The talk of whether English should be made compulsory to pass in SPM is still debated in the last two days. If asked, I'd say yes, go ahead and make it compulsory. Looking into the distant future, English is still the international communication language just ahead of Mandarin and Malaysia has indeed become an embarrassment to those who speak English better than us including our neighbor Singapore.
The plan of putting Bahasa Malaysia first and foremost ahead of English for the sake of nationalism was a bad mistake and as the result, many people including those in the rural areas are suffering from the skill and knowledge handicap because most of the skills are taught in English, not in Bahasa Malaysia. An example in case of point is learning to do programming languages. Programming languages mostly used English as its base point, without that, you can forget about doing programming software. In rural areas, people there are ones who suffered the most because even the teachers themselves could not convey or teach them well in English given of lack of capability to do so.
The English language has become a precedence of everything we want to learn - science, computer languages, understanding classical literature and everything else. To help people learn and improve English will take more than teaching in classrooms and through books. As part of teaching them daily indirectly, signboards, official letters should be in English, not in Bahasa Malaysia. Government agency hotlines like the Inland Revenue Board has given expats especially working here some hassle by only providing a BM option and language choice.
I have sat down with a few Malay people in conversing in official matters and I find that 8 out of 10 whom I see seem to have speech problems in English. I sometimes observe and deliberately test them to see how well they speak. Because of the past policies, and other factors, it seems that Malaysia is producing more idiots instead of producing a huge number of practical oriented good brains.
It is indeed to late to reverse the problem right now, due to inaction by the Education Ministers including Hisham Hussein. If the problem is needed to be solved immediately, it is through radical means like:
1. Reversing the exam paper format and the amount of content of teaching on Bahasa Malaysia and English. In otherwords, requirements, format and teaching content should be swapped, BM reduced, English increased. As I concur with some people, English in Maths and Science is insufficient because students can only improve in scientifically aspects, not daily aspects.
2. Replace billboards, and signs with dual languages.
3. Get English language specialists, local and foreign to be associate teachers. It is necessary given of the current scenario and to help guide teachers in teaching English better.
I do not have to go further but to say to Mat Sembab that the current education system inherited from the 1950s still remains irrelevant despite various measures and there has to be a big change and revamp from everywhere including things that involve us daily.
Jangan jadi lembik.
The plan of putting Bahasa Malaysia first and foremost ahead of English for the sake of nationalism was a bad mistake and as the result, many people including those in the rural areas are suffering from the skill and knowledge handicap because most of the skills are taught in English, not in Bahasa Malaysia. An example in case of point is learning to do programming languages. Programming languages mostly used English as its base point, without that, you can forget about doing programming software. In rural areas, people there are ones who suffered the most because even the teachers themselves could not convey or teach them well in English given of lack of capability to do so.
The English language has become a precedence of everything we want to learn - science, computer languages, understanding classical literature and everything else. To help people learn and improve English will take more than teaching in classrooms and through books. As part of teaching them daily indirectly, signboards, official letters should be in English, not in Bahasa Malaysia. Government agency hotlines like the Inland Revenue Board has given expats especially working here some hassle by only providing a BM option and language choice.
I have sat down with a few Malay people in conversing in official matters and I find that 8 out of 10 whom I see seem to have speech problems in English. I sometimes observe and deliberately test them to see how well they speak. Because of the past policies, and other factors, it seems that Malaysia is producing more idiots instead of producing a huge number of practical oriented good brains.
It is indeed to late to reverse the problem right now, due to inaction by the Education Ministers including Hisham Hussein. If the problem is needed to be solved immediately, it is through radical means like:
1. Reversing the exam paper format and the amount of content of teaching on Bahasa Malaysia and English. In otherwords, requirements, format and teaching content should be swapped, BM reduced, English increased. As I concur with some people, English in Maths and Science is insufficient because students can only improve in scientifically aspects, not daily aspects.
2. Replace billboards, and signs with dual languages.
3. Get English language specialists, local and foreign to be associate teachers. It is necessary given of the current scenario and to help guide teachers in teaching English better.
I do not have to go further but to say to Mat Sembab that the current education system inherited from the 1950s still remains irrelevant despite various measures and there has to be a big change and revamp from everywhere including things that involve us daily.
Jangan jadi lembik.
So, DAP wanted all our children to be Sakai lembik lah?
ReplyDeleteDetails: http://thextalks.blogspot.com/2009/06/dap-doesnt-want-you-to-learn-english.html