A few funny things I read about our country policy today, one of it is the controversial teaching Science and Mathematics in English policy. I refer to the news titled "
More protests against policy to teach in English" today (1 February 2009).
Former Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka director-general and movement president Datuk Hassan Ahmad asked how can the two subjects be taught in English to the pupil who don't even understand English when they go to school. Hassan also pointed out that the controversial policy was not achieving its initial objectives and was creating more problems instead. He suggested that the education system should work on improving the techinque of teaching English, expose children to good literature and get experts to devise a method that works.
With the implmentation of teaching Science and Mathematics in English, actually it has successfully exposed our children to an English environment. Imagine the primary students have to read in English, speak in English, write in English, ask and be asked in English, when they are attending Science and Mathematics subjects. Indirectly they are exposed to English much more than before the implementation. But...
Language subject, English for example, can only be improved if we use more daily. It is not something you can learn fast closing the door without communicating with each other. At my time, I only got to see someone who speak in English very rarely, it was during the English class. I had had a hard time to understand what my English teacher fucked in the class before I got to open my mouth and speak in that language. I had fear. So, most of the time, I was a dumb to my English teacher and worse came to worst, my English teachers were so reluctant to help me to get rid of it. Partly because the fear I had in this language was too great, partly because my English teachers' English were so so only, just good enough to teach according to the syllabus (basic English) but not good enough to introduce English to us as something interesting and funny to learn.
As far as I remember, more than half of my English teachers from the primary and secondary school were not qualified to teach English subject. I did not know about it when I attended their classes. But after so many years working and blogging, I have to admit that my English improved a lot although there are plenty of rooms where I can improve in, I realised that some of the English teachers failed to speak good English at all time. Good English here means the sentences used are grammatically and structurally correct only. You see, your teachers fail to do that, how can they expect you to do well??
Let us look at the controversial education policy, teaching Science and Mathematics in English, if not all the English teachers are qualified to teach English, how can you expect the Science and Mathematics teachers to teach the subjects in English?? I doubt these teachers can converse in English with correct English. If the Science and Mathematics teachers can't speak in grammatically and structurally correct English, how can you expect the pupils to learn good English??
The outcomes of the controversial policy are listed as below:-
- The children's English has improved but in a broken way. They speak in English more frequent now but they do not know that they are speaking broken and lousy English. I think it is fine to say the language they use are not English, but their mother-tongue with some English terms in their sentences such as:
One plus one sama dengan two lah;
- The children's Science and Mathematics results declined a lot because they do not understand what their teachers talking in the class;
- The students are damn
lan si now because they thought they are speaking in English;
- The students' English subject declined too especially in their composition because they use something inappropriate such as :-), @_@, ;p, go
lah, right
kah??, etc;
- English subject teachers are very
lan si because all the Science and Mathematics teachers will fight to wipe the English teachers' asses in order to get help to improve their English;
- The rural pupils decided to help their grandfather and father in the farms and estates because these places do not need to speak in English.
I support the idea by Datuk Hassan, we should improve the techniques of teaching English, expose children to good literature and get experts to devise a method that works.
By the way, I have recently created a
Formula One blog to share my knowledge and views about this sport. See you Formula One fans there!!
