English as the medium - what has gone wrong?

I refer to the letter "Teach all subjects in English before it's too late" (http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/94412).

I am very concerned with what the writer is proposing in that the medium of instructions of all national schools be changed to English. Ironically, s/he also proposed that the vernacularly schools be maintained. I know s/he has good intention in giving the proposal. But, that proposal is certainly suggesting a move in a backward direction rather than forward.

It’s unmistakable that the change to BM as the medium of instructions in schools has been and is a very good move. Now everyone who has gone through the national schools (at least those who have passed and finished secondary schools) can read and write in BM. No one can deny that having a common language is necessary for national unity and nation building.

The writer seems to forget that Malaysia is not English-land. So, why the heck should the national language be English (even though s/he was only hinting since s/he did not say it outright)?

Which now bring me to another important point. Yes, everyone in the country should be able to speak English. I would like to stress here that each person must be good in English. So, English should be continued to be taught in schools as a second language to one’s mother tongue language.

That has already happened in the country, but the success has not been satisfactory since most of the citizens who have graduated from national schools, particularly those from rural areas, cannot communicate effectively in English.

So, what has gone wrong? Could it be that the teachers who taught them were not qualified? Or that most of the schools were not properly equipped with the necessary language labs? The ministry of education needs to investigate the root cause of the problem and find solutions once and for all.

I would now touch on the issue of the vernacular schools. No one can deny that the presence of these schools is against the spirit of national unity. Basically, it is a practice of legal segregation of our school children based on ethnicity since huge majority of the pupils in these schools is of the same ethnicity. How can we expect the children to understand those of other ethnic groups in the country if they are kept separate from these groups at such an early age?

But I am not suggesting that the vernacular schools should be abolished entirely. Instead, I am suggesting that they should be integrated with the rest of the national schools. As a consequence of this move I would suggest the following win-win actions on the part of the government:

1. All schools should maintain the medium of instruction of BM (the national language for national unity)

2. All schools should teach English as a second language (the universal international language)

3. All schools should teach a third language of Mandarin (a language of more than one billion people)

4. If a school has a large number of students of another ethnicity such as Tamil or Iban, then Mandarin can be substituted with either Tamil, Iban, etc.

I would like to stress here that all Malaysians should be well conversed in at least three languages. This is certainly fairer than the current state of affairs where most Malays can only converse in, at most, two languages (BM and English) where as most non-Malays can converse in at least three languages (BM, English, and mother tongue language).

Thus, if the third language is available in the national schools, then the need for separate vernacular schools should not be there.

Of course, the implications to the ministry of education and the country are far-reaching, particularly in the short run. But, in the long run, it should help our country attain a better social integration of its citizens. A number of steps need to be undertaken by the government.

First, language teaching must be taken very seriously. Adequate funding must be made available to ensure that teachers receive good training in all the required languages, particularly English and Mandarin.

Second, all schools, whether rural or urban must be adequately equipped with language labs so that the teaching of the languages can be done more effectively.

Third, we must make sure that upon graduation from high schools, our students have pretty good command of BM, English, and a third language.

Fourth, once we have achieved our objective of having our school graduates who are conversant in at least three languages, I would now go far out as to suggest that the main medium of instructions of the universities in the country be changed to English.

The current situation where private universities are allowed to use English as the medium of instruction
whereas public universities are made to use BM as the medium of instruction is down right unfair to the students. It will make the graduates of government universities less employable as compared to those of the private universities.

We need to do change the medium of instructions of universities to English in order to make our country more competitive and be able to face the challenges of the 21st century and beyond. Many countries, eg those of the Middle East, have already switched the medium of instructions for many of their programs in universities, particularly those in business and economics, engineering, and science and technology, to English.

Fifth, the choice for our students to learn their mother tongue language at an advanced level in the university should be now be widened and expanded. The output of these programmes can help the country to be self- sufficient in third language teachers for our national schools. This will help the country lower the training costs of the third language teachers (instead of sending them overseas for language training).

Last but certainly not the least, the country should also seriously work towards creating a truly “Bangsa Malaysia” for all the citizens of the country.

Thus, it is essential that the government remove the need to state one’s race and religion in the national identity card (IC) or in any other identity cards. In fact, the need to state one’s race and religion in such forms as job application, etc., should be banned altogether. Every citizen should think of himself/herself as Malaysian first, before anything else.

Malaysiakini
English as the medium - what has gone wrong? Mohamed Zain | Dec 22, 08 4:33pm