The news articles today “Focus still on English” and “English not neglected“, got me thinking about the education system in Malaysia:
THE TEACHING OF MATHS AND SCIENCE IN BAHASA MALAYSIA
1. I am relieved to hear that our government is still keen to ensure that the future generation of Malaysians will be able to compete in the global arena. While many parents are upset about the switch from teaching Science and Mathematics in English (for the past 6 years) back to Bahasa Malaysia, I need to remind them that the government’s decision is based on the interests of the majority.
I wonder if anyone remembers that the standard of English in Malaysia started to decline the year English stopped being a compulsory ‘pass’ subject in the SPM examination (equivalent to the GCE ‘O’ Levels, Year 10 or Grade 10)?
When I was in Form 5 (in the early 90s) we still had good English teachers (whether they are Malay, Chinese or Indian) who taught with passion and had quizzes, riddles, language games, English week, drama etc even though our English textbooks were DEAD boring.
In the late 1990s, I started hearing about young English teachers who could barely speak English, much less teach it. Furthermore, they were not very enthusiastic teachers…
Many of our old teachers also opted for early retirement because they were unhappy with the Education Department’s administrative policies.
At around that time, we English majors were ‘endangered species’ and I know of many Education major friends who scrambled to find options out because joining the teaching force meant low pay, loads of paperwork and a lack of advancement.
After teaching English in a private college for 5 years, I decided to jump ship myself. My students were horrified to hear how low my salary was!
Heck, I loved to teach English but I had to make a living too – and yes, even teachers dream of driving a nice car, going for a holiday overseas, dressing up and other fancies those in the higher income group enjoy 
At around 2000, I was fortunate to find a challenging and interesting job in regional and international relations with an American organization. I was hired primarily for my proficiency in English. My employer was delighted and surprised to find me, which goes to show you how badly we’re doing then in English proficiency…
Later, I was tasked with hiring junior executives to support our work. Boy, was it tough! We just had to deal with the high turnover, their poor work ethics not to mention a poor grasp of basic English and communication skills.
2. I learned that I did not need to speak in an American or British accent to be understood. As long as I spoke clearly and enunciated my words well, I was easily understood. Many varieties of English are spoken around the world thus I don’t see anything wrong with having a Malaysian accent. That’s what makes us unique!
Other key factors include ATTITUDE, social skills and general knowledge. Being well-read is definitely a plus point
3. Back to the teaching of Maths and Science in English, we need to think about the Malay, Chinese, Indian, Orang Asli, Iban, Kadazan etc children in rural parts of Malaysia. Bahasa Malaysia is their language for communicationwhile English is like a foreign language to them!
If you can’t imagine their suffering, then picture yourself studying Maths and Science in German, Spanish or Arabic…can you do it?
Do you realize that you’ve first got to translate the meaning of the words before you can even start to understand the concept? This means DOUBLE WORK especially as you’ve got other homework, tests and exams.
Now that I’m forced to speak in Chinese here, I know for one thing that it will be absolute torture IF I had to learn Chemistry or Math in Chinese!!!
I really felt sorry for a Malay family I met in the government hospital because not only do the parents have to support the 4 children, they also have to send one kid for English tuition – yet, he still flunks English, Science and Math because English is not spoken at home.
It was bad for him to flunk English previously but now he’s flunking an additional 2 subjects…his mum says he’s not motivated to go to school. If I were him, neither would I be if Maths and Science are suddenly Greek to me.
I feel sorry for my own kid who isn’t speaking Chinese as well as the Chinese kids in kindy because English is his first language. Although he’s picking up well, I foresee a lot of support at home i.e. a private tutor and additional language activities. Even then, we wouldn’t know if he’d survive in a Chinese-medium learning environment.
THE ENGLISH TEACHERS
Obviously, the English teachers are *very important* if we are serious about improving the standard of English among our students.
I hope that the Education Ministry remembers to focus on hiring GOOD teachers who can teach English, not just teachers who can speak good English…
In Hong Kong, Japan and mainland China where English is a foreign language, ‘native English speakers’ are enticed to teach in those countries with free air tickets, expat salaries, expat benefits including free accommodation and free holidays.
1. In Malaysia where English is a second language, we don’t need to hire foreign English language teachers. Why don’t the Education Ministry hire English-as-a-second language teacher trainers instead if many are availble in the aforesaid countries? After all, we’re supposed to be developing our human capital, right???
If we don’t have confidence in our own people, then how are we going to have confidence in ourselves?
2. Training up our current teaching force will do much better to motivate them instead of taking away their allowance. That could turn into a sour situation as they were given the allowance as an incentive to teach in English in the first place.
3. Language learning is a long-term process, even for teachers learning a new language or learning to teach in a new language. For some of the teachers involved, it entails becoming bilingual experts almost overnight:
- brushing up on their English skills first,
- picking up on the technical vocabulary in English (they were trained in Bahasa Malaysia);
- familiarising themselves with the English textbooks and
- dealing with the backlash of MUCH negative feedback on their performance from the parents and teachers.
I’d certainly hate to be in any of those teachers’ shoes…after all the pain (the stick) I’ve gone through, I’m going to have my allowance (the carrot) taken away? Don’t I deserve a second chance? Perhaps I’m only now able to demonstrate what I’ve been working on the past few years?
4. I realize that the teaching profession in Malaysia is now quite attractive but then I hear of people joining the industry for the perks and not for the love of teaching.
Also, we’re all more than familiar withe scenario (even way back in the 1990s) where university students are offered majors they’d never picked! I know I’ll FAIL miserably as a Mathematics or Chemistry teacher LOL
It seems to me that the root of our problems lies in the hiring process or even at the pre-university levels?
5. On one hand, we’re reducing the hiring of foreign workers (blue-collar workers) but we are spending even more money to hire white-collar foreign workers?
In so many countries around the world, people are fighting to claim back their country and cultural identity but it seems to me like we are retreating back to our colonial days??? You certainly don’t hear of other Commonwealth countries hiring foreign English teacher.
Sigh, what a step back for English in Malaysia…
6. Regardless of which language Maths and Science is taught in, please ensure that:
- the Maths and Science teachers are experts in these subjects AND that they are trained to teach;
- the curriculum and textbooks are interesting (why don’t we just copy the Singaporeans? Singaporean education is now an export commodity!) ;
- the English teachers who are currently in the teaching force are there because they CHOSE to major in English, not forced to in the university.
Lastly, please STOP harping on grammar – a grammar-oriented methodology has already been proven ineffective by researchers in the US, UK, Asia and Latin America (and deadly boring) since the 1970s!!!
In my 5 years of teachng, I can tell you that I have students who score 100% on grammar tests but
- can’t write effectively,
- can’t make a decent conversation in English or,
- even speak up in public.
What we need is a holistic approach…
Oh, boy, I sure can’t wait to go home…my children’s education is at stake here.
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Tags: education
In my 5 years of teachng, I can tell you that I have students who score 100% on grammar tests but can’t write effectively, chat to make friends or even speak in public. What we need is a holistic approach…
I agree with you.
The holistic approach I can think of is for students , teachers, guru besar’s and up to the ministry level to converse in English with each other. No doubt Malay is the national language and should be spoken within Malays as its their mother tongue, but you don’t see a Chinese students conversing to the Chinese teacher in Chinese or the Indian students with the Indian lecturers in Tamil and etc. within a Sekolah Kebangsaan. (But its a different story in Jenis Kebangsaan of course!)
Language can only be mastered if used daily, else we all be able to speak even Japanese with ease.
My daughter is less than 2 years old and she can understand both English and Japanese, and later will introduce Malay, Mandarin and Cantonese.
I can’t see why we cannot take 1 step forward to integrate the BM textbooks few years back with the current English science and maths text books. Its a lot of effort, but why move backward instead of forward. We can allow students to use either English or BM to answer in the exams as long as the maths and science principles are correct.
Some good will surely come out of the dialectics at work between both languages instead of choosing either one. We need new advancements. We need Malaysia Boleh. Not some power struggle between languages.
When will Malaysia advance and not hold on to race and language as stumbling blocks but embrace our differences as advantages?
What a great post. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it..esp. the ending! I completely agree with you. You may have perfect Grammer..but doesn’t mean, you can speak well!
Thanks for the link. Enjoyed your blog. It’s very true. There are proven ways out there to teach English with good results. Find one, stick with it. But without properly trained teachers the language will continue to go nowhere very fast, despite the great infrastructure they already had going for them. Teachers will continue to get burned out and will always find more money elsewhere — like teaching tuition to the very same students they should be teaching English to in school.
Stephenstreets – Interesting point. In my school (a Convent), ONLY English or Bahasa is allowed to be spoken. No dialects because that was seen as rude since those who don’t speak the dialect will not understand what you’re talking about. I think the prefects would note down demerits if you’re caught…
DaddyParentingTips – I kind of like and dislike the idea of bilingual books:
1. I would fall back on the language I’m comfortable in esp as it’s for study,
2. The textbooks would be even HEAVIER than they are now and
3. Bilingual books are not fun to read…
Hmm…if my memory hasn’t failed me, introducing more than 3 languages (unless they occur in a natural environment) would cause ‘code confusion’. Anyway, all the best with BM, Mandarin and Cantonese
Borneoexpatwriter – Sigh…I think many people have pointed out these and other valid points. The thing is, do these points reach the right ears? Then, will they listen?