English language education ....

[penangkia]

Admin note
I had to split this out from the original thread on "Singapore denies Air Asia landing rights" because of 2 sidetracks.

At the Penang airport this morning, while checking-in for the 6.55am flight to KLIA for my connecting flight to Bandar Seri Begawan, the check-in girl told me if I am not happy with her service, I can go fly Royal Brunei Airlines....

All I said was why are you not able to give me the gate number at KLIA for my onward flight to Brunei.... no wonder MAS is bleeding....

Worse still, the SENIOR manager on duty also said its 'correct' for her to say so..... "we cannot stop you if you want to take other airlines" when I didn't even mention anything, all I said was why are you not able to let me have the gate number at KLIA which is a scheduled flight 3 hours later at 9.10 to Brunei.

Oi MAS, its about time you spend some time and money grilling some sense and hospitality into your ground service staff lah!

Joining this with another thread, how do you think the girl or the manager would have answered you if you were a blond hair gweilo asking the question??

[layman]

Joining this with another thread, how do you think the girl or the manager would have answered you if you were a blond hair gweilo asking the question??

well the answer is obvious.kowtowing to the whites is not uncommon in this part of the world

even in singapore,the sarong party girls and locals will go the extra mile to please the caucasians

perhaps its this ingrained 'colonised' mentality(english speaking banana san) that the whites are better than asians that dictates our irrational behaviour

thats why i am a stroong advocate of mother tongue education and of course our national language

[kwchang]

Layman,
I can't help noticing the parallel you are making with regards English-schooled individuals being subservient to our "colonial masters". You have just opened the flood gates to disagreements to your blinkered opinion.

[biggiesmalls]

Layman,
I can't help noticing the parallel you are making with regards English-schooled individuals being subservient to our "colonial masters". You have just opened the flood gates to disagreements to your blinkered opinion.

I'm thinking you're reading too much into it. Its well known that whites get better treatment when they're here. I am an avid supporter of education in national tounge (with much heavier emphasis on the English subject) rather than doing away with everything in favour of the English language. True, a substantial proportion of the world's knowledge is published in English, but the basic fluency of English should be trained by means of English lessons rather than having maths and sciences translated into said language.

[layman]

I'm thinking you're reading too much into it. Its well known that whites get better treatment when they're here. I am an avid supporter of education in national tounge (with much heavier emphasis on the English subject) rather than doing away with everything in favour of the English language. True, a substantial proportion of the world's knowledge is published in English, but the basic fluency of English should be trained by means of English lessons rather than having maths and sciences translated into said language.

english should be taught as a 2nd language instead of the surreptitious manner it was introduced into the maths and science subjects

i think its proven beyond any doubt if children is adept in their mother tongue or 1st language they learn better and faster.i find it a' fascinating' phenomenon in the klang valley that young chinese children been grilled in english by their parents in malls and playground.

the anglosaxons with english been their mother tongue and the only language spoken would obviously be better than us.its nothing to be ashame of ,anyway how many whites can speak fluently in mandarin or malay?

[kwchang]

Admin note
I had to split this out from the original thread on "Singapore denies Air Asia landing rights" because of 2 sidetracks.

Altho the sidetrack here dealt with kweilo worship, it quickly evolved to the issue of English education. Hence I had decided on that to be the theme of this new thread..

[lord]

Its well known that whites get better treatment when they're here.

I fully agree with you guys, man. Hey, you know, when I visit those watering holes with a lot of white guys around, almost all the good chicks go for them, man. What the hell?!! You think what, we locals not good looking, meh?!! Why, we got no money to buy them that gin-tonic or what?!!

Hello, some girls, who look like they are 20+ would manja manja with fellows who look like their grandfather, you know. Why, we not handsome or what? Come-onlah, if you don't support local goods, who will?!

[isarahim]

I know quite a lot of local males who are going out with or are married to western girls, so what's the problem really?

As for education in English, BM or vernacular, I think this is a ridiculous discussion. Just offer the options on equal terms and let the parents and children decide for themselves.

Furthermore, even though colonialism is an outdated paradigm we were blessed by having the British here. Others did not have the same luck. Without them we would have either been a loose grouping of independent sultanates & rajs, or (rather more likely) split up between Thailand and Indonesia. Without the British there would not have been anything called 'Malaysia'. Yes they took some and they gave some. Proficiency in English was one of the things they gave. English was the language which the nation was founded upon. It should be raised to national language along with BM, similar to what has been done in Singapore.

[orchipalar]

I know quite a lot of local males who are going out with or are married to western girls, so what's the problem really?

As for education in English, BM or vernacular, I think this is a ridiculous discussion. Just offer the options on equal terms and let the parents and children decide for themselves.

Furthermore, even though colonialism is an outdated paradigm we were blessed by having the British here. Others did not have the same luck. Without them we would have either been a loose grouping of independent sultanates & rajs, or (rather more likely) split up between Thailand and Indonesia. Without the British there would not have been anything called 'Malaysia'. Yes they took some and they gave some. Proficiency in English was one of the things they gave. English was the language which the nation was founded upon. It should be raised to national language along with BM, similar to what has been done in Singapore.

Err...Orchi could NOT have said it better...TQ Saudara IsaRahim

[Pets=Friends]

i think its proven beyond any doubt if children is adept in their mother tongue or 1st language they learn better and faster.i find it a' fascinating' phenomenon in the klang valley that young chinese children been grilled in english by their parents in malls and playground.

Proven by who or rather was there actually a study on this may i ask, my good sir.
What about bananas like me (yes, we are a minority but we do exist) whereby English is our 1st language, do you naturally conclude that we

1. like kissing mat salleh a$$
2. girls are deem SPGs
3. learn slower than our compatriots educated in mandarin/tamil
4. were grilled to learn english and hence deprived of the opportunity to speak other dialects

PLEASE LAH..............
no wonder the girls are gravitating towards the mat sallehs, hell i'll even date indian/eurasian/punjabi than chinese with china man mentality.

[joker2107]

dunno how d posts relate 2 the title of d thread. if d thread is supposed 2 b anything on "english language education" in d exact sense, then these extracts from the star says alot ....


Source : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp...&sec=lifefocus

Errors in PMR paper

In this year’s PMR English Paper 1, Question 7 reads: Read the banner below and answer the questions that follows:

COME VISIT HISTORICAL MALACCA

You will be attracted by its beauty

I think there are two errors here:

1) The word “follows” should be FOLLOW (or the instruction could have been re-worded as “... ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS”).

2) The word “historical” should be HISTORIC.

– Parent of PMR candidate, Petaling Jaya


Piqued by Year 4 English paper

I am not sure if I felt apprehensive, humoured, or victorious when I read in the news on Oct 13 that the PMR exam for this year was far too easy for students of Form 3.

It was only 12 hours earlier that I had reviewed my daughter’s English Language Year 4 Paper 1 (literal translation) set by Zon Pendidikan Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur.

The first and biggest joke of the paper was that for a test of the English language, the entire cover, consisting of description of the paper and instructions to students, is in Bahasa Malaysia.

Excusing the cover for political correctness, I opened the booklet only to note that the instructions for each section are delivered in two languages. Isn’t it ironic that while Science and Mathematics are taught in English from Form 1 purportedly to boost competency in the language, the given instructions for English is Bahasa Malaysia?

Can I be faulted for wondering if my daughter was taking an “English as an Alternative Language” paper instead?

My deviant thoughts are reinforced by the nature of the questions. Twenty out of the 40 objective questions are based on pictures. Candidates are required to recognise correctly the black-and-white graphical presentation of, amongst others, a knife, an orange, a broom, the act of washing hair, a bicycle, carrots, and oranges (now I see it – one orange, many oranges).

The questions appear pretty familiar – their similarity to the books I read to my two-year-old child is far too striking. And here, my child of 10 is sitting for a paper for which my two-year-old could score a distinction!

Moving on to the more adult stuff, we have to choose the best word to fill in the blanks. But each of the blanks requires a different word to make sense. It should have been “choose the best word to fill in EACH blank”.

It is way past the time for us to ensure that government servants do not remain in a position to mislead the fragile minds of our children, our leaders of tomorrow, our hope for the future. We must not allow our children to be poisoned by the national education system.

If necessary, the Honourable Prime Minister might even have to personally vet the syllabus to ensure that it promotes the correct national agenda.
– Mind Our Manglish, Kuala Lumpur

[layman]

Proven by who or rather was there actually a study on this may i ask, my good sir.
What about bananas like me (yes, we are a minority but we do exist) whereby English is our 1st language, do you naturally conclude that we

1. like kissing mat salleh a$$
2. girls are deem SPGs
3. learn slower than our compatriots educated in mandarin/tamil
4. were grilled to learn english and hence deprived of the opportunity to speak other dialects

PLEASE LAH..............
no wonder the girls are gravitating towards the mat sallehs, hell i'll even date indian/eurasian/punjabi than chinese with china man mentality.

what do u mean by english being ur 1st language?

are u implying that ur thought wavelenghts are in english?

correct me if i m wrong- malaysian english is an adulterated form of english with unequivocal evidence of translating from chinese to english
eg why like that? sure or not? got ah?give me ABC -well thats not english!!!

and u make this audacious claim ,loud pronouncement that ur 1st language is english.u can never be in the same league as the englishman with ur accent and poor command of proper english spoken and written

well its proven beyond any doubt indeed that studying in ur mother tongue is the best form of educating the kids- a study was done in Hk and canada where theres a large chinese immigrant community

are u not a chinese ethnically?dont u feel ashame of ur inability to communicate with ur fellow chinese in chinese

ask the kweilos if they do find it exotic strange and incomprehensible that 2 chinaman should be conducting their business in english???

[kwchang]

Let us not berate a fellow Malaysian for his/her choice of language. Do try to visualise the following about ethnic Chinese born in some countries ...

- one in England only speaks English
- one in Thailand only speaks Thai
- one in Indonesia only speaks Bahasa Indonesia
- one in Philippines only speaks English and Tagalog

In all the above examples, I personally know these people. They all look like Chinese but they have lost their "mother tongue". Are they any worse for it?

I try my best never to judge people by their tongues. No matter what language they think in, they still think. They still contribute to society. They still build their nation. I do not deny the fact that we will have people who are not ethnically "English" that use English as their first language. I have no trouble with them being my friends, why should you?

Ahhh, by the way, people who have English as their first language DO think in English. It may not be the Queen's English but English nonetheless. What the heck, I also know of British kids (caucasian, mind you) who have much poorer English than some of us here in the East.

Please note that the Manglish that you mentioned are used by people who do not have English as their 1st language. Even if they use English in their daily lives, they do have their own mother tongues, hence the coloration of their English.

[10K]

It's always good to learn 2 or more languages - your mother tongue, Bahasa and English. With so much economic opportunities in China you may want to learn mandarin too. Malaysia in a way is blessed that all the languages that you learned you always got the opportunity to use it in everyday life.
English is important for world wide communication. One of the reason for the big increased in investment in India is the fluency of English.
I think that's the same reason too why the American first started to build electronic factories in Malaysia back in the '70s. I think we kind of take English for granted and neglected it.

[penangkia]

English is for global communications and acquiring scientific knowledge. Also good for aspiring gweilo asslickers because the dumb gweilos still only know one language after colonising most of the world for eons.

Chinese and Indian languages are for acquiring wealth from now on. No Mandarin...no go China .... No go China to talk big business...no talk can make big money. Same for bollyland.

Malayu is necessary for passing SPM and local uni entrance. Good also for negiotiations with mata mata and verbal abuse of Indon maid.

All the above are important if you want to survive and prosper in this crazy but exciting ever changing world.

The above languages will also allow you to understand and be understood by 90% of the world's population.