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Issue: Language Barrier.
People in Malaysia could not stop talking about how Malaysia’s government decided to revert from teaching Science and Maths subjects in English to Bahasa Melayu (PPSMI) in 2012. They said that the rural students could not coped with English language, which resulted in bad grades in both subjects. They also felt that Malaysian should do like France, Japan and Indonesia have done; studying everything in their own language. Meanwhile, for those who think that the government has taken a backwards step towards globalizing Malaysian, their argument is that English is an important language and this was one of the ways of enhancing our English proficiency.
My Thought:
At first, I thought that this was a yet another crappy move made by the government. Why do you want to compare the urban and rural students together at the first place? They obviously received different kinds of education, exposure and family backgrounds to start with. Then again, do you really think we should retard the growth of urban students’ knowledge just to let the students from the rural area to catch up with the rest? Okay, that may not be the brightest arguments from me when you said it out loud. However, when I said the same argument to my father, he simply said;
“Well, if you could master the fundamental of the subjects first, you should not encounter any problem when you’re learning the rest of it in a different language.”
Come to think about it, it is true.
Do you have any wiser arguments? Do you have encountered any language barrier before? Do share with us.
On the other hand, I may have to post this kind of “short post” from now on. Yes, I could hear some “Hurray” from behind. The truth is I will most probably be busy, VERY busy throughout this semester (since this is my final year and all). In addition, this may be my last post for this week; I will be off to Kuala Lumpur (for the second times this week) to attend a career exhibition in PWTC on Thursday. My bus will leave tomorrow (Wednesday) evening. Don’t worry; I will try to get online as soon as we arrive in the hotel tomorrow. I will try to reply all your comments, return back your visits and perhaps even drop my EC there. Have a nice day!
By the way, do you like my new header? I think it was kinda silly. I may have to change it again later :)
[Picture Courtesy of Flickr]
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Bluecrystaldude
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17 comments:
:-E :-E
chop! *DONT_KNOW* *DONT_KNOW* *DONT_KNOW*
Dropping ec suddenly got new post here YAY! 8-) 8-)
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Short and sweet posts are my fave, so don worry Blue! 8-) 8-) 8-) 8-)
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oh. just stating by generalization by saying that the rural area are sort of left out (or left behind) just because using english as the medium of teaching will be an absurdity.
the reason that i say so is that i have done my pre-practicum in a rural area school, and to make matter 'worse', it is a "sekolah agama".
however, contrary to my impression, most of these students DO have a moderate accuracy in term of understanding and communicating in english and when asked, they are pretty comfortable with that language. i do agree that there are also a number of students who i spotted to be pretty weak in the language but that does not stop them in their learning process.
i can almost guarantee that even if we do a random statistical analysis on urban schools, i bet we can always find a large number of students who still cannot master the language.
the problem here is actually not the language per se, but how it was administered and applied to the education system.
chop! :-D :-D :-D
Hurray! lol just kidding :-P oh, I like yr new header! ;) :)
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ckp melayu buleh???
hehe..
anyway, rase sangat tekejut ngn ape yg governmnet dcide. i'm not realy sure,adekah mereka neh penah buat soal selidik kat skolah2 n tnye pndpt student n parents. yg paling lawak skali, sasterawan negara n konco2 nye bantah giler2 PPSMI atas alasan nak memartabatkan bahasa melayu. pada pendapat saye la kan, siapa la mereka nak ckp pasal sains neh. nape mereka x fokus kepada bidang mereka je. (saye kate begini bukan semata2 kerana saye dr bidang sains). mereka ptutnye memartabatkan bahase melayu melalui subjek bahasa melayu n bukannye sains n matematik.
sbagai org melayu, saye bangga dgn bahasa saye sendiri. tp ape yg pembantah2 ni buat, sguh memalukan saye. haish...
considering rural student?? oh.. im coming from rural area.. mcm pekan. ade sorang adik lelaki darjah 1. sgt besemangat belajar. kegemarannye adelah tgk tv(cite katun disney n bla3). hasilnye, he can understand english quite well n can speak some basic english. semangat utk die belajar sgt2 mengagumkan saye. when i asked him 1 day, 'what does flower needs to grow??' then he replied,'sun and water!!!'. he got the concept of basic science. its not about language anyway. its about concept. truly it is.
xsume student ade potensi yg same, tp mmg kna blaja kan. haish...
bagi saye, ni sume POLITIK. mls nak ckp pnjg dah. lets wait n see je lah.
saye xkesah blaja mne2 pon. chemical engineering dah ckup mncabar. nak tuka bhasa melayu jugak? hehhee
wah.!! header baru..!! *komen terkeluar dari tajuk..
Of course I can't possibly comment on your political and educational choices in Malaysia. However, we have a very similar problem and argument in this country.
As we are neighbors to Mexico and many students are ESL it does effect them in their ability to make good grades, especially when they enter the university level.
So many states over here now do begin offering Spanish to English speaking students only very early on....1st and 2nd grade level.
However, there is always a debate going on from some segments that demand we teach and demand that all students learn only in English as our country is an English speaking country.
As for me, I wish I the opportunity to have learned a second or even third language while going through the elementary levels had been available.
It's always so much easier to learn any new language at a young age. I feel very limited more and more everyday as the world is growing closer and closer via the technical era.
Now, enough of that! I was simply elated to have you drop over!! it was so very good to hear from you!
I know you are doing just fantastic in your studies...keep it up!! The world is in desperate need of young, gifted, intelligent and educated young people!!
Big hugs!! :) :)
Blue,
It does not matter whether using english or malay.
However,it is good to know some terms in english so that students can understand more better if he study science or maths in university especially oversea where english is the medium of instruction.
Your blog is adorable, I have the adorable award for you, please come to take.
Happy blogging and have the nice day.
well..i personally think that learning in english is a good thing but depends on the level...for primary school..xperlu kot,the still need time to master the language..but for secondary, i think they should,as for the rural student, they should have some effort to improve their english, english is a global language, once u enter uni, all subject will be taught in english, even the reference books is in english, u can't hope that someone will translate the books for u,right?
for me : im more comfortable studying in english than in malay since all references are in english...i dont have to translate the terms from english>malay or malay>english...ngehehehe~ :-P
well..i personally think that learning in english is a good thing but depends on the level...for primary school..xperlu kot,they still need time to master the language..but for secondary, i think they should,as for the rural student,not all of them are having difficulties in understanding the language,(well, kite bkn hidup dlm zaman dulu2 lagi kan??x semestinye dok kampung tatau pape kan??)for those who is weak (including the ones that live in urban area..trust me..i've met people that live in city n i can say that their english is pretty bad..) they should have some effort to improve their english, english is a global language, once u enter uni, all subject will be taught in english, even the reference books is in english, u can't hope that someone will translate the books for u,right?
for me : im more comfortable studying in english than in malay since all references are in english...i dont have to translate the terms from english>malay or malay>english...ngehehehe~ Tongue out
hello bluedude just dropping by here
by the way sorry for not being here around lately
i just got sick
but now im okay and im back with my daily blogging routine hehe
thanks for your support for my blogs and for your visits too
have a great day and God Bless!!
nicely said. my mom and dad are teachers. and they understand the problem even more. i pity most the kids who is studying in form 1 now. they will continue to learn in english until pmr and when the enter form4 (2012), they'll revert sc and math back to malay. gile pening kepale budak2 tu. then after spm, they'll have to go back to english for higher learning...
however so, to say that it's the gov's fault, i don't feel that's quite right either. u have to consider those in the opposition parties who went strongly against ppsmi and gaduh2 kat parlimen suro mansuh ppsmi. what if the government ignores the opposition parties? wouldn't the gov be in trouble? wouldn't all malaysians who thinks ppsim should be abolish go and support the opposition parties instead of the government?
science and math are best taught in english as there are terms applied in both subjects that cannot be rightly translated in let's say my native tongue, Filipino. english, whether we like it or not, is the highly accepted international language. if rural students cannot cope up with english, then i think the national education dept. should do something about it but not at the expense of the urban students.
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