Editor : My English grammar might be lacking but i want to share my thoughts with everyone regarding our nation's recent issue with schools deciding to teach certain subjects in English...
As a matter of fact, I am brave enough to admit that I am a banana guy. A banana guy, in the Chinese community, a person who does not know how to speak Mandarin. Actually, I am not saddened that I do not speak Mandarin fluently but I am very curious with our national news this month which concern about teaching certain subjects in English. Why do we need to put so much concern when it comes to teaching subjects in English? The question here lies in the early education that we and the children are receiving when they first started attending schools or kindergartens.
We were taught the alphabets and simple English then moved on to learn English grammars so we all can write proper English sentences. We should be proud that we live in a country where schools are allowed to teach more than one subject. One of them being English. English is such a widely spoken and written form of medium. We talked to our friends of different nationality in English. We write to our penpals in English. We speak English at job interviews. We communicate with our business partners or colleagues in English too. Yet, our education system are being stressed to determine the medium of teaching their subjects.
I do not see the bad effect if those subjects are being taught in English. I am totally all for it if my children were taught in English for their History, Science, Maths, Accounts, Biology, Physics, Chemistry and other subjects. English gives us an edge to our modern education eompetitors when we send our children to study abroad in countries like the US, Australia, UK, Singapore and other countries that use English as the main medium of communication. Imagine the difficulty if one had a non English medium for 11 years of education in certain subject crucial to their study. Our children who will be studying abroad will have to put extra effort to cope with their subjects taught in English. They may even face peer pressure to be able to join in group disccusion that involves explanation, understanding and communicating their idea to their peers.
Of course, one can argue that subjects should be taugh in our national language so our student can cope better. This eventually brings us back to my first question: Aren't our children and us were taught English when first attend kindergarten until we finish our secondary education, are we? If you answer yes, this is not a problem at all. So why do we still brings this an issue that becomes a headache for every student. If you answer no to a various reason like English is not important or the school just do not teach English then I can only say you are a fool. English is an important medium of communication.
I am not saying that we should abandon all other languages and wholly embrace English only. I am a Chinese, in the first place, I do not speak Mandarin. Period. However, I speak Cantonese so I am still a Cantonese guy. So I am still a Chinese. Furthermore, I speak Malay and English too. Moreover, I wrote this entry in English else I would be writing it in some other language. In a more holistic approach, we should be more competitive in our education system. We always get students receiving more than 10 As for SPM every damn year and I am sure they do write and speak English well. If not it will be a shame for us. You and everyone!
We do not blame the teachers who are not compliant in teaching English because they were train in a non English speaking environment, who do we blame? We should not put the burdern on companies or employers to provide English course to their employees because it will be absurd. As an employer, i will ask back the school, "Did you not teach your student to write and speak in English, didn't you?" This is bad. In another point, we are reminded that there is no barriers as the world has reach a certain global level that we are competing globally to further advance ourself as a society who recognize the market is not close but open up to everyone. So we must ask ourselves, why do we argue why teaching in English is such a burden to be decided as a medium to teach our children? I will readily praise our education ministry if they amend their education policy to make it a mandatory to teaching subjects in English and eventually expanding it other fields that needs upgrading as the year turns on.
Anyone of you still buying those Peter and Jane books for your children to learn English?
william wilstroth... teach lar in English... come on...
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