TOPIC OF CONCERN
We felt that analyzing the issue of teaching Math and Science in English in Malaysian schools was a pertinent issue, directly related to the interests of English Language students and experts alike, and would be pertinent to the fields of sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics.
SOURCES FOR ENGLISH
That the average child and teenager, with his or her potentially high exposure to a certain degree of English in popular media still does not absorb any of the English found in these mediums seemed bewildering as well. English is rather ubiquitous in the form of:
a)TV shows (both live action and animated, either terrestrial or through satellite TV subscriptions)
b)Movies (many of which are major blockbusters)
c)A huge array of popular books and magazines that deal with popular and interesting issues
d)Newspapers (like the NST and the Star which get a lot of political attention)
e)Computer and video games (perhaps the most obvious, since the better and most popular are invariably English and they are a very popular past-time, especially amongst male children)
THE MOVE FOR TEACHING IN ENGLISH
1.The move would allow more contact hours with the language, and also higher exposure to English would allow more time for students to learn the language indirectly and in a more organic manner.
2.And since a lot of learning material on Science and Mathematics which was either online or in the form of educational shows were available in English, it made sense for the medium of instruction to be the same, to capitalize on this available resource.
3.The idea is that rather than learn about the language itself, it would make more sense to learn a language simply by experiencing how the language is used in a specific situation. Native speakers themselves aren't aware of the grammatical rules they follow.
4. After all, the government had been espousing the virtues of Information Technology since the late 1990s, and this new reform had a great deal of resonance with this older agenda.
5. There is a scientific basis for the advantages of bilingual education, too. According to Hakuta and Bialystok (1994), nurturing bilingualism cultivates cognitive flexibility in a child, allowing for a richer interpretation and description of words and the concepts that require new words. Therefore, their understanding of the concept behind the word, and thus the word itself, is stronger in both languages.
6. Bialystok E, Martin MM (2004) also mention the benefits of greater metalinguistic sensitivity from bilingualism, where a bilingual child has better inhibitory control than a monolingual child. They can chose which piece of information is more accurate or more relevant.
THE MOVE AGAINST TEACHING IN ENGLISH
1.One reason was that the children themselves were ill-equipped with the requisite English fluency to begin learning complex subjects such as Mathematics and Science. (A matter of English burdening the learning of Science and Math)
2.It was quite hard enough for certain students, especially those in either rural parts or those in poor socioeconomic situations to learn English by itself, without the added burden of doing other subjects in English (A matter of Science and Math burdening the learning of English)
3.The lexical atrophying of Malay as a technical instruction language. These would have ramifications in technical instructions within industrial settings and with end users.
4.Translating research articles for popular reading, development plans to investors, manuals and instructions to workers and consumers alike, and other interpersonal aspects of technology creation might suddenly become extremely complicated when a language gap is created between researcher, producer and consumer.
5.The place of language as a medium for education was seen as a bastion of cultural identity, and one that many amongst the opposing felt was threatened by the disposition of the language from these subjects
6.It is difficult to ignore however that Chinese vernacular schools exhibit great pride in being able to produce very high Math and Science scores for major examinations, and one would argue that this is a function of using Mandarin itself.
7.There are quarters that insist on their post-colonial paranoia that English was and still is a language of the West, of infidels, of "Yellow Culture", of Western Oppression. And thus, the perception of English by Muslims in Malaysia can at times be negative.
8. Generally, a person's ability to learn a second language is limited by his or her fluency in her first language (L1). Therefore, in children where L1 is still undergoing development, the effort put into L2 can distract from the development of L1. Since L2 is dependent on L1 fluency, both languages can end up underdeveloped. (Cummins, 1979, “Cognitive/academic language proficiency, linguistic interdependence, the optimum age question and some other matters. Working Papers on Bilingualism)
REALITY
1.Recent PMR and SPM scores from 2008 have shown that students are able to deal well, at least academically with the subjects being taught in English. Education director-general Datuk Alimuddin Mohd Dom, when announcing the PMR results at his ministry here yesterday, said the better performance in English language could be due to the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English since 2003.
2. The growing confidence in English was also clearly shown by the number of pupils who opted to answer the Mathematics and Science papers in that language. More than half (51.2 per cent) answered their Science paper in English — more than double the 21.5 per cent of pupils who did so last year.
3.There hasn't been a drastic improvement on English per se, the results have simply shown no detriment to the teaching of Science and Mathematics when they are taught in English.
4.The Malaysian education system is highly centered around test scores and very fixed, very formulaic tests, the students are taught to rote-learn all the facts, whether they understand them or not, and then coached on how to answer questions, not necessarily how to apply what they have learned in any practical usage.
5.In certain controlled schools, teachers will occasionally break into English as a matter of de-formalizing their tone with their students anyway, since vernacular English is the language of choice amongst students and tuition teachers.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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