English Language

[chenchow]

I found this article from Star Education, hope that everyone could comment on it...

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2003/9/14/education/6091558&sec=education

Undergrads and broken English

JUST for today, could I interest you in the job of a tutor/lecturer? It is not that difficult really ? that is, until you start marking your students' work. Now, that is a real challenge,

There is a real dilemma in this rapidly developing nation of ours, when it comes to the English language. Many factors contribute to this.

I'm giving below samples of work ? by a number of First Year undergraduates from some higher education institutions ? which form part of the data for my research. I am certainly not trying to expose the weaknesses of these learners for the sake of doing so. I hope that by the end of this article you would start asking yourselves what is wrong with the system, and how we could help solve what I call ?the English language dilemma?.

The undergrads were asked to continue writing the following: ?Animals are part of the creatures living on earth. There are many kinds of animals ?? They were given 10 minutes to write as much as possible. Look at the results below:

Mr W, 18, of Kuala Terengganu wrote: ?Animels are parts creture living on earth. There are many kind of animals? in the jungel, sea, aircity and village. Animals very important for the peoples now and than.?

Mr Z, 19, of Johor Baru: ?Animals are part creature living on the earth. They are many kind of animals ? in the site in of village. This birds, hen, live at the habitat with cat at one. The animals that live in water, fish also crocidle.?

Ms S, 18, of Alor Star: ?Animals are part of greature living of earth. There are many kind animal. For example the famous animal are cat. Many people inside world liked cat and makes it pet. Cats has a nice habits. It always closed with their owner.?

Ms N, 18, of Kuala Lumpur: ?Animals are part creatures living on earth. There are many kinds of animals. Each group of animals have their own community. Such as bird, it can fly. Tiger is one of the chessing group. For another the last one is cat.?



Why was the research done?

Let me tell you about my Sociolinguistics Survey. I wanted to know about the mastery of grammar by our university students. I chose male and female students of different races from state capitals. If I were to choose students from rural areas, can you imagine the kind of data I would get? The main thing is that ALL of them are pursuing degrees and diplomas at institutions of higher learning in the country.

I hope you are not too alarmed. What I have shown you is ?quite normal? within the Malaysian context. Of course, I found some students who are really good in the language. But still, it is rare to find a piece of work which is totally error-free.

Some of the implications of this simple research effort are outlined as follows:



1. Our students have difficulties in receptive skills (listening, reading) and productive skills (writing, speaking) when using English.

In asking the students to complete the sentence, I had actually dictated the sentence to them instead of writing it out. As you can see, it was interpreted in so many different and erroneous ways by the students.

The implication of this finding is really disturbing, as it means that our students, even at tertiary level, are unable to use English effectively and correctly. Grammar rules are broken, even when all they had to do was listen to what I said, and write it down.



2. Gender is a factor. From the four samples above, you might think that our male students are worse than our female students when it comes to English grammar. You may have a point. From what I have found, female students make fewer grammatical errors eventhough when they write more compared to their male counterparts.

In post-interview sessions with male students who performed badly in the task, I found that they have mixed feelings about English. While acknowledging that English is an important language, most of them think that English is just too difficult, impossible to learn, and a waste of time to master.

A few of them even said that there is no real need for them to study and use English, and that they have had many years of failure in the language all through primary and secondary school.



3. The urban/rural factor is not clear-cut in accounting for mastery of English. Common sense might tell us that students from Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, and big towns, would be more proficient in English than those from small towns and rural areas. However, my survey shows we can't make this generalisation. One of the best pieces of work I received was from an 18-year-old female student who lives in Kota Baru, Kelantan.

Some of the students I surveyed from the Federal Territory and Selangor only managed to get grades ?C? or ?D? in the SPM exam. What does this mean? It could mean many things, but the most alarming is that even pockets of good English language learners are becoming rare, even when these students grew up big towns in Malaysia.



4. Race is a factor, although I am not at liberty to share with you the statistics of English language mastery among the major Malaysian races. The differences between races are quite alarming. While for some students, their families have gone all out to help them master the English language, for many others their families are nonchalant.

As we move rapidly towards developed nation status, English might become one of the factors that will cause a rift in inter-cultural understanding, and even socio-economic discrepancy, among the races.



5. English grammar is as good as dead for some of our students. As applied linguists and educationists, we know countless theories on the Acquisition of a Second Language (English). But then, if you were to look at the four samples above, I am quite sure you would be scratching your heads as to the ?types? of grammatical errors the students are making. In one instance they seem to be making an error, but in another try they would get it right.

Strangely enough, as part of another research, I tested some students on some very basic English grammar rules, like singular-plural, countable-uncountable, simple past-simple present tense. Believe it or not, most of the students were able to come up with the correct answers. But once they start writing or speaking, they reverted to bad English.



The future looks bleak

And this is the reality of the English language dilemma in Malaysia. As a teacher, there are days when I feel exasperated trying to teach simple grammar to my students, who have been learning English for more than 11 years.

But then, I have no simple remedy to this very complicated problem. One thing is for sure, the problem will not solve itself and is getting worse by the day. We have no choice but to really do something about it. Even if it is already too late.



AIRIL HAIMI MOHD ADNAN

UfoRIA Centre of Excellence

Universiti Teknologi Mara, Perak

[masterof_none]

Learning English takes time. I would say that the problem lies on English language itself. It is indeed a confusing language with no methodolgy to master. I never learn English seriously even until SPM..because I used to believe that learning English is a waste of time (don't you think?)

I used to abandon English and just laugh when it came to English. I pass my SPM English by memorizing the essay only. heh, pretty easy to pass SPM english, you know.

and when I got the scholarship, I totally freaked out. I was hammering
my English for one year before came here the US. and see,up till now, even I can write basic stuff, I can;t do much.

Most undergrad here in the US also having the same problem..so it's not just our problem.

I believe that it's all individual effort. Government can just tell the student..."OK, we've got no choice but to learn this beast. " But it's up to the student to learn it himself or herself.

See, I told you, English is a confusing language. How can a language don;t have the generalization for ' himself or herself '? Why should we use 'or' there?

[masterof_none]

I would like to comment one more thing :
I think cat plays greater role in Malaysian life than any other animal on the planet. ;-)

[masterof_none]

I would like to comment one more thing :
I think cats plays greater role in Malaysians life than any other animal on the planet. ;-)

[bachok83]

dont be so depressed...

English is a cool language.. :lol: :lol: :lol:


take a deep breath, hold... now exhale...

haha how was it??

[qedx]

the only way to be proficient in any language is to use it regularly. but i guess one reason why malaysians, malays in particular, are not very good at communicating in english is the nonchalant way they speak their national tongue. i doubt many use proper grammar when using malay, but it doesnt really matter because it still makes sense - sort of. english, on the other hand is a bit less forgiving in this aspect. one has to use the correct rules to get the message across properly. otherwise it's just strange

[chenchow]

Personally, I think one of the main reason of students not getting proficient in English is due to peer pressure and uncondusive surroundings. For instance, when I was in high school, all students spoke in Mandarin and I would say that while most students could write well in BM and English, very few people could do so well orally. Whenever someone try to speak in BM or in particular English, one is seen as showing off their English capabilities and I think that hinders a lot of the progress.

If everyone could be supportive to others, as others are picking up the learning of English, I think it would be the same thing. I believe this situation does not only happen in my school, but all over the country and also even in universities over here in US. In Malaysia, we could easily picture a scenario when people in rural areas speak among themselves in local language, be it bahasa kampung or any other dialects from various races in Malaysia. So, in this case, English took a back seat.

To change, I would propose that if each of us here could spread the awareness of English to at least a few people and hopefully the chain could continue and that would at least bring a bit more awareness of English among Malaysians.

[littlebigone]

I just can't believe that people write only 3 sentences in 10 minutes.

I think that the English language is really cool. And contrary to what Master of none said, the English language does have a methodology about it. It's just the way we learn it in Malaysia is very bad. I don't remember learning about nouns or verbs or past participles or anything like that. All i remember was seeing words put together in sentences and then learning whether it sounded right.

Of course there are exceptions to certain rules in English, but if people can get the basics right, then there would be a vast improvement in the general command of the English language.

Second problem is reading. Who here has read a book for leisure in the past year or so? Kudos if you did but I personally feel that reading is not practiced in Malaysia a lot. all the time when we were in school, we were "told" reading is good but no effort was put into enforcing this mentality. Instead, we're given a gazillion math and science problems and told to study every single word in our history book. But reading? Well, it's something you do only if you have free time.

Anyway, that's my rant for this subject.

p.s. masterof_none, you could say, "But it's up to the students to learn it themselves". ;)

[masterof_none]

thanks, for correcting my grammar. Another mistakes is : "cats 'plays' greater role in the ....'.

My grammar is bad. But I don't mind people correcting it. I hope this would inspire people who read the forum to post it in English.

Don;t be ashamed to use English . Because it usually through trial and error that you learn most out of it. I usually use broken English...but at least I try to post in "full" english.

And plus, I speak English too. I invite you to come to LA and hear me talk in full English. But don't laugh. Learn.

[masterof_none]

should be another 'mistake'. Haha , Go English!. Go Trojans! . Ooops

[chenchow]

I am sure that we all would appreciate if all those who are good in english to help pointing out our grammatical errors. That would be a fantastic contribution to Recom.

I think the best way to learn would be to try to write as much, read as much and speak as much and out of the three, you could practice two of them here in Recom, by writing your opinions etc in the forum section and reading the articles that is posted. You could definitely also post and share good articles that you have read and worth reading for others!

Together, lets make Recom a better place for all of us.

[qedx]

I just can't believe that people write only 3 sentences in 10 minutes.


well, maybe they had a case of writers' block. because of all the pressure, you know =P

+ having to write a para on animals, doesnt reallly help get the creative juices flowing. i probably wouldnt have written a single thing

[littlebigone]

I used to have a pet frog named Kellogs

[chenchow]

although this is not connected at all, but when is your frog dead, kevin? I did not know also, and i leave like 2 foot steps from your room.....

[littlebigone]

:cry:

[masterof_none]

Why suddenly frogs?

[qedx]

condolences on the loss of your frog... Animals are part of the creatures living on earth. There are many kinds of animals...

[littlebigone]

thanks for the condolonces but I think we should go back to the topic at hand.

I actually have a question to put forward. There is a camp of people who say that "Malaysian" english or any english with any hint of local flavor is actually good as it encourages diversity. They argue that the purpose of language is for communication and if English however "bad" it may seem serves it;s purpose then no harm is done.

Do you guys agree with this utilitarian view?

[chenchow]

Personally, I think while it is not wrong to include some flavor, but there must be some continuous and serious effort to bring up the standard of English. I think this same principle applies not only to English.

The main thing to do would be for people to stand up and try to speak, write and read in English. Without doing so, it is almost impossible to improve English language.

[masterof_none]

The problem here not only lies on whether or not they are unwilling to read, write and speak, but I think , the fear of losing the cultural identitiy as Malaysians. I think that's the biggest issue...

Partly because we Malaysians had been once colonized. and everyone who takes PMR/SPM would learn that British had once colonized us , and we got the independance from the British ( that means, those British are bad guys ). Why we bother learning their language?...that, I think is the main issue.

If only English is ,something like French, then , I would say that it would be a lot easier...because they never colonized us and we don't really think it's a bad idea to learn it. But EnglisH?

Plus, We feel that people who speak English try to show off or something...at least in Malay community.

[chenchow]

In terms of speaking English constitute to a showing off, I think it applies to other communities as well....at least that's how the situation among Chinese, especially in Chinese schools, where the standard of spoken english is horrible...i have to admit that fact..... That's one of the main weakness of Chinese schools...

On factor of colonizer or imperialism, personally i don't think that is too big a deal, but I principlely agree with what masterof_none said

[littlebigone]

don't think there is much to show off in the first place. But i feel that Malaysians are sometimes afraid to shine because we've been taught to be modest. I think sometimes this descends into an inferiority complex.

That i believe is one of the mentalities that is holding us back from becoming really succesful. be it in english or anything else.

[chenchow]

It has been some time since the English Language policy has been implemented. What do you guys think of its implementation? Do you think that it has helped to change the mentality of Malaysians?

[Thirdshifter]

i see no valid reason to as why we should actually learn english. It's just a Language spoken by almost all races .. that's all.

Believe it or not, Even the president of Thailand doesn't know how to speak in english or at least converse in it.

It does help you get around America easily but keep in mind 22% of Americans doesn't know how to speak or wirite in English. So i would say the ability of most Malaytsian to actually converse and write even a little in english should be put in a more positive light.

For some of us that are here English is a must. Eithat that or you learn how to speak spanish.

To say that English is spoken more then any other language.. i'm not sure but as fas as i remembered Malay (the combination of Malaysian, Indonesian Bruneii and South of Thai and Philipines Malay dialect) it ranks fifth as the most spoken Language in the World.

I believe it's Chinese (Mandarin, kanton, Hakka Hokkien + few other combined) are the fisrt most spkoen followed by Spanish.

[chenchow]

On President of Thailand, is there a president in Thailand? I am not too sure, but I doubt it. PM of Thai, Thaksin, I am quite sure he knows English. He is a very visionary man, just like Dr. Mahathir and Thailand has shown tremendous growth under him.

I think the main reason for Malaysians to improve English, as English is an international language, used in various international forum etc. It does not hinder Malaysians from learning Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, French, Japanese or others...

A lot of advancements in science and technology are documented in English, or at least is readily translated in English, so for Malaysians to communicate well in English, it would be a plus-point, but certainly I would say that Malaysians should know Malay, English and at least mother tounge well. Knowing Arabic, Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French, Tamil etc is certainly encouragable.

[Schye]

I think he meant the King of Thailand.

Well, maybe Thirdshifter had hiw own point of view but still i think that English is necessary.Even Japan ,as the world second largest industrial country is planning to start teaching English since primary school (until now,the English lessons are still only being taught starting from secondary school)
I am having classes in my college which will need us to translate Japanese into English and vice versa.Most of the thesis or reports of researches too are requested to be translated into English.Just like what Chen Chow has stated before , most of the documents/reports are archieved in English and the best way to learn them is to master in English.Of course we may get the translation of those docoemnts but still, there are parts that cant be fully translated.

If we want to just stay in Malaysia and work as a hawker or an operator etc, them maybe we may not need English.... but if you want be more than that, then i think English is necessary.

[masterof_none]

I think English now is necessary to learn.
It's OK of we can't speak it, but at least we can write it.

Let;s take a look at the history.
Once upon a time, the Arabic language was very essential in learning.
Because the Arab/Muslim world that spanned from Baghdad , to Samarkhand , India, etc used Arabic in their studies. They were so advanced that they invented lots of stuff. I guess you guys knew already, based on the chapter 2's history in SPM (Tamadun Islam Menyinari Kehidupan, or sth like that). They invented the decimal number, other things, such as navigation tool (that's why they can come to SoutheEast Asia ).

Then , when Islam ruled Spanish (for around 800 years), a lot of books were translated into Latin.
Then, the Westerners came to Spain and learn Arabic. and learn lots of stuff. They think that a lot of idea were revolutionary. So, the seed of Renaissance started. Then, from these knowledge, they got fascinated and develop more stuff.

That's why we now have the name Algebra (from Al-Khwarizmi's "Al-jabr" wal Muqabala), and Algorithm (from Al-Khwarizmi;s name), and we still use the Arabic numeral for our calculation till today.

Now, Why Dr M thinks that we should learn English?
Because, Dr M is a good observer of history (this can be verified by lot of his reference from his speech) . He knows the power of learning language. He knows that through language, we can gain knowledge easily, just like the European learning Arabic in order for them to gain knowledge.

OK, fast-forward . Look at Japanese. Do you think that Japanese just use Japanese and nothing else,? (ek , ek, .. you're wrong).
They have a very good english. But , they don't usually speak, They WRITE english . You can verify this by reading some journal articles at some libraries. Their english are excellent.

Now, should we learn English?. Yes. Why ?.. to gain knowledge.
Why should we have knowledge?.
to continue our survival as an Independent State.

Do we want to be under British/Portugese / Japanese/ Dutch rule again?

[CrAzyCow]

If the teachers have bad command of English, the students will also ......
Cause n effect.

N littlebigone.. ur frog is dead because of ugly face. :D

[taufiq]

My English is not that good also
anyone can help?

[chenchow]

I would think that reading, writing and listening would be equally important. It depends on what the purpose that we need, but I think oral english is essential, as that's how you are going to communicate with outside world and foreigners...

It is a sad case that many teachers nowadays have poor English command and it is very important that the English level for the younger generation should be improved to bridge the gap...

On Taufiq's comment, I think we would learn together....By reading the articles often, you get a lot of exposure in reading in English...Writing in this forum in English helps us practice writing in English...Sooner or later we would improve....

And definitely there are people like littlebigone with strong English command to help us all....lets work hard together..

hmm..interesting. i'm taking TESL (teaching english as a 2nd language), and it's a twinning porgramme, which made me think at first, that the students are gonna be damn good in English..haha...big joke. well...most of my friends, they can't write, spell or speak properly without making a single grammatical error in their speech or writing. Made me wonder how are these ppl gonna be teachers....anyway, there's always room fro improvement huh? hey, my 2 cents worth!

[chenchow]

hi budakkerek, welcome to recom!!! and definitely hope that those potential english teachers would improve themselves...a good way to do that is via Recom!!! Bring them in, as them to read more articles, read more opinions, write more.....

[CrAzyCow]

Personally, i dun think through education we will solve this problem. In school, we hav other materials tht need to be covered n time is precious. Of course, proper English must be taught in school.

More important is tht parents shud try to encourage their children to read more English based materials. Get a book for them or sit down n read together with them. N maybe in a week, hav a day of English speaking day. If not, force their children to read at least a English material a day. Children sometimes do not see the point until later in their lives. Toking sense to them? Nahh.. look at urself.. how obedient are u? I am not. :)

[masterof_none]

ALthough I agree that parent play important role in educating their children about English, we must know that most of them are in kampungs. Kampungs people usually don't really know what to do to boost their children's performance.

FOr that reason, I think budakkerek's point is good. we need a good teacher. But where do we get them ?.

We need to train them very hard. Very hard that they can quote Shakespeare . (or ,Lord of the Rings will do, like qedx and littlebigone)

And pay them a little higher for the appreciation of their effort.

[taufiq]

right!
we should not blame parents
if they don't want to use english at home
in villages or rural areas
they just want to preserve our tradition
of speaking malay and specially, using
certain dialect at their place

I don't think we can't say that it's wrong to do that

[qedx]

quoting is very easy when you have the book in front of you :P

well, personally i think that learning english is necessary as a lot of current knowledge are published in english; that alone makes mastery of written english important. unless of course you want to read stuff in chinese which can be pretty tiring to the eye - i even get the simple kanjis my jap teacher writes so large and beautifully on the board mixed up.

about grammar: even in this short paragraph i think i made a lot of mistakes. some sentences just doesnt feel right but who cares? this is not a formal paper i am writing. and that brings me to another point. i dont know grammar. every essay, report etc i've written so far are written based on how "right" the words sound together and not following some set rules. so i guess i am not in a position to criticise anyone on their grammar.

the level of english in our schools is pretty damn low; even in f5 we are still doing basic grammar. for people who can speak/write english fluently SPM english is a sure A1. Maybe by making the level of English higher we would rise the level of fluncy in english. people don't rate MIT or calTech high because the courses are easy :P. the same should apply to English. Make sure lower high school leavers can read/write/speak english fluently. and then the upper highs can do literature and poetry analysing like in BM.

the problem is of course teachers. a lot of the teachers themselves are not very good in English, espescially the younger ones. i have been blessed with teachers who knew what they were doing - at least i'd like to think so. but many are not so blessed. esp when the students are a bit problematic, the teachers seem to lose the will to teach. and with automatic grade advancement, the students who are not good enough will keep having to face harder material when they are not ready.

this probably has a lot to do with the teaching prfesion itself, how many people do you know have actually announced that their ambition is to be a teacher while in high school and have actively pursued teacherhood?

[chenchow]

I am not sure whether this would help, but I think one of the way MCA has done to improve the quality of Chinese students in Chinese schools is to plead with parents to spend an hour a day to read together with their children. If the parents are educated that would be good, but even if they are not, the parents could provide motivation for the children to study. MCA hope that parents could have the awareness of education themselves and provide support. That's the main thing. Although I would not say that it is a 100% support, it has attained some support...

To improve English, may be we could provide a good dictionary and guidelines on how to translate from BM-English or Tamil-English. I know that MCA has engaged a group of specialists to develop a small dictionary of science and mathematics terms and also other practical advises to distribute to every Chinese school students to make sure their transition from Mandarin to English is smoother a bit....Funding is generated through community support and may be other community could do the same...

That could be 2 of the suggestions that could be done..

[royston]

I believe everyone of us has the capability of English speaking, it is just that we stop ourselves from doing so. And the reasons are, we scare after we speak it out, other people will laugh at us, showing off, using wrong grammer, suddenly certain word don't know how to translate from Hokkien/Malay to English and so on... haha...!!

But one thing I strongly believe, if you try, you have given 50% of chance to be successful. If you keep quiet, sorree pal... telur hang akan dapat 0% :lol:

I have read through all the comments from you guys, well, did anyone of you notice that the "..." can only be used in 3 dot (...)?? heehee... A lot of people in my company abuse this :(

By the way, littlebigone, I am so sorry about your frog ... :P

~ roy ~

[chenchow]

yeah, agree with royston that if you don't try, it would be impossible to improve, but if you try, then you stand a chance. As a Chinese idiom goes, good start is winning half a battle.

Another problem that I have seen in school, is that speaking English in my High School was seen as showing off, and as a result, students would rather not use English, for fear of being ostracized by others. Of course, that was during my time, when English was not used in Mathematics and Sciences. I am not sure how is the situation currently, but hopefully it would be better... I foresee this problem happens in many schools, especially in suburban and rural areas.

[CrAzyCow]

Well speaking of all of us being able to speak more than 1 language, we just cannot help but to mix the vocabularies between 2 or more dialects. Therefore, in general, most of us can't really speak proper English unless we are really aware of wat we are toking.

[topdog]

For a start, why don't we make it a point to spell properly? 8)

Anyway, an off-topic observation: Many Americans can't spell. My co-worker can't spell to save his life. He asks me for help on spelling so many times that it makes me wonder who's the 'native English speaker' here. They also frequently confuse between your & you're, their & they're, even there & their!!! It freakin' drives me nuts.

[chenchow]

Topdog, as an English expert, you should help us in this aspect and everyone who needs help on English, can definitely count on TopDog. His English is top-notch, and he is too humble to admit that.

Thank you chenhow for the warm welcome. I've been very active in recom Coz we hv lotsa really interesting topics in forum.

like i totally agree...in school, any attempt to speak or use in english will automatically be seen as an attempt to menunjuk, want to 'eksyen' only. Which is kinda frustrating. Most of my friends will say 'i know laa you're good in english, but don't hv to eksyen to us". tension woo!!! One of the ways of improving english is by speaking with your peers (i did a research in this, n the results showed just this).

Well, guess we have to buang this kind of mindset. It's really damaging. if you don't give a crap bout what ppl say, n don't mind them so much, then it's ok, but what if you're the type that hates goind against the norm, in this case, speaking in english, susah laa!

hmm....i ventured into this field coz of my mom actually. she was the one who got me the application form. I was gonna do law. But i guess i don't hate teaching that much plus, it's a twinning prog..haha...My dad's a lecturer. n most of my family's doing teaching -most of 'em are academicians. It runs in the blood i guess.

You know what i wanna do? be a really great english teacher, make all my students love english so they can go out n spread the lurveee to everyone else..hmmm 8)

Oh ya...just a note - i can write, speak like totally okay. But guess what? i failed my last 2 grammar tests, which freaked my lecturers out. So, shows that being good in writing n speaking doesn't mean you're good at the rules. typical of me -rulebreakaa...heheh..

Anyone need help, gimme a buzz. Will be glad to! just don't ask me bout grammar rules..hehe

[littlebigone]

i used to think that grammar rules were not important but then I realized that you can't rely on intuition all the time. I think grammar rules are especially crucial if you're teaching english. Knowing the rules and how they're different from Bahasa Melayu, Chinese, Tamil, etc will I think make you aware of the difficulties Malaysian students face when trying to learn English. This I think will make you more critical and analytical with your teaching

[eeyore]

i agree that the quality of english teachers nowadays can be quite appalling. to me, i think one way to solve this is to increase the level of english taught and used in the maktab perguruan or universities that have the teaching program. then of course to those who intend to become english teachers, the special programs should be of high quality too. i mean, if the soon-to-be teachers don't like the program, then leave the program. we don't need teachers like them. this way we will have teachers who are qualified enough to teach english. also why do schools keep sending the old-timers to all those kursus jabatan pendidikan and what not? they should send the newer blood to learn. the old-timers are more experienced and chances are that they are more exposed to english than the newer ones are.

[eeyore]

i found an article that's somewhat relevant to our education system. it's titled the grouses of a 17-year-old student. this is long, so read only if u have time. :D

Patriotic School Leaver
2:33pm Fri Nov 14th, 2003

I am presently a Form 5 student taking my SPM examinations. In fact, my next exam shall be the Pendidikan Moral subject, which I feel has been a waste for all my years in school.

As far as I remember, the Education Ministry has been 'tinkering' around with the education system many times and until now has failed to provide any good form of learning to students of our beloved nation. The garbage in the education syllabus is synonymous with our government's policies of racial discrimination, corruption, propaganda and blatant manipulation of the truth.

First of all, since I am the end product of 11 years of crappy education, let me elaborate the problems which I believe are plaguing the system.

Every time a politician comes up with a bright idea, the students suffer. The quality of education is so terrible that they diminish the intellectual capabilities of students. Even the system is against the teachers. Teachers have to go missing on courses for who-knows-what-benefit. Sometimes their courses are held in faraway places from the school and can go on for many days. In the end, the classes are full with students and relief teachers.

I had my primary school education in a sekolah kebangsaan (national school). I had the privilege to learn under fantastic teachers who were dedicated, and I had a very good learning environment. When I went on to secondary school, I met a lot of students who came from Chinese primary schools. Naturally we talked about the different learning environments we came from.

I was surprised that they said that the number of students in each classroom is between 45-50 students. In my national school, there were only about 30 students per classroom. Such a big difference indeed.

For many years there has been an acute shortage of Chinese teachers in the country. I feel that the government has been dragging its feet on this problem. This problem has been around for some time and could easily be rectified if the government was transparent in its recruitment policies for

Chinese language teachers. But record numbers of applicants are rejected year after year, although they have better qualifications than other teachers who are applying for training.

The government is also not interested in increasing the number of Chinese schools. So what if the MCA is successful in relocating under-enrolled Chinese schools? Chinese Malaysians pay taxes too. The money we pay in taxes should be used to support the development of Chinese education, Chinese welfare and help the needy Chinese Malaysians who are not 'rich towkays with Malay Malaysian drivers.'

We should not be building more Bakun dams and saving sub-standard local car manufacturers... the list goes on and on. I would also like to make it clear that our tax money should be used to help the rakyat, regardless of race, religion or creed. Help the needy, not the big fat cronies (which I hope that God has no mercy on them when Judgment Day comes) who plunder the hard-earned money of the rakyat.

And cancel the national service programme too. I pray to God I don't have to go for it. The money the government has allocated for this propaganda programme should be used to help the rakyat, not brainwash and disrupt the education plans of Malaysian youths.

Presently, the education system discriminates non-bumis. Muslims get to learn Pendidikan Islam, which I feel is a good thing. Non-Muslims get an asinine subject called Pendidikan Moral, which is filled with utter nonsense. The way the marking scheme is set is based on not what you feel is the right thing to do, but the correct way of writing some twisted deed.

After tomorrow, I will be free of this irritating subject which defies logic. Thankfully, no non-Muslim students actually appreciate this subject. In fact, the government should be letting us learn about our own specific religions during school lessons. Why do the Muslims get to enrich themselves with religious knowledge but we non-Muslims are fed with rubbish inside our education system?

For those of you who do not have school-going children, here is a new piece of news. My batch is the last batch to learn under the present syllabus for history. Next year's Form 5 will be learning history based on a new syllabus, which is filled with more Islamic history and excludes or minimises other historical studies of different cultures. This will certainly narrow the minds of the next generation of students about the world's history.

I do not have the chance yet to fully analyse the new history syllabus. I can only suspect that the government will probably fill the history books with more propaganda. This shows that our education policy is not being managed by competent educationists but politicians with their own agendas.

There is also the issue of the quotas set for non-bumis to enter universities and the fact that real meritocracy is not implemented because of a dual-entry system (STPM/matriculation) that favours the bumiputeras. Ask any teacher who marks the exams for both the STPM and matriculation. The difference in standard is as wide as the Pacific ocean.

Some Malaysians may feel that I am anti-bumiputera but let me say I do not dispute the hak istimewa orang melayu (Malay special rights). In fact I support it. Without it, national unity might not have been possible. The present policies based on the hak istimewa orang melayu are not working. Something should be done about it. Not discard it, but improve it. When bumiputeras improve, the nation benefits and so do the non-bumis.

Anyway, I am just stating my feelings as a 17-year-old non-bumi. Thankfully, my parents can afford to send me overseas to further my education. But I feel sad for my friends who are unable to have the same privilege as me. They deserve help. Not so-and-so datuk's son.

To be fair, the government must give assistance to the bumiputeras who deserve assistance, but not at the expense of other Malaysians. Middle-class and rich bumiputeras should pay for their children's education. Is it too much to ask? Non-bumis have been doing this for years. It is time the bumiputeras start to do the same. Better now than later. Only the deserving should get assistance, regardless of race.

These problems are not the fault of the bumiputeras. It is Barisan Nasional's fault. Every single component of BN has failed to uphold the needs of the rakyat, bumi or non-bumi. The election is coming and maybe the rakyat should make their feelings heard out loud. As I can't vote yet, I hope that others will take up this cause.

To the past and present education ministers, I just wish to say that you have done a terrible job and by God's grace may he forgive all of you for the sins you have committed against the youth of Malaysia.

And to dear Pak Lah, the nation's youths are putting their hopes on you to bring intellectual and political progress to Malaysia and rectify the wrongs of the previous administrations. God's speed to you, sir, and may Bangsa Malaysia be a reality.

Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/200311140035664.php

my mata sakit, readin such a long but enlightening article!!! 8)

[eeyore]

oooo ... i just realized that i meant to post this under the education system, but ter-post it under english language ... sorry guys :oops:

[taufiq]

how do we improve our grammar?

[__earth]

read, write and ask others to help. pretty much it.
when you read, you'll see the grammatical pattern.
When you write, you'll be practicing the grammar.
when you ask others, they will help you to find what you've missed.

damn this sounds like confucius.

;earning it formally is damn boring, trust me. If you're very interested in learning grammar formally, then i guess it won't be that boring laa..
Most of the time, i rely on my instincts...hehe..but, can refer to books or maybe friends who are good in grammar. Don't ask me..i'm just as lost bout grammar 8)

[chenchow]

Learning English? There are many articles in Recom for you to read, and most, if not all, are in English. So, you would be practicing your reading skills right? If you find that all those articles are too boring, find some interesting one and submit it and we'll post it and others get to read also.

Besides reading skills, you have to improve writing skills right? So, what else could improve your English, except to write a lot... So, you could potentially improve your English tremendously by sharing your thoughts in forum over RECOM. Isn't it good?

So, at least 2 of the 3 main skills are covered... Then, you only need to practice speaking English... if you want , you can treat the reading and writing as someone is talking... so, when you type, it is as if you are speaking English...

Isn't it Great?

[PeiWen]

This time around I would like to share some of my experiences of learning English. Of course, English is a universal language. People from all over the world are using this language. It plays an important role not only in trading, education and mass media; but also in our everyday communication.

To be honest, I am not from an English background. Although I’ve been learning English since I was in kindergarten, but my English is still not proficient. I started to gain much interest in English when I was in Form 2. Well, this has to be traced back to 1997. At that time, I was so envied at my friend, who really good in English. She could speak well in English and write well in English. So one day, I asked her how to improve English. She smiled and said, “Just listen to English radio station and speak often in English language.” From that moment on, I tuned in my radio to English station. At the starting point, everything was hard and tough. I could hardly understand a word. I was thinking of giving up and told myself that I could never learn this language at all. But later my Mom’s friend ( a part-time teacher who used to study in Canada majoring in food science ) offered giving me tuition as she was giving tuition to some other kids as well. So I was sent there. She was a really a great teacher. Although the tuition was once a week, in just one month, my English really had improved tremendously. This really gained a great momentum in me that actually I can be good in English as well.

What she did is actually same like other tuition teachers. But the most important and unique attitude in her is the patience. She never tired of giving me encouragement and many materials to read. She always tells me, “The only way to improve English is your own initiative to read more and check the dictionary. I can only guide you and provide you guidance.” She lends me books and urges me to write essay. She’ll point out my weakness in writing essay, but at the same time, she’ll also praises me if I manage to produce a well-written essay. I must admit that she really inspires me to make such a great determination in learning well this language. What I feel quite pity now is that she has already moved to Kuala Lumpur as her husband has been transferred to a college there to teach architecture. Although now I seldom keep in contact with her, but I’ll always remember her, such a great teacher who has appeared in my life.

Besides that, recently I met someone through internet that encourages me to write essay. I never met him before or know him at all. He is currently studying in Cornell University in United States of America. He is a Malaysian. He has been offered the scholarship to study electrical engineering in that university. He’s really a talented and assiduous guy. I told him about my interest in English hence he encourages me to write essay or article and get it published online. I never attempt or have the thought of writing essay or article. Finally with his encouragement, I wrote the first essay about my relationship with my boyfriend. The purpose of writing that essay is more to express my feelings and thoughts rather than get it published. So I sent the essay to him and hopefully he can leave any comments. I never thought his comments can be another great momentum and inspiration to write more and more essays. I really want to thank him for all that.

The conclusion is no matter what you wish and want to do, as long as you have the determination and never step back over small failures, you’ll succeed eventually. Of course, consistency and sedulous effort must be counted also. There is no free lunch always, you have to work hard and put in effort for what you want, or else, you will never succeed in anything you do.

[royston]

Thank you Pei Wen, although your reply is kinda long... but I don't feel bored at all.

Well, everyone has their own story behind, no matter what they do. If you intend to get rid of certain thing, you need to compromise to it. Besides patience, time is needed as well.

The reason why my English is so poor, is because I learned it myself. I have no special teacher to guide me, only my colleagues who used to laugh at me, my customers who used to criticize me, my managers used to scold me, threw the letter with wrong grammer at me when I approached for his signature and so on...

The main reason and only encouragement I have given myself to learn English is to -- survive.

Anyway, I don't intend to continue those old-time story. Just to welcome Pei Wen... let me tell you something, if you wish to get your English improved, stay with Recom. No matter how good you are, you are just an individual. Challenges will make you improve but you will be beaten if you don't continue to move up level by level. Good luck and Welcome aboard!!

~ roy ~

[lishen]

Malaysian learns too many languages, english, malays and some learn chinese. How can you be good in all of them?

I belief most malaysians know how to speak english, may be not fluent. American who takes second language such as spanish, german, will not be able to speak also! So, we are not that bad.

[royston]

Hi Lishen,

Well, hope you don't mind that... I don't agree with what you said.

Yeah, no doubt, we have more than 1 language to learn but we learned Malay, English, Mandarin since our primary school time. Some of them didn't study Mandarin like Syamsul (masterof_none), his Mandarin is even better than mine. Like Seng Chye (Schye), if he use Japanese language to scold me, I will never know... :lol:

If you talk about fluent, I agree that we can't be perfect for all these 3 languages but at least we know how to speak.

We should not tell ourselves that "Too many languages, we can't focus all of them, so if we only know either 1 or 2 of them, it should be alright.".

Again, my opinion, if you want to "pro" in certain thing, try not to give yourselves excuses. Or else, you will never ever learn up that particular thing.

For example, if you are learning how to drive a car. You keep giving yourself excuses that motorcycle can be your transportation, why car? Bicycle or walking can replace motorcycle, why should we learn? Eventually, you learn nothing.

For human, everything needs a "force" before you can really start to learn, or in Malay is called "rangsangan luar". Sometimes the force came by itself, e.g. You have a very lousy typing skills but your boss is asking you to type letters everyday, if you can't complete what you are assigned, you will be fired. That is the external force.

But I would rather learn up things that I don't know by myself, self-motivated... You can't wait until other parties force you, else, it might be too late to start learning. This is what we called as internal force.

Someone told me before, there is a farm... a lot of chicken. If you want to be outstanding, you better be an ostrich, don't be a chicken. Of course, I am using the animal as an illustration. Meaning that, if you want to be outstanding, do something others "think" or "assume" that is impossible.

Remember, there is a WILL, there is a WAY.

I hope you don't take it personally. Thanks.

~ roy ~

[littlebigone]

Royston, this has nothing to do with english but I just think that you can be a really good motivational speaker

Reading your post has made me want to be an Ostrich too :) ... I mean do the impossible

I would like to welcome Peiwen and Lishen in joining our Recom forum.

I enjoy reading what is posted by you all.

For Peiwen, I am amazed by your determination and learning capabilities. While I have tried my best to create awareness in many aspects for many people, very few do as well as you. As I always said, others can only advice, but you are the only one that can take initiative. And you did it with great wonder. I have been asking you to post for so many times in Recom and you were saying that you did not have any outstanding idea, nor experience to share with others.

You were wrong. Your experience do help a lot of people. Anyone can echo me in this? By writing a lot in Forum, it would help you improve your confidence, project your thoughts, help others, as well as build up your english and sharpen your thinking skills. When we read others' comment, we learn to look at things from different perspectives and that's very good learning.

And you were afraid that others would laugh at you? Do anyone do that? I think many people are amazed by your post? Am I right?


Lishen, thanks for posting. While you seem to be pretty realistic, I would think that nothing is impossible, although we may need to struggle a lot. A lot of people do not have confidence in their own self. For instance, Malaysians do not believe that they can do it. We do not believe that we can learn English well... That's why the slogan "Malaysia Boleh!!!" came in. That's why, Petronas Twin Tower, KLIA, Formula 1, Commonwealth Games... was done...

We may not be perfect, but nothing prevents us from continuously learning. I really admire Rosyton who continues learning even though he is working now... We should reach for the sky.

Again I would like to welcome Peiwen and Lishen to posting in Recom!!! Hope that both of you and others would post more often in forum discussion and let everyone learn from each other. By not posting, you are depriving yourself and others a chance to learn from your experience.

[chenchow]

the previous post was me, again....i forget to log in... Hope more would continue this discussion...

[silverblue]

For me, I grew up in an English and Cantonese speaking family. I was lucky because I had my parents to teach me good English.. they always corrected my grammar if it was wrong and encouraged me to read english story books like Enid Blyton, Louisa Alcott etc since I was young.
Thus, I believe it is definitely important that parents play a role in encouraging their kids to learn the language... everything starts from home and from young... it has to be ingrained in children's minds that learning the language is essential for their future... and parents must play an active role model...

During primary school, those RL Stine and Christopher Pike horror novels and not forgetting Sweet Valley Twins series kept me glued to English books... frequent reading had definitely helped me develop a better sense of grammar, just because I was constantly exposed to perfect sentence structures and grammar in these novels. Also, I was mixing alot with friends who spoke good English. Therefore, if you want to learn English you must try to make friends with people who speak it and stike up a conversation whenever you can to practise....you will learn more by combining passive-learning (reading & writing) and active learning (speaking it). And if we truly want to learn something, we must not be afraid to make mistakes. Isn't it true that we learn best through mistakes? I still make mistakes now and then too - who doesn't?!, but the important thing here is the willingness to be corrected when wrong. So kudos to all those people out there who have this positive attitude! :)

To me, there is no debate that English IS becoming more and more important to the extend that it is essential for technological, social, personal and national advancement. Given that, shall we also mull upon the possibility of setting up an 'English Language' section/forum? - highlighting the common errors people make in English... I am sure many will welcome this as a source of help for improvement. Any seconders??

[Schye]

I was in an English speaking secondary school but I never speak English there... sad huh as I didn't realized the importance of English at that time.
The first time I speak in English was when I went to the interview of Petronas.There was discussions and well, as expected, I failed :(

I know that I have made a lot of mistakes in my previous posts and I really hope that someone can correct me. But if we do that, the forum or discussion will be interrupted.
Can we have a forum just to quote ones post and point out the mistakes?
I would really like mine to be posted for mistakes if we are going to have one.

[__earth]

you mean like checking for grammar and stuff?

[mpalanieppan]

__earth, could you translate the german statement that comes under your signature. Just curious, I see that a lot recom members have interesting quotes under their signature. Keep it up. :)

[royston]

__earth, could you translate the german statement that comes under your signature. Just curious, I see that a lot recom members have interesting quotes under their signature. Keep it up. :)

Die Gr?nen: ?kologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfrei

Err... I know nothing about German but let me have a try... :P
Die Gr?nen - Someone's Name
?kologisch - Ecological
sozial - Social
basisdemokratisch - Democratic Basis
gewaltfrei - __earth, please help me... :cry:

~ roy ~

[iQing]

__earth, was hast du gemacht.. Dein Unterschricht macht uns verwirrt

it has something to do with environment...
he's a green supporter

Denkst du, dass wir auch Deutsch diskutieren sollen??

[chenchow]

Hi, with the interest in German, why don't we start a topic on German language and for this one, lets focus back on English. What do you guys think? I would like to learn German too...

Hey ppl! i kinda did what Schye asked us to do. the first post, (that i quoted) is the original. Check out the 2nd one below, which i've edited (i don't like to say corrected, too "teacher like" hehe...) 8)

What i can say is, most of us, we tend to used the tenses wrongly. If you notice, "was" is the past tense of "is" and it's is used for singular items, but Schye used "was" for "discussions", which is incorrect coz "discussions" is the plural form of "discussion".

oke...hope Schye, you're not offended with what i said here. :D

Well, what i posted might be wrong..so other Recommers, do correct me when i am wrong k?i'm willing to help where i can, hope so you guys'll do the same.

If you guys want a detailed explanation why such is such, lemme know. i'll post a more detailed one (if you guys want it laa) oke?

I was in an English speaking secondary school but I never speak English there... sad huh as I didn't realized the importance of English at that time.
The first time I speak in English was when I went to the interview of Petronas.There was discussions and well, as expected, I failed :(

I know that I have made a lot of mistakes in my previous posts and I really hope that someone can correct me. But if we do that, the forum or discussion will be interrupted.
Can we have a forum just to quote ones post and point out the mistakes?
I would really like mine to be posted for mistakes if we are going to have one.

I was in an English speaking secondary school but I never spoke English there... sad huh as I didn't realize the importance of English at that time.
The first time I spoke in English was when I went to the interview of Petronas.There were discussions and well, as expected, I failed :(

I know that I have made a lot of mistakes in my previous posts and I really hope that someone can correct me. But if we do that, the forum or discussion will be interrupted.
Can we have a forum just to quote one's post and point out the mistakes?
I would really like mine to be posted as examples of mistakes if we are going to have one.

[silverblue]

Dear Budakkerek,

There IS a forum set up to correct people of common errors in English, in fact, it is named just that!! Hope you can check it out and perhaps post your previous correction up there too! I think many people are still quite shy to use it because it's like 'correcting' people's mistakes... but I feel that it would really help us improve our English.... so do feel free to post any English matters when in doubt!! THanks!

[chenchow]

budakkerek, i have copied your post to the right forum topic!

[__earth]

__earth, could you translate the german statement that comes under your signature. Just curious, I see that a lot recom members have interesting quotes under their signature. Keep it up. :)

royston has managed to translate it rather well. but here -
Die Gr?nen: ?kologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfrei
The Greens: Ecology, Social, Grassroot Democracy, Freewill.

FYI, it's the original Four Pillars of Green Party.
and yeah, since we have some ppl with German in their head, let's start a german based thread. (I don't speak German :()

p/s - to iQing, what's "Unterschricht"?

[Schye]

Thanks budak_kerek. You can really be a good teacher although all those mistakes are simple mistakes :oops:
It seems that practice really makes perfect. Using English only when I get online are not enough as I usually don?t care about the grammar or the spellings. Well, Recom has helped me once again ;)
I will preview and read again next time before I post :oops: :oops: :oops:
Feel free to correct me again anytime as I am here to learn.

Back to the topic.
We have been learning more than one language since kindergarten and primary school. Is it good to expose small children to so many languages at a time? Will the children master a language better if they learn just a language?
I choose this topic because the government has started to implement the project of teaching all science subjects in English for secondary schools and I wonder if they will push this one step forward in near future.

almk..sori!betu; betul didn't realize there's such a forum :oops:

[silverblue]

In response to Schye's latest post, YES, I do agree that we should try to expose young children to as many languages as possible.

This is because everyone has this stage called the 'critical learning' stage... which is the time when we are at early Primary school level... This is the stage when we are most receptive to learning not only new languages but also life-lasting behaviors and habits.

We find that young children will learn far more quicker and easier than fully grown adults because of this critical stage period. It doesn't matter if they don't learn it as thoroughly as those who only learn one language during childhood, because as long as they get the gist of it when young, they will master each one better as they grow older. For example, Malays who have been exposed to English since young would have a better grasp of the language than those who only seriously start using it in Secondary school and likewise, a Chinese who have spoken only Mandarin all his life until teenhood will experience more difficulty in achieving a better command in English.

Since Malaysia is such a multicultural country, it'd be good if children were sent or encouraged to learn languages such as Malay, English, Mandarin, and perhaps some Tamil, Arabic, Japanese or French etc... so that by the time they are grown up, they will be well versed in these languages. According to a psychology book I'd read once upon a time, I remember it saying something like there's no limit to the number of languages a child has the capacity to learn, because this is really the time for them to learn languages!

But I'd think that it would be essential to equip your child with first, his/her mother tongue, then English, then a tertiary language (be it Malay or Chinese)... these will be the 3 most important languages that a Malaysian should learn, if not master, in my opinion.

[jiahui]

Yozz, silverblue, that's just so right! fully agree with ya on that bit!

Exposure is always good.

Afterall, it's never a bad thing to touch a lil on everythin when given the opportunity. U may not excel in all of them, but at least u'll get a taste of it. Who knows this lil taste will later become one hell of a big thing. Of coz, provided one's makin an effort to be good at it. How-many should nv be a barrier or used as an excuse for one to not learn and pick up all the what-nots. Kids especially, may find it too much a hassle to learn this many languages, sadly speakin I just happened to fall into that group..and am really regretting now, but man just think how much more u're gonna benefit from knowin the language (and I mean really know the language..verbally esply) later on in your life, that for those of u whom are given the chance to learn the language when young should feel glad of yourself. U know how slow am I now to converse in my own dialect? It's PATHETIC! The progress definitely is much slower than if I were to start learning it when I was a kid.

yeah..true..true...i learnt arabic for 7 years in primary school, but i hated it...i prefer english more..so, now all my siblings are good in arabic..n i can't understand what they're saying when they speak arabic....hmm...but nvr mind...oh ya..BTW, my bro's learning French...n he's good...grr...grr.. :twisted:

[Schye]

I brought this question up because many are opposing to the idea of start teaching English in Japan :arrow: from primary school. There are many articles on the paper and one of them stated that one should master a language (probably mother tongue) well before learning another or they will be having difficulties in learning the new languages.
They are worrying about this because Japanese learn a language by translating them word by word which I think different from Malaysia. They will have a section for translation from Japanese into English and vice versa.
They think that start teaching another language too early may lead the children to mix up one language with another or the children will lose concentration on one language. The reason they are worrying is because there are more and more Japanese who can?t write Kanji or speak the right Japanese language now. They worry that teaching one more language will make the situation worse.
I think Malaysia are having the same problem too as more and more Malaysian who cant speak or write their mother tongue well.

This has alerted me on the problem of the dialects that we have such as hokkien, Cantonese and other (Jawa etc...). If you compare the hokkien we speak now with the real hokkien in China or Taiwan, you will find a lot of differences between them. Should we learn the "right" dialects too or as long as we understand it, then it?s ok?

[chenchow]

Check out an article on English Language at our news. The link is here

http://www2.recom.org:8000/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=752

Although I do not really agree that we have 1600 hours of English in high school, it still seems illogical that many of our high school grads are still unable to read, write or speak basic english.

Another article on English posted today on news section.

http://www2.recom.org:8000/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=753&mode=&order=0&thold=0

[Schye]

Perhaps, experienced teachers of the 1960s and 1970s could be hired, till they reach 65 years of age or even till their 70s if they are still able and capable. Dr Mahathir is a good example of ?old is gold?.

I would have to agree on this. Retiring on 55 years old is a bit too early especially for teachers. To me, sitting at home after 55 and have nothing to do is a waste of resource and talent. Maybe the government should make the retiring on 55 an optional choice so that those who still want to continue teaching can continue until 60 or 65 years old as long as they are healthy enough to manage their works.

[silverblue]

[quote]Maybe the government should make the retiring on 55 an optional choice so that those who still want to continue teaching can continue until 60 or 65 years old as long as they are healthy enough to manage their works.

You mean there is currently no option to continue working after age 55?? I always thought we have that option... cos I don't think the govt will force someone to retire after 55 years old rite? Who'd keep track od all out ages anyways? hehehe

[soul_out]

If i'm not mistaken, 55 is the officially retiring age, which you can enjoy your EPF and special bonus from government. Government may still employ them if they willing to work and there are vacancy left.(There are always vacancy) Normally, they will go to private sector which give better salary. A lot of local uni prof. and lecturer did that. There goes the same to primary and secondary school teacher.

[chenchow]

The retirement age is currently at 56. It was extended by one year in the last few years.

There are opportunities to continue working, but a lot of people tend not to do so, because of reason below:-

For instance, just before you retire, you earn RM3000.

By being retiree, you get half of the pay as pension, so, even without working, you earn RM1500.

So, a lot of people would just go private sector or something to work full time and say earn another RM3000, then he/she would earn RM4500 (including the pension)

[silverblue]

HHmm this doesn't make sense.... isn't that considered cheating then? The main purpose of the pension money from the government is to provide retired people with money for sustainence of living isn't it? So if they continue to work, even in the private sector, they shouldn't be receiving pension, should they? @<hidden>@<hidden> I am a little confused about the logic here.

[chenchow]

yeah, if you think so, then it is considered. But as far as the government pension works, as long as you no longer work with government, you will start receiving your pension, until the day you die.

[cloudie89]

i hope someone can help me to improve my grammar especially when it comes to tenses ..can anyone introduce me all the tenses...
i don' mean that i am introduced to it..but it's just that everyone is teaching a diffrerent thing ..i 'm confused now..i got all the tenses mixed up i guess ..isn't that bad? :oops:

[MothBall]

It's normal to get tenses mixed up, to say the truth, I'm having trouble with tenses right now. Usually what I do is using the tenses that I FEEL is the nicest haha.

Actually the best way to improve your English is to read. I picked up most of my vocab from reading novels and newspaper. Of course, u must have the initiative to check up the words' meaning in the dictionary. It's hard to improve ur English through spoonfeeding because there's just too much vocab in English.

To improve listening skills, you can listen to English news. Or watch English dramas and movies WITHOUT subtitles. You may need to strain your ears or you may barely understand what they're saying; but in the long term you'll get a hold on it.

Writing skills is not much of a problem too. If you don't like writing essays, you can write in forums like recom.org, or write blogs, and so on. Just keep editing your post until you think it's fluent, complete, articulate, and free from grammatical errors.

Hopefully my suggestions will work for those who are seeking to improve their English as it worked for me.

[nyai]

Hi everybody.
This is actually my first time writing here.
First i would like to say that my english is not really good enough.so if i did (or if i do?)any gramatical error or something like that please correct it for me.
I just wanna give some of my opinion about what master0fnone said.I think the main problem is actually because "malas''.for them,they will think something like this la"english?what for?why the hell i need to learn english.malay is already enough what.besides the subtitle is always at the bottom of the tv ,right?.there is no use for me to learn english"

one more thing.about wether english is the language of the british
or not.i dont see it as the reason for not to learn english.because its not only britain who speak english but the whole world.So like it or not,we still have to learn english.don't pretend like we have a choice(i pick this sentence from a movie,cool isn't it?)

well another reason for some of the malaysian not to learn english is because they don't have to use it so why they have to learn it.For me myself,if not because i want to study oversea or probably becoming a pilot ,all the reference book are in english , and all the good movies come from hollywood ,probably i would ignore it.

[nyai]

Hi everybody.
This is actually my first time writing here.
First i would like to say that my english is not really good enough.so if i did (or if i do?)any gramatical error or something like that please correct it for me.
I just wanna give some of my opinion about what master0fnone said.I think the main problem is actually because "malas''.for them,they will think something like this la"english?what for?why the hell i need to learn english.malay is already enough what.besides the subtitle is always at the bottom of the tv ,right?.there is no use for me to learn english"

one more thing.about wether english is the language of the british
or not.i dont see it as the reason for not to learn english.because its not only britain who speak english but the whole world.So like it or not,we still have to learn english.don't pretend like we have a choice(i pick this sentence from a movie,cool isn't it?)

well another reason for some of the malaysian not to learn english is because they don't have to use it so why they have to learn it.For me myself,if not because i want to study oversea or probably becoming a pilot ,all the reference book are in english , and all the good movies come from hollywood ,probably i would ignore it.
:lol:

[crapzzz]

It is really glad to noe that everyone seems to acknowledge the importance of english. Well, i myself is not a very good english user(wad i mean is writing, speaking, listening etc). For your information, i m a spm 2005 leaver and i oni started to learn english seriously when i was in form 4. And i would like to share some of my experiences in english learning here. I m not grown up in an english background family while i alwaz communicate in mandarin in my daily life.

In the year of form 4, I was given a very dedicated english teacher, who i supposed is the "life-saver" to my broken english. She is a malay . Frankly, i didnt expect that she ll have such a high standard language, coz most of the malay teachers who r teaching english r not that proficient in english! We, the whole class were required to submit a journal entry every week. Well, tht helps me a lot in improving my english language(though i alwaz felt lazy to do so). She alwaz pick the grammatical, sentence structure etc erorrs from our journal entry and there is where i learnt.


on the other hand, seeing the debate team debated fluently in the hall, i was really impresses and i was motivated 2 learn english properly coz i wish to be in the debate team when i m form 5 =D! (and finally i did it!). Remarkably, my english was greatly enhanced! Reading and writing are my tools for that that particular enhancement and also my future improvement!.

In brief, to learn this language, it is very important for us to be consistent in our effort to achieve excellence in english. A continuous hard work ll surely grant us success, do remember, practise make perfect. well, i personally think that learning english is not hard, u give in the effort and u shall get the result!

This is wad my teacher told me last time:
A scientific person learn languages to obtain knowledge! Do not ever think that you are in science stream and leave languages subjects apart!

p/s my english is in middle-class standard oni, i alwaz get confused with the tenses. However, English excellence is my target. I appreciate those who r willing to correct my language erorrs.

[PeiWen]

Hello, crapzzz, after reading your post, I've found similarities between your experience and mine! Great! You definitely have portrayed a good standard of English in your post, don't worry! Maybe, what I would like to emphasize here is, try to use the correct spelling. I do understand that, at this fast-paced world, everything has to be fast and effective. It's understandable to use our "self-made" short forms, such as "dun", "wat", "tml" etc, in sms due to the limited words per sms can be sent. But, this phenomenon seems to have pervaded in forums! I don't think in forum you're confined to any words limitation, right? It is because one may get used to the wrong spelling (I mean short forms) due to the frequent usage. Hence, it might affect one's English standard in terms of spelling wise in the long run.
Just my two cents!

[nyai]

wow.
i am quite jealous with u guys.i mean u have a very good teacher.
let me tell you guys about how was my english class happened to be.

is not that i want to givesome bad comments or insulting my teacher .just want to tell u my experience.
from form 1 till form 5,i was teached( or thought?) by 4 different teachers.one of them,let just call her miss x.u know what,at that time english class means time for party baby,or if u prefer to sleep that is the best time.but be careful sometime she just ignored u but sometime she was like
"i'll throw u out of the window"
if she asked us to write and essay,it will take like 2 months before she ask for it.

for other teachers,almost every classes,they will just give some papers probably for grammar or comprehension exercises.

probably at that time i really enjoy that.but if they were like ur teachers,probably my english right now will be damn good.
but,why the hell i have to blame them.its me who wasn't concentrate and didn't put some effort to learn english seriously.
just some of my words....

[faceythingy]

malaysia needs more and more educated english teachers. not just some grad who's looking for a job.

[crapzzz]

Well, i am partly agree with faceything but not all. Teachers are important, meanwhile, students' initiatives are more important. If one wanna hv a good command of language, one shudnt expect spoon-feeding from teachers. :wink: