Comments on: Raising the standard of English in Malaysia

By: KittyCat

KittyCat — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:05:43 +0000

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?

By: borneoexpatwriter

borneoexpatwriter — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:54:47 +0000

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.

By: mott

mott — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:22:55 +0000

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!

By: Daddy Parenting Tips

Daddy Parenting Tips — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 12:18:17 +0000

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?

By: stephenstreets

stephenstreets — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:19:55 +0000

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.