1 to 3 hours), short seminar-style course (1 day); hybrid or full online options available
MER-LN202: The Linguistics of Kristang
You've heard Jingkli Nona, watched a Kristang video or two, or even attended a Kodrah Kristang worskhop or class. But how does Kristang work exactly? What is a creole, and why do we consider Kristang one? Why is it not "broken Portuguese" or "original Portuguese"? Why is there a Portuguese-Malay creole, and not a Dutch one? And why don't all Eurasians speak Kristang? Learn more about the story, structure, sociolinguistics and general science behind Kristang in a workshop catered to everyone who wants to know a bit more about nus sa linggu mai.
Target audience: General adult; also suitable for secondary, pre-tertiary and tertiary students
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (1 to 3 hours), short seminar-style course (1 day); hybrid or full online options available
MER-LN203: Minority Languages of Singapore
Out of Bugis, Jurong, Seletar and Yishun, at least two of these place-names are also names of languages and peoples who are also a part and parcel of our island's present-day context and history, but who are often forgotten in our 21st-century hustle and bustle. Get to know a wide sampling of Singapore's many minority languages, including indigenous and expatriate communities, and discover the secret sauce behind the melting pot of cultures that we are so famously known as.
Target audience: General adult; also suitable for secondary, pre-tertiary and tertiary students
Available formats: Short seminar-style professional development workshop (1 to 3 hours; one-off or series focusing on individual minority languages), short seminar-style course (1 day); hybrid or full online options available
peskisa individuasang / individuation theory
MER-ID101: Introduction to Individuation Theory
Discover the principles and basic premises behind one of the most powerful and effective coaching methods ever to exist in this intensive course that will enable you to not just work better with people of all ages and backgrounds, but understand a little bit more of what makes you a special, independent and unique gift to this planet and universe. Not for the faint-of-heart, and definitely for those who are filled with heart for both yourself and others; come prepared to challenge assumptions, conquer your vulnerabilities and fears, and question reality itself, so that something even more beautiful and amazing can take its place.
Target audience: General adult; also suitable for advanced pre-tertiary and tertiary students
Available formats: Short seminar-style course (3 days to 2 weeks); course can be extended as a series of four to eight parts covering different levels of Individuation Theory depending on individual learner competencies
EXEC & PRO
course pricing
For all Executive & Professional courses, prices vary based on your preferred format and target audience. Sliding scale options are available. Please feel free to contact me for more details using the form below or by dropping me an email at merlionsman at gmail dot com.