English, english. English!

I've been helping my mom with the english class on and off for the past one year or so. This english class was established by a group of concerned mothers in SS3 when the govt. decided to introduce or rather re-introduce the policy of teaching maths and science in english in schools. The children (5-13 years old) are taught to read, write and speak in english. The class is held on Saturdays from 9-11am. The lesson of the day begins with a simple set of physical exercise; inhale, exhale, pull, push, bend are some of the words introduced to the children and repeated almost every week. Then, there is a reading session. One of the teachers would read out aloud a story to the class. During this session, the teacher would ask questions relevant to the story and extended to the children's daily life. There's a short tea break at 9.30am. The class continues with a session where the children are given a set of passage and questions to read and answer - for comprehension, reading and writing skills. The exercises differ from one level to another depending on the children's level of studies in school e.g. standard one, form one etc. The kids are encouraged to speak in english throughout the class. Sometimes, the teachers would spend the morning before the break with asking simple questions to the children - "how are you today", "what did you have for breakfast" and so on.   

Two weeks ago, I had to teach a group of standard two students. The comprehension exercises were quite simple, something to do with joining some letters together to make out a sensible word. e.g. C---A/I----T (choose lah between I or A). There's a pair of twins in my group, Hassan and Hussin. I was monitoring Hassan at first, he had no problem with the exercise. When I turned to Hussin, I realized that he had some problem with the alphabets. He didn't know the alphabets, and kept on guessing which is m, which is n etc. I asked him to show me L, he pointed at B. I was quite surprised with this, all this while I thought when you've entered standard one you should have mastered the alphabets. This is a darjah dua boy I'm talking about, if he doesn't know the alphabets, I wonder how did he answer the examinations in standard one - he can't even read!   

When I was in secondary school, I was the "mobile english-malay, malay-english dictionary". My friends expected me to be able to give the meaning for every word and translate almost every single thing on the homeworks given by my teacher. At first, I admit, I felt a bit "superior" to others - but later on I got fed up with questions and expectations. When I couldn't answer the questions they'd look down upon me...aiyoh, the "burden" was killing me.  Sometimes I felt as if they're expecting me to complete their essays and english exercises. They liked to ask "macam mana ek, nak tulis bla...bla...Apa ayat yang sesuai kalau nak cakap ..." There was once a girl came up to me and asked me to write an essay for her, she's my senior, two years older than me. Hell, do you think I would do that? - I was and I am not good at taking and obeying orders. There are three main reasons why anyone shouldn't submit to such thing  i) it's an insult to your intelligence, knowledge, and principles   ii) you won't get anything out of it,  iii) you're allowing yourself to be exploited and you would later be asked to do the same thing again and again. Well, my point is that the level of English competency in Malaysia (generally) is not yet sufficient to equip the students in learning science and maths in english. But it's has become a policy in our education system and now I shall keep my mouth shut and leave you with something to ponder on.

p/s: yeah, my competency in English is still far from the native, thus I 'm sorry if you find any grammatical mistakes or what ever lah in my blog hehe...And erm, I've found a sponsor for the blogathon thingy hehehe.

 

 
promote sikit!

Learning English is FUN!
Organize by the Al-Ikhlas Women's Bureau
Saturdays, 9-11 am
Open to children aged 5-13
Masjid al-ikhlas, ss3/47 Kelana Jaya, P.J